Optimizing You

Nutrition Basics: Hydration in the Morning

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:06:00 -0500

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Recently Optimizing You shot a video about the importance of water in the morning. In the video Brian explains that water before eating or drinking anything else in the morning will increase your metabolism by up to 24 percent. That means water is one of the most powerful tools for weight loss. On top of that, it has been shown that people that are properly hydrated experience a 30 percent increase in cognitive function when compared to people dehydrated by only five percent. All together the benefits of water outweigh the effects of caffeinated coffee or tea.

Stay Hydrated,
-Cedric

Every Day I'm Shuffilin

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:35:00 -0500

Okay! Now that we got that outta the way, let's WORKOUT!

We call this the "Everyday I'm Shufflin" workout, because we get you shuffling, and sliding your feet on the ground in this exercise to Dominate your core, all while keeping it INTERESTING!

Equipment needed: Two Paper towels, or regular towels. Hard wood, or tile (or any other slippery floor). Just put them on the ground, and your feet on the towels! Now you can shuffle and slide easily along the floor!

Exercise #1
Slide in Pike (With pushup)
Start in a pike position, hands flat on the ground then slide your feet up raising your butt towards the ceiling. You should be raising it using your core. Feel it tighten, remember why we are doing this exercise! To get a strong and sexy core! For those that can, add a pushup into this exercise, making it more challenging, and building more strength!

Exercise #2
Sliding leg spread (With pushup)
Starting again in pike position, this time we are working the leg adductor, and abductor here. Make sure to keep the weight down by your feet, spread your legs open, then squeeze them shut. For those that can., add the pushup movement in there, it's a more natural movement, and again will add more strength.

Exercise #3
Three point slide
You guessed it! We are in Pike position again! This time we start by sliding our knees into our chest, extending the legs back out, then bringing the knees in from the left, and then the right. Hitting all three points is one rep. Keep that intensity up!

Okay! We kept that one a little shorter, to allow for more intensity. Remember if you are doing the interval style (recommended) then you will set your interval timers to 50 seconds with 10 seconds rest. We'll do three rounds of this meaning there will be a total of 12 rounds aka THIS IS ONLY A 12 MINUTE WORKOUT! Put in as much intensity as possible into those 12 minutes, you'll be amazed by the results. If you get tired, don't quit, just modify the workout. If it's too hard, drop the pushup, but keep going!

If you are going the low intensity route, do 10 reps of each exercise, and 3 sets. Focus on your form, and still try to keep the intensity up.

As always, comment, share, subscribe, like, all of those internet buzzwords that basically just means; Let us know you are watching, and let us know what more you want to see!

I've Fallen, and I can't get up!!

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Sun, 8 Jan 2012 22:33:00 -0500

I've Fallen, and I can't get up!!

Fitness needs to be interesting, or else most people won't stick with it. Here at Optimizing You, we make it interesting, and we keep you moving around, while getting an effective workout. So you never have to scream out "I've Fallen, and I can't get up!!" we've got all these exercises that will get you working your legs, arms, and core, to make sure that you can always lift yourself off the ground!

Exercise #1

- Elevating one leg with the other at a 45 degree angle, lying flat on the ground you'll want to post on the side of the leg you have raised, and with the opposite arm, reach up and grab that leg. Now that you've done that side, let's switch legs!

Exercise #2
Full body extension (With leg spread)
- Extend your body all the way out, hands past your head, feet of the ground. Bring your arms all the way through the length of your body, and spread your legs apart in a V. Use a weight to make it more challengin, or feel free to just reach your hands through your legs if you don't have a weight. Remember to SQUEEZE at the end so that you get the most work in those abs!

Exercise #3
Pushup with double roll
-This one is simple, straight forward, and is going to work your chest, and core! Do a pushup, drop down, roll over twice keeping your arms close to your body, and then do another pushup. Double roll back, and that's one rep!

Exercise #4
Side reaches
-Flat on your back, leg 45 degree angle, extend your arms and reach from side to side extending your body as far as you can. Once to both side is going to be one rep. Don't cheat yourself! This shouldn't be easy. SQUEEZE!

As always, with these exercises you have two options. Set an interval timer (Here is one you can use online) for 50 seconds on with 10 seconds rest. IN this case you will have 5 exercises, 3 rounds. So this should take only 15 minutes!

If you need to go at your own pace, then do ten reps of each. This part is for beginners, and you should work your way up to the interval training, because INTENSITY = FAT BURNING! and Interval training, is INTENSE!

Share your feedback with us! Let us know what you think about the workout, how you did, and what you want to see next. As always we will do our best to deliver the best, and most relevant content directly to you!

Jumping will give you a Good Feeling!

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Fri, 2 Dec 2011 19:57:00 -0500

It's time again for a new workout!

We've delivered another workout that will give you that "Good Feeling" Like you've actually done something! When you are done with this, you will KNOW that you burned some fat, and that even after you leave the gym, your metabolism is on overdrive!

Exercise #1

Box Jump

When doing your box jumps you want to focus on INTENSITY, but also SAFETY. Try to keep your movements as fluid and athletic as possible. Jump high, land light, drop softly, spring back up! Start with a reasonable height a household step stool works great when you are at home. Make sure you stabilize it so that it doesn't shift too much on you. (Do these at your own risk!)

Exercise #2

Three Point Hop

This exercise is great for keeping your heart rate up, and working the core! Once again, keep up your intensity, and do your best to never stop moving. Slow down if you must, but never stop! Start in the frog position, hands on the floor, legs right behind your elbows. Extend your body out to plank position in the center. Move to the left, back to center frog position, then out to the right. Back to center is one rep once you've hit all three points. Hit all three points!

Exercise #3

Jump Squats (with a spin)

Jump squats are working multiple muscles in your leg. Make sure you are getting a good deep squat before you spring back up! That's engaging those muscles and allows you to work those glutes! Ladies, we know you want to sculpt those buns! Squat deep, spring up, land soft, turn quickly, and do it again, spin back, and that's one rep!

Exercise #4

The Burpee

Simple and effective, this move hits multiple muscles in your body, and gets your heart rate booming! I've chosen a variation that skips the pushup. For more of a challenge feel free to throw in a pushup at the plank portion. From standing, drop down hands on the ground, extend your legs out into plank position, bring feet back up to center in a frog stance, then jump up. That's one rep!

Two Choices!

Try both of these.

HIIT style: Set an interval timer for 50 second intervals, with 10 seconds of rest. 12 Rounds. Do each exercise for 50 seconds straight, take your 10 second rest, then it's on to the next one. Record your reps, and post here to let us know how you do!

Circuit style: Do each exercise for 10 reps, cycle through 3 times. This allows you to take more rest in-between to keep your form up to par.

Share your feedback with us! Let us know what you think about the workout, how you did, and what you want to see next. As always we will do our best to deliver the best, and most relevant content directly to you!

Can't Be Tamed Ab Workout

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:01:00 -0500

You are the type of person that wants to get in shape but can't spend all day at the gym. Good! Optimizing You is dedicated to providing options for busy people like yourself. The "Can't Be Tamed Ab Workout" is great for the core. Try to get it done in 10 minutes. Enjoy the work!

Follow Brian Sullivan's workouts and nutritional advice @

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-Cedric M. Seay

Optimizing You Co-Founder

Back to the meat and potatoes

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:28:00 -0500

"It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you...."

Ladies and gents, the official Optimizing You blog is back. I apologize about the hiatus. We took a break from the official blog to put a little bit more effort into our facebook fan page. I hope you have been following us there. We even created the Optimizing you 30 day Challenge. We witnessed people like Kalicia Coffman (Taulborg) and Anthony Semones achieve their health goals in a 30 day period. Now it's time to give you more of what we started Optimizing You for. Monthly video episodes of the content you love! Health, Nutrition, fitness, and mindset tips.

So far we have addressed misconceptions on Skipping meals, How often you need to work out, and how to keep your immune system up. We even covered some areas in mindset, and encouraged you to Think Arete. We've got more to come, but as always, we want to know what YOU the fans want to learn about. I am more than happy to deliver that information directly to you, and make sure that you get more of the content that you want to hear.

We love to hear from you as much as you love to hear from us! If you are out there watching, let us know! Leave comments here on the blog, or as always E-mail me @ YorHealthBrian@Gmail.com

More videos to come very soon recapping our 30 day challenge! Stay tuned!

In Health,
-Brian Sullivan

Afraid of getting sick? Let's talk immunity!

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:39:00 -0500

It's Fall!

And that means it's getting cold outside! With cold weather, people are more worried about catching colds, and also there has been huge concerns over other illnesses like the H1N1 Virus. To make yourself less susceptible to theses things you must boost your immune system!

Getting sick is not inevitable!

There is no need to say "I hope I don't get sick!" as if it's some kind of role of the dice! There are many different steps that you can take to make sure that you reduce the likelihood of yourself getting sick! What you put in your body does have an effect on how well it will run!

So what am I doing wrong?!

Sometimes, it's not easy to get health right, and we don't always know what we are doing wrong! I'll tell you a couple of things that you might do on a daily basis that might actually hurt your immune system and might actually make you more likely to become sick!

Reduce your alcohol consumption!
Avoid pop and other soft drinks (Pepsi, Coke, Sprite, Mountain Dew, Ect)
Avoid Processed/Bleached foods

These things harm your digestive system, add stress to your body, and don't make it easy for your body to fight of illness.

So what should I do?

Of course there are many other things that we can do to hurt our immune system, but what should we do to HELP it? Info on why it's important to invest in your health can be found HERE, but here is a list of things I find helpful.

GET YOUR ENZYMES
Get your VITAMINS (not a 1 a day)
Drink plenty of water!
Have a solid "Rise and Rest pattern"
Get about 7-8 hours of sleep a night
Mind your nutrition! Eat the right foods!
Supplement to fortify your body's natural defenses.
Use a Pro-Biotic

Why talk so much about nutrition and supplements?

In the list above I mention a lot about nutrition and gave you some links also to the supplements that I use. The supplements I recommend are the ones that I use, and have found to be the most effective, but find what you like the best, and use those based on your own research if you don't want to take my word for it. The reason that digestion is so important, is because 87% of disease originates in your digestive system! Take care of your digestion (and elimination) and your body can take care of itself!

In Health,
-Brian Sullivan

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Think Arete, The manifesto

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:40:00 -0400

Hello again faithful Blog viewers, and new viewers as well!

Today's installment of Optimizing You is something that really hits home for me, and covers something very important for you!

We all (Should) understand the importance of good nutrition in our lives, and the role that fitness should play in our lives, but one of the most important, and most overlooked aspects of our lives is MENTAL HEALTH!

Thoughts are things. When you have a positive outlook on life, it will manifest itself into a positive life for you. One of the most defeating things, is not living up to your potential. It's that piece in your life that's often missing for most people and is why we all aren't as positive as we want to be, or think we should be. This is a piece I discovered from Brian Johnson. It's called "The Think Arete Manifesto" Arete is a greek word that means Virtue, or Excellence. The gist of it in this case though is LIVING TO YOUR HIGHEST POTENTIAL!

Here is a link to where I found it. You can find the text to it also. I recommend printing it out and keeping it somewhere that you will see every day!

Here is my version of Think Arete, the manifesto!

The moral of the story... Dare to dream. Turn your dreams into goals. Define what it is that you want, be specific, then set a deadline. A goal is just a dream with a deadline. Keep your goals around you and remember them every day. With determination, there is nothing that you cannot achieve if you have DECIDED that you will accomplish it! You will be surprised just how much the simple task of having goals will do for your health!

As always, leave your COMMENTS, or concerns, and questions. Let me know what you would like to see in the next installment of Optimizing You! Send me E-mails at BrianSullivan@YorHealth.com

Your Feedback, and COMMENTS are what keeps me going, and keeps the content fresh, so KEEP THEM COMING!

Also don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to the blog if you haven't done so already. Optimizing You is also available as a PODCAST.

In Health,
-Brian Sullivan

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Skipping Meals?

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:26:00 -0400

"I'm too busy to eat breakfast. Oh well it will be okay."

How many times have those words come out of your mouth? Probably too many to count. We never think too much about. Our philosophy eventually determines our actions, which eventually determines our lifestyle.

IT'S TIME FOR A PHILOSOPHY CHANGE! SKIPPING MEALS IS NOT OKAY!

Skipping meals, especially breakfast can cause your body to look for higher calorie foods later in the day, causing you to gain weight, and store that food as fat. Eating breakfast will give your body the energy you need to think properly, and go about your daily routine. It's been said that people who skip breakfast on a routine basis gain an extra 8 pounds per year on average.

It's not just breakfast!

Skipping lunch or dinner can have the same effects. Your body will go into Survival mode and try to store as many of the calories as it can from your next meal as FAT.

Experts Recommend that you eat more frequent meals during the day, with smaller portions. Instead of filling your plate, or eating those last bites of food that you have to force down your throat, save it for later! There is a reason you are feeling full!

I'll cover some solutions in the next video...

Until then, make sure you are making smart choices for breakfast, stay away from the sugary processed cereals, and High Fructose Corn Syrup laden syrups on your pancakes. Google is an amazing tool and there are many recipes at your fingertips for healthy alternatives!

Make sure that you leave your COMMENTS and questions in the box, or send them to me via E-mail at BrianSullivan@YorHealth.com

Your Feedback, and COMMENTS are what keeps me going, and keeps the content fresh, so KEEP THEM COMING!

Also don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to the blog if you haven't done so already. Optimizing You is also available as a PODCAST.

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Got Misconceptions?

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:51:00 -0400

Hello Readers!

There will always be people trying to tell you what they "Know" about health and nutrition. There are going to be misconceptions flying at you from all angles! Now a days most people don't know what to believe, or take advice from people who have goals much different than their own. Coming soon to this blog will be a series of videos highlighting a few of the common misconceptions about health, and giving you that advice that you need to achieve your own personal goals.

Answering questions like:

What is good for you to eat?

What do I have to do to trim that belly fat?

How long do i need to work out?

Do I have to spend hours in the gym or on the treadmill?

What kind of supplements should I take?

Debunking myths like:

If I work out then I can eat whatever I want.

If I eat right then I don't have to work out.

Some people are just lucky, I can't get in shape

I don't need supplements, I can get everything I need from my food.

Skinny people are healthy.

And much more!

Remember to keep your feedback coming in! What kinds of questions do you have about Health, nutrition, fitness, staying positive, or leadership topics.

E-mail your questions to me at BrianSullivan@YorHealth.com

More to come later this week!

Until then,

Stay Healthy, and take steps to Optimizing your life every day!
-Brian Sullivan

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Question

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:45:00 -0400

Get My Blog Updates

Here's a question:

What do you guys want to see/hear. What are questions that you have about Health, fitness, positivity, motivation or leadership? Since Ultimately I'm here for you, what kind of content do you want to receive?

E-mail me your questions @ BrianSullivan@YorHealth.com
Or Use the comment box below.

(If you don't see the comment box, click the title of this blog, or click HERE)

Until next time, Stay Healthy!
-Brian Sullivan

Intro. The begining of a great journey

BrianSullivan@YORHealth.com (Brian Sullivan) — Tue, 8 Sep 2009 00:16:00 -0400

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Hey everyone!

Thanks for checking out the Blog. I really do appreciate everyone who checks out the info, and leaves me their comments and opinions.

My goal is to deliver to you content, for optimizing your life. These will be answers to questions I get frequently already, as well as new ones that you guys will send to me. Mostly on Health, Nutrition, Fitness, Positivity, Motivation, and Leadership topics.

I want to deliver this content to you in Video form mainly because I think it's more interesting, and because I can shoot it anywhere, any time the mood strikes me! As it is right now, I shoot everything from my I-Phone 3GS.

Big shout out to my very good friend Cedric, for all the help he does with editing, and videography. He's the man when it comes to techincal stuff, so I let him do that, until I have more time to learn, and even then he still might do it, because I can get lazy.

The goal is to be interactive. E-mail me at YorHealthBrian@Gmail.comorHealthBrian@Gmail.com with questions, comments, feedback, or just to harass me if you feel the need!

(If you don't see the comment box, click the title of this blog, or click HERE)

-Brian Sullivan