healthy plant-based living

awesome secret to help you exercise every day

2014-01-20T17:16:00.003-05:00

I was thinking about this the other day and I realized that I have unknowingly developed a rather fool-proof system which has, regardless of the weather or how busy I am, really helped get me motivated to work out every single day for over four years!

So what is this incredible, awesome, bad-ass system you ask?

Simple...

I do NOT allow myself to take a shower unless I have earned it through working out/exercising for at least 30 minutes. As a side note: said workout also has to get me relatively smelly and/or sweaty... and no... there are absolutely NO exceptions...

If I need to be somewhere and I want to take a shower beforehand, guess who needs to make some time to work out an hour prior to leaving? You guessed it...

At this point you probably think I'm crazy, but this system is actually quite beautiful once you get it installed in your own life. For me, taking a shower has become such an integral part of my daily routine that I honestly have not had the option of skipping a single day of working out or showering for any reason in over four years! The days I have to be to work at 5 or 6 in the morning? I really have no other choice but to get my ass to bed early and wake up at 4am - not unless I want to go to work looking, feeling and smelling like crap.

I know that this may seem like it is easier said than done, but trust me, if you just commit to doing this for 30 days, I guarantee that: it will get easier, your excuses to not work out will all but vanish, and exercising will become almost as important to you as not smelling like butt!

This motivational system has truly helped me understand that excuses are just that, excuses. I know it's challenging. I've been there. But ultimately I realized that taking care of myself is not about finding time, it's about making it! By making something as simple as your daily shower something you have to earn through exercise, it automatically reinforces in your brain that you have no other choice but to make it happen, or live with the stinky consequences...

Dump your excuses, sweat your ass off and shower on!

-Corey Barton

beginners guide to running long distance

2012-12-08T18:59:00.002-05:00

I have been a runner now for the better part of four years, and in those four years I believe I have come a long way in terms of what I am able to comfortably accomplish on each run. In that short time frame, I have gone from running out of breath and collapsing to the ground on my very first attempt at a one mile jog to voluntarily running 27 miles on my 27th birthday this past October.

Because of all this, from time to time I will receive requests to write about my particular running experiences and share what I have learned throughout my journey to help others reach their own running goals. The intent of this article is mainly to tackle the basics of what it takes to start running mixed with a sort of how-to guide to help an average runner go from shorter distances to ultimately achieving marathon distances and beyond!

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I know I am going to enjoy writing it!

Step 1 | Start out slowly

If you're anything like me when I started running, you may find yourself feeling compelled to run much farther than you are initially capable of running and inadvertently run the risk of either burning out too soon or getting injured.

What's especially important for beginners to understand is that you need to give your body adequate time to adjust to your new running lifestyle. For those of you reading this who are true beginners, I would highly recommend sitting down with a calendar and start off by setting a goal to run a specific number of miles every day (maybe one or two) for about two-three weeks. What this will do is help to create a solid foundation that you can then build upon. It also will help to prepare your body for the dozens and dozens of training runs to come.

Step 2 | Nutrition will always be your key to success

Like I said before, getting your running foundation poured and giving it proper time to harden is a crucial step in your journey toward becoming a long distance runner. After you have that solid foundation in place we must then discuss what you can do from there to ensure your new running lifestyle remains strong enough to last a lifetime.

Now in my opinion, it really all begins and ends with proper nutrition. Without it, I believe you would only be putting yourself in a dangerous situation that can easily be avoided by sticking with the fundamentals I'm about to teach.

So far in my lifetime, I have ran about six full marathons and countless dozen half marathons. The difference between what I experience during and after my runs today compared to when I was first started out are truly remarkable. I believe I owe these improvements in my performance to what I have learned about nutrition and the food I choose to put in my body.

If you know anything about me, I know what you're probably thinking right now... but no, I'm not going to be preaching about veganism or vegetarianism or anything like that today. Why not? Because as I've matured, I have learned that whatever you choose to put into your body is your own business. All I am going to be doing today is giving you the best advice I can in regard to what I believe a runner's diet should primarily consist of if they truly want to perform at their best, avoid injury and also feel great after each and every run – especially the long ones!

That being said, it doesn't really matter at this point whether you consider yourself a vegetarian, a vegan or an omnivore. Why not? Because if you are truly serious about becoming a successful long distance runner, I know from experience that you would be doing yourself a huge disservice if you did not seriously consider adding more plant-based, unprocessed foods to each and every meal that you eat.

I know that may sound like an overly simplified answer to what appears to be a complicated question. But based on my experience having run a marathon while at one point being an omnivore, a vegetarian, and now a vegan... I can tell you with confidence that I got faster and recovered much more quickly on a plant-based diet than I ever had before on a meat and processed foods diet.

What's truly great about this simple piece of advice is that there is never any need to feel guilty or ashamed of what you are currently eating because all you have to worry about is focusing on adding more fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, beans, rice and legumes to each and every meal regardless of whatever else you eat.

Step 3 | "Know thyself..."

One of the more important things you can do to help yourself during this transition into becoming a long distance runner is taking some time out between runs to really get to know yourself and figure out what kind of runner you are, and what kind of runner you ultimately want to become.

During those first weeks when you are running shorter distances every day, I would recommend that you keep a journal or a log detailing each run so that you can go back later and use that information to help you figure out where you are at with your training and to also help you decide what you can do to improve in the future.

As you go along, you might also find it helpful to write down not just how many miles you ran or how long each mile took, but also how you felt afterward and the unique experiences you had. Try asking yourself different questions like, "Did I feel great or exhausted after that run?" If you felt great then write down as many details as you can about why you felt so good, then be sure to intentionally incorporate more of that good stuff into every subsequent run.

I can tell you from personal experience that throughout those first six weeks you are likely going to learn things about yourself that you might never have known before. If you're anything like me, perhaps you'll learn that unlike the majority of runners out there you actually prefer to run by yourself as opposed to running with a group or a friend. Or maybe you'll discover that rather than running the exact same route every time, you would rather experience a variety of different sceneries when you run.

Either way, just try your hardest to figure out for yourself what works best for you and what you enjoy most about your own unique running experience. Then take that valuable information along with you as you slowly but surely progress toward longer and more challenging runs.

Trust me, in the end you'll be glad you did!

Step 4 | Sign up for different races as your endurance improves

Depending on your current level of fitness and how far you are able to run without having to stop, I would suggest that after you are finished with your daily one-two mile runs that you then get on board with an official 5K training plan like the one found here.

Once you have successfully completed a few 5K races it'll be up to you to decide whether or not you are ready for the next step – a 10K. Then after a few of those, as you get better and better at going farther and farther, you're likely going to want to sign up and train for your first 1/2 Marathon. After successfully completing that it will only be a matter of time before you are finally ready to begin training for your very first marathon!

What all these races are going to do is provide you with a stepping-stone approach to reaching your goal of running longer distances. They will also help to make sure that you are staying within your range of capabilities so that you do not overstep your own limits just to wind up getting discouraged and giving up.

This doesn't mean that if you are feeling particularly healthy and motivated that you absolutely have to follow this exact path that I've laid out. All I intend to provide in this article are general guidelines to help ensure that you reach your final goal as efficiently, effectively and as safely as humanly possible.

Outside of that, it's completely up to you.

Step 5 | Learn to live with (and love) everything Mother Nature is inevitably going to throw your way

When I first started running, I'll admit, it took me a while before I finally got used to running outdoors regardless of what the weather was like. But as I have said before, everything begins with baby steps. I started out by doing one mile loops around my neighborhood during hard rain storms. Gradually I grew more and more comfortable with the idea of running farther away from home during inclement weather until I finally got to the point where I would actually look forward to bad weather and the challenges it might bring.

You see, after a while – even though it's always nice to run in nice weather – you'll tend to get bored with the routine of it all. That is why when nature inevitably throws you that curve ball and you do get a rain storm or a blizzard, you'll tend to get excited because you know that it will bring along with it something unique and unforgettable that those nice weather runs just cannot provide.

Truthfully when I look back on all the amazing runs I've had these past few years, the very best were the ones where I knew that running was going to be the least of my worries. For instance, in February of 2011 (here in Michigan) I vividly recall getting absolutely dumped on by a snow storm so harsh that everything in the entire city had to shut down. People were told to stay indoors unless it was an absolutely emergency. So what did I do when I awoke to this news? I got bundled up and decided to run right through it.

Was it tough? You bet. But after a while you come to realize that the hardest parts of being a runner actually have very little to do with running, and a lot more to do with your ability to overcome obstacles and rise to new challenges that force you outside of your comfort zone.

Running to me will always be fun – but I believe running in nature is what makes it all worthwhile.

Last Step | Get on board with Hal Higdon's Training Guides

It does not matter your age, sex, height, weight or whether you're a running newbie or a veteran – without a training plan you likely will not succeed in your endeavor to become long distance runner. Why? It's really just one of those simple fact of life that I have grown to better understand the more I run; Fact 1: Everything that gets measured, gets managed, and Fact 2: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

I would be lying if I told you that my success with running – especially long distance running – could have ever been achievable without some sort of training plan to help hold me accountable. When I first started out, even before I knew what the heck I was doing, I had already created in my mind a pseudo-schedule dictating how many miles I wanted to get in during a given week. As I got more involved in running and as my interests shifted more and more toward longer distances, I would naturally seek out these types of resources to help me stay on track. Deep down I just knew that there was simply no way I could do it all on my own.

Just as I'm sure you will see the more you run, it only makes sense to seek out information from people who have already mastered what you are only beginning to comprehend. That may be the very reason you are here today, reading this blog post. Maybe deep down you understand that the best way to get where you want to go is to learn from those who have already achieved that which you are trying to achieve.

As time goes on, you likely will grow to depend on your training guide the way you would an honest running partner. It will be there for you when you have an off week, and it will also be there to encourage you and keep you on track whenever you start to feel like you're falling behind. It will hold you accountable to the promises you make to yourself and if you follow it... it will take you wherever you choose to go.

Final Thoughts

I think that above all what this process does is it helps you understand in a simple yet profound way that there is absolutely NOTHING you cannot do once you put your mind to it and put the time and effort in. Anything in your life that you have ever looked upon as an impeding obstacle or problem is going to simply become just another challenge that you can choose to overcome.

After completing her first marathon, Oprah Winfrey said that running is the best metaphor for life because you get out of it what you put into it... I couldn't have said it better myself...

Good luck and best wishes future distance runners!!

-Corey Barton

P.S. - Thanks to my friend Josh for encouraging me to write this!

how to stay motivated to exercise

2012-09-01T09:50:00.001-04:00

I have been exercising every day now for the past three years. So in this article what I intend to share with you are little tips and tricks that I have picked up or taught myself along the way that have really helped get me out of bed every morning and exercise for (at least) 30 minutes each and every day!

I hope you find this both helpful and informative... now let's go!!

1.) You must first understand the fundamental benefits of daily exercise

In my opinion, if you do not have a comprehensive understanding of why something is good for you, you are far less likely to do it. When I first started working out every day, I vividly recall struggling to come up with reasons to keep on going.

Over time though I learned more and more about what exactly my daily exercises were doing for me and how much they truly would help me out in the future.

I learned that daily exercise:

Burns fat/calories which will help you lose unwanted pounds and tone up existing muscle mass
Eliminates the stress hormone cortisol – which is responsible for unwanted fat storage in the body
Lowers and helps regulate blood pressure
Strengthens the heart
Triggers the creation of more blood vessels to help deliver more oxygen to new muscle tissue
Relieves stress and calms the nerves
Revs up and improves metabolism
Builds muscle – which in turn helps your body burn extra calories even when you are not working out!
Increases life expectancy
Improves sleep patterns
Helps eliminate depression by releasing natural chemicals (endorphins), which help make you feel happy and peaceful
Clears your mind and helps you focus
Improves self-confidence by helping you feel better about yourself – both inside and out
Helps to regulate natural chemical reactions that occur inside the body

2.) Understand why you are going to exercise (hopefully every day)

If you do not understand why you are going doing something, you are probably not going to keep it up for very long are you?

For me, I always knew that looking healthy on the outside wasn't going to be enough. I knew that I wanted to also feel healthier on the inside. So when I first started working out I would purposefully think about that one goal and that would help get me up out of bed and out the door each morning.

As time went on and with each passing achievement, I had the privilege of choosing what my new goals were going to be and that would in turn motivate me to keep going. It is that way of thinking that kept me motivated when it would have been so much easier to just hit the snooze button and fall back asleep.

Without a why you are a ship lost at sea with no clue as to which direction you are going. However once you fully understand what you can reasonably expect from your commitment to daily exercise, work hard to figure out what your why is and set a new course for new and exciting destinations in your own life.

3.) Understand what your current coping mechanisms are and try to transform them into a productive physical activity

It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, everybody has mechanisms in place to help them cope with everyday emotions. Some people choose to eat away their sadness while others might choose to drink. Some choose to smoke cigarettes when they are stressed out or nervous while others choose to get angry or take their frustrations out on other people.

Whatever your particular coping mechanisms might be, try your best to figure out what they are and then find a way to turn exercise into your new way of dealing with your everyday feelings.

For me, I had a real problem when it came to dealing with my emotions. Whenever I would get down in the dumps I would eat junk food. Whenever I was stressed out I would drink alcohol and/or smoke cigarettes. If I was overwhelmed or anxious I would plop down in front of the television and try to forget whatever I was upset about.

Today that has all changed. Now my daily exercise has become my number one way of coping with a lot of my emotions and has in many ways even helped prevent a lot of them from ever becoming a problem in the first place. For example when I run in the morning, that helps take away a lot of the stressful feelings I might have had and leaves me feeling energized, powerful and strong the rest of the day.

So be honest with yourself and try to figure out what your "less-than-perfect" coping mechanisms are and try to think up new ways that you can transform them into regular exercise that empowers you and makes you look and feel great!

4.) Make it a ritual

I've written a post about this before but I feel like this is relevant to this particular subject so I think it's worth repeating. You see, whether you are aware of it or not your entire daily life is dictated by a certain set of rituals that you have consciously or unconsciously developed over time that are so routine to you that half the time you don't even stop to think twice about them. In short, these rituals essentially become automatic in your mind so that you can have more freedom to focus your energy on the more complicated and complex situations in your life.

Things like: brushing your teeth, going to the bathroom, taking a shower when you smell or are dirty, how you get to work, how you interact with other individuals, etc. These are all perfect examples of rituals that you've developed over time that have become so second-nature to you that you go through your entire day without ever noticing that you did them at all.

In order to turn exercise into that kind of a daily ritual though you are going to need to figure out what your current rituals are that are holding you back from exercising in the first place. Maybe you have developed a ritual where you tell yourself that you're going to start exercising but instead you've subconsciously conditioned yourself to look for any excuses you can to avoid it.

Whatever your particular rituals may be, I would suggest that you simply do your best to honestly identify what they are and then deliberately figure out a way to turn exercising into one of them. The ultimate goal being that after approximately thirty days of exercising each day you will have successfully turned exercise into a daily ritual that is as important to you as cleaning yourself.

5.) Know where you are and where you want to go

The first step in dealing with any problem is admitting that you have one. When I first began my weight loss journey, I learned the hard truth that for many years I wasn't being completely honest with myself in regard to my body and my weight. That denial compounded over the years and eventually created this false self that caused a number of problems for me in my life.

It wasn't until I decided to make a change and be completely honest with myself about how I felt and how I looked that I was finally able to develop an effective game plan for how I was going to change.

I could go on for hours about this particular subject because it is really an incredibly important step in the process of change. But the idea that I hope you can take away from this is that without a clear and honest picture of who you really are and how you truly look and feel today, it will be nearly impossible to create an honest and clear action plan to transform yourself into the person you ultimately want to be.

So take your time and figure out where you truly stand today. What are you satisfied with? What are you dissatisfied with? Where would you like to improve? Once you feel confident in who you are today, that's when you can finally move forward and begin building your new game plan for the new and improved you of tomorrow.

6.) Create small incentives to reward yourself for working out that also help motivate you to keep going

When I first started working out regularly I was always a hot mess when I finished. Even after three years of this stuff I still sweat like crazy when I exercise. So to help keep me motivated to work out beyond the point of looking like a sweaty fool, I would come up these creative incentives that would basically excuse-proof my workouts for me. That way, no matter how tired I was or how hot (or cold) it was outside, I would have absolutely no trouble deciding to make exercise my number one priority – otherwise I would not have been able to move forward with my day.

One of my nifty tricks was making a pact that I could never take a shower again unless I had already exercised for at least 30 minutes that day. As you can imagine, this was a very effective incentive to help get my butt up early each morning.

What's great about this approach is that no matter what happened, it always worked in my favor. If I didn't get up early and exercise, I would have to leave the house with bed head knowing that as soon as I got back home I was going to have to work out.

Of course your little tricks do not have to be as extreme as mine. Perhaps instead you make a promise to yourself that you can't watch any television or hang out with any of the guys/gals until you get your exercise in? Whatever you choose, make it realistic and doable for you. This is supposed to help motivate you to want to work out – not turn it into a chore.

7.) Do your best to measure your weekly progress

After you have your foundation laid and you are enthusiastically working toward whichever goal you set for yourself, make sure there is a way to measure your progress each week toward achieving said goal.

This works for you in two ways 1.) It helps motivate you to keep up the good work and 2.) It serves as an early warning that you might need to make a small course correction and get back on track.

I have made it a point to weigh myself twice per week, every week from the very beginning. Then to measure my strength I do a certain number of push-ups and pull-ups every day. If I find that on a particular day I am struggling, that indicates to me that I have not been keeping up with my training and that I need to bump up my number of repetitions to get back to where I want to be.

Whether your goal is weight loss, distance covered, weight lifted or reps achieve – do yourself a favor and work out your own way of measuring your progress so that you can stay on track and reach your goals.

8.) Understand that it is about creating an entirely new and permanent lifestyle

I do not want to sound mean, but if you do not plan on sticking with this workout regime for the long haul you might be better off not starting at all. I'm not saying this to try and discourage you – I just want to be very clear that under no circumstances should you move forward with this if you have any doubts that you'll be able to stick with it for life.

The reason I say this is because for the longest time I too thought there must be some way to cheat the system and "get away" with only exercising once or twice a week and comfortably achieve (or maintain) the body of my dreams – but the truth is that is just not the way it works.

Are there people out there who "get away" with not exercising and still have relatively thin figures? Yes. But these are the very same people that you will see at 50-60 years old who have pot bellies and are on a hundred different medications. So yes, you could say that they "got away" with not taking care of their bodies in their twenties and thirties – but no matter who you are or what your genetics, we all reap what we sow.

If you are reading this with hope that you might somehow be able to "drop those last stubborn pounds" and then retreat back to your old lifestyle – I'm sorry to say that my suggestions are probably not going to work for you. If, on the other hand you are here because you are truly ready and excited about making permanent and long-lasting changes, then you have come to the right place!

I am grateful to have learned such a valuable lesson at such a young age. Today I look at my daily workouts, not as some daily chore, but as an investment in my physical fitness today and my physical future tomorrow.

9.) Always be on the lookout for fun activities that will put your fit physique to good use

Activities that pique your interest and require that you use your body help you in two ways. First – they motivate you! Second – they put necessary pressure on you to at the very least maintain your current level of physical fitness so that you do not run the risk of being excluded from that particular team sport or fun activity.

For me, it was running. Once I started running and got better at it I would actively seek out different ways to participate in races that would further challenge me to improve on my past achievements. That is how running races became such a great motivator for me.

So do yourself a favor and keep your eyes peeled for physical activities or team sports that you are attracted to. Once you find one that you love, you will have also discovered a fun and bulletproof way to safeguard yourself from ever slacking off again.

10.) Last but not least –whatever you do– never, never, never, never, never give up!

Yes, you are going to encounter times when you want to quit. You'll hit a wall. You'll see a surprising dip in your weekly progress and immediately feel tempted to throw in the towel. Whatever you do, DON'T QUIT!

Remember, this is not a contest with anyone but yourself.

You are the only person who can decide if what you did for the day is worthy of your own 30 minutes (or more) standard. Every day doesn't have to be record-breaking – it just has to be good enough for you! That is the best part about all of this – you are the one and only person who can judge how your own day went.

If you honestly feel like you could have done more, guess what? You can decide to drop what you are doing and go for a run, bike ride or walk can't you? What is beautiful about this entire change process is that nobody can hold you back or push you forward better than you can.

And you can bet your bottom dollar there have been times when I too have wanted to give up and just forget about my workout for the day. But over time I've come to realize that a third conscience has developed inside my head that goes far beyond the traditional "good guy, bad guy" – its name is "you know better".

I knew that if I didn't work out that I was going to feel grumpy and irritated all day. And I knew that if I chose not to work out today, I would have no choice but to work out twice as hard tomorrow. I knew that no matter how hot or cold it was outside that there was no guarantee that I would get the chance to work out tomorrow so I better appreciate what a privilege it is to be healthy and fit and get my butt out that door and do it!

Even if all you get out of that day is a 30 minute walk with a friend, don't ever let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that a certain physical activity isn't worthy of being called a "real exercise". Are there things you do regularly that you probably should not consider exercise? Of course!

For instance going to the bathroom for 30 minutes is not an exercise, nor is talking on the phone for 30 minutes. But I'm pretty certain you can come up with a way to combine those everyday tasks with something physical and turn them into a physical exercise couldn't you?

Final thoughts

I hope that I have in some way been able to inspire those of you who needed it to get back out there and to never give up. Believe me; I know that it can be tough at times. Just remember to work hard, try applying these simple guidelines to your daily routine and then see what happens for you.

Everything that is measured gets managed, and everything worth doing isn't always going to be easy – but I guarantee it will be worth it!

Good luck fellow athletes!

-Corey Barton

P.S. – Special thanks to my good friend Megan S. for inspiring me to write this.

how to be healthy and happy for life

2012-08-06T22:23:00.001-04:00

There has been a lot of controversy lately surrounding the validity of "diets" and a vast majority of people are beginning to question the truth behind the science of what is being perpetuated by the mainstream media and thousands of studies conducted by scientists who have devoted their entire careers to researching the effects of different substances on the human body in their own field.

I'm not here to discredit anything that any of these individuals are saying necessarily, and I am definitely not going to sit here and pretend that I'm smarter than any of them – because I'm not. I'm just an average guy who has gone through a lot of changes over the past few years and has achieved exceptional results.

In this post I am going to attempt to compile all of the "truths" that I have uncovered over the past three years or so in an attempt to help out those of you who are looking for genuine advice from someone who has absolutely zero agenda hiding behind his opinions. I have said this before and I will gladly say it again: I am not in this for the money. All I want to do is help you learn how I healed myself naturally and hopefully help you avoid wasting time trying to filter through all the bullshit information that the media and certain doctors would have you believe to be true in order to pad their own pockets.

As I said, this is going to be a summary of literally hundreds of personal hours that I have logged researching and experimenting with different professional's suggestions and theories along with my own personal opinions regarding what finally helped me get on the path toward optimal health and long term happiness. Again, I am not a doctor. I'm just somebody who stopped listening to all the bullshit and along the way discovered new rules and truths that have permanently improved the quality of my life.

Enjoy!

New Rule #1. Meat and milk do not do anybody, any good

Don't get me wrong, I used to eat and drink this stuff too. Yet despite what has been shoved down our throats since the day we all were born (literally), I had to learn the hard way that drinking the milk of another species is downright wrong. It took me a while before I could fully wrap my head around this concept because, like many of you, my entire life I was inundated with messages telling me that "milk does a body good". All throughout grade school even, we were all given the option of having a box of milk with our lunch.

Since this decision had kind of already made for me before ever stepping foot inside the lunch room, I really had no reason to stop and think twice about drinking it because frankly, everybody was drinking it! In grade school, with all the other nonsense I had to deal with on a regular basis, to stop and pose the question, "Does it really make sense to drink the milk of another species?" would have been an incredibly impractical one. I mean really, if everybody's doing it, and our own government is subsidizing it, and if the schools are serving it, it must be good for us, right?...

Boy was I wrong.

Consider this: Most Cows are artificially impregnated and are constantly kept in that state in order to produce as much milk as possible (milk that is intended for their calves btw). Once they give birth, their calves are immediately ripped away from their mothers and are either raised for slaughter or destined to follow in their mother's footsteps. This process is incredibly traumatic for both the calf and the mother. There have been documented cases in fact where mother cows, after having their babies taken away from them, have beaten themselves to death by banging their heads against their cages. Assuming the mother survives this torture, they are then impregnated again, and again, and again. After several years of enduring this cruelty the mother cow will inevitably stop producing offspring (and therefore milk) and will be sent off to a factory to be brutally murdered and harvested for meat.

I don't care what the hell you believe; you can't tell me that this is the way 'god' intended life to be for these poor animals. It is a fact, there is absolutely nothing that we as human beings receive from consuming either meat or dairy that is required for our continued survival. So why the hell are we consuming it?

Money.

The industries that provide us with these 'luxurious and "healthy" commodities' make a lot of money off of our ignorance, and we buy into their nonsense hook, line and sinker because somewhere along the way we forgot how to think for ourselves. We have become increasingly apathetic, selfish and self-centered in the ways we choose to 'nourish' our bodies and for whatever reason, we just stopped caring about why we are eating this garbage in the first place.

I truly have to hand it to the meat and dairy industries, they really have us fooled.

Without going into any further rants, I really would like you to understand this one simple concept before we go any further:

Above all, we are mammals – just like cows. Cow's milk is designed by nature for female cows to feed to their newborn calves – just the same as pregnant female humans are designed to feed their newborn babies. Calves, like human babies, then consume their mother's milk until they are able to comfortably survive without it. Then they stop. Nowhere in nature does it exists where a mammal continues drinking the milk from their mother until the day they die. The mother eventually stops producing the milk, which of course means that the baby stops drinking it.

Once this idea was brought to my attention that was it for me. How much more simple could it get? If we aren't designed to consume it naturally, then we should not do it.

This same simple idea fits in with the meat we consume as well. I know now that human beings do not in any way benefit from eating meat so I simply decided not eat it anymore and I feel better than ever! Again, if it doesn't help me out nutritionally – which means I can't survive or depend solely upon that source of calories for survival – then I might as well be eating cardboard or Styrofoam, because it's essentially the same thing.

If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to check out this video lecture about the perils of dairy and meat from one of my favorite healthy living advocates, Dr. John McDougall!

New Rule #2. All drugs are bad

I know what you're going to say, but please hear me out. What part of a human being is made up of a synthetic drug? If your answer was none, then you are correct.

Once that idea was planted in my brain, an entirely new paradigm began to form inside my head and I have never thought about drugs the same way since.

It's a simple idea that has incredibly profound and far reaching implications. This idea caused me to seek out answers to questions such as, "Why are we creating these synthetic drugs to mask the symptoms of our illnesses instead of actually creating drugs to cure them?"and,"What are these drugs actually doing to help us heal in the long-term?" The answers I came up with were rather plain – long term, they don't do anybody any good.

To elaborate further, let me paint a picture for you:

Imagine you are driving your car down the highway and all of the sudden your check engine light turns on. In this situation, to fix the problem would you just put some tape over the light so that you couldn't see it and continue on your merry way?...I didn't think so.

Yet that is exactly how the majority of Americans are being treated for their illnesses and it is causing a nationwide health crisis. Think about it, you go into the doctor's office for the flu or a sore throat and they prescribe you "medication" which you believe is going to help cure your illness. But in actuality, all your doctor did was give you access to powerful, synthetic drugs which have been engineered to mask your symptoms so that you can still "function" while your body does its job and heals you from within.

In reality, the doctor didn't help you – if anything he/she merely prescribed a drug (not natural) to mask the symptoms (body's natural check engine light) so that you could continue along (driving) until either one of two things happened: a) it goes away naturally (assuming it wasn't that big of a problem to begin with) or b) it gets worse and worse because you aren't actually dealing with the underlying problem – in which case your doctor continues to do what they have been trained to do which is treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause until your health inevitably spirals completely out of control then before you know it you are really sick and wind up on a hospital bed or worse!

Now as far-fetched and extreme as this scenario may seem, these are the types of truths that I have carefully been observing in my own life. I now believe this truth to be self-evident: Medical doctors prescribe medicine to help mask a patient's outside symptoms. Nutritional doctors prescribe proper nutrition and exercise to help cure the patient's symptoms from the inside, out.

What I now believe is that we need more doctors who are educated in human nutrition; because without proper nutrition there is no doubt in my mind that you will get sick. Nutrients are naturally found within a variety of edible plant sources (vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc.) and the lack of certain specific nutrients from these natural sources will cause a wide variety of problems in the human body that can only be cured with proper nutrition.

So for me, the only conclusion that I could draw from all this information was that raw, natural nutrition grown from the earth is the primary route to ideal health and that synthetic drugs are no good because their sole purpose is to mask our problems – and just like the car analogy from earlier, if you continue to ignore the underlying problems things will get worse before they get better.

Today I live a happy and completely drug free lifestyle and I could not be more thrilled about it!

Because I eat healthy foods that contain all the natural vitamins and minerals that my body needs, I don't have all the common problems that most human beings are suffering with day after day. I honestly can't remember the last time I had a headache or sore feet from standing up all day. And despite not having had a vaccination or flu shot in years, I can't remember the last time I was really sick. I also feel much more energetic, happy and at peace now that I'm off all the stuff that was holding me back from being truly healthy.

The bottom line here is that all drugs are simply a band aid covering up a much larger problem that your body is trying to warn you about. When you get a headache, that doesn't mean you need Tylenol, it means you need to eat right and exercise more often. If you feel tired at the end of the day, that doesn't mean you should down a 5-Hour Energy! It means you are probably not eating the right foods and should probably get some fresh air, maybe go for a walk outside. Feeling bloated, fat? Perhaps you have trouble sleeping at night? You guessed it! The prescription should start with eating healthy, organic fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains and seeds along with 30 minutes of exercise each and every day.

Once I learned this it changed my life forever. Now I know that I am in control of my own health. Now I realize that even if I had health insurance for the rare emergency, that I would not need to bother going to the doctor for something silly like a sore throat or trouble sleeping, because I now know that is merely my body's check engine light telling me that something in my life needs to change before it gets worse.

No pill can make up for that.

New Rule #3. Daily exercise is the most extraordinary things any human being could ever do for themselves, ever!

I don't know how else to say this really except that once I began exercising daily, my life has never been and will never be the same again. I have written about this subject in great detail regarding the benefits that I have personally experienced from choosing to exercise every day and I'm sure by now you have all grown tired of reading about it so I will try and be brief:

Simply put, I believe we are all designed and put on this planet to enjoy and experience our environment through movement. I also believe that this movement can be expressed in thousands of different ways which can all be summed up in one simple and eloquent word: exercise!

I have said this before, but exercise is not just a means to an end. It should never be looked upon as some chore that you must do each day or every other day in order to maintain a certain body image. Instead, I think exercise should be looked at as a gift!

For me, the gift of exercise is what gets me out of bed in the morning – it is a huge part of what I look forward to each and every day of my life! And although the way in which I exercise may vary from day to day, the one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that exercise will forever remain one of my favorite ways of expressing physical gratitude for the gift of life that has been given to me.

The majority of my life I took this gift for granted and I wound up paying the ultimate price: misery, hatred, gluttony, obesity and self-abuse. These were all warning signs sent from my body and my creator trying to let me know that this is not the way I should be living.

After learning about all the horrible mistakes I had been making, I decided to make some drastic changes and set my sail towards a different destination that would eventually lead me to places I actually wanted to go: I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to be happy, I wanted to live without drugs, I wanted to appreciate what I saw in the mirror every day, I wanted to love myself and I wanted to be loved in return for being that person.

In short, I just wanted to be Corey again...

All of these things and more came true for me after applying this wisdom to my life. But I couldn't just talk the talk; I had to walk the walk.

The trials and errors along the way were many, but I finally feel like I've found a solution that doesn't just claim that it works, but actually works! That combination began with daily physical expressions of love and thanks for the life I have been given. Second it involved coming to the conclusion that I was not put on this earth to cause harm to other beings and that I need to live in harmony with nature.

That revelation then led me to the understanding that human beings were not put on this earth to ingest a pill for every ill that we happen to contract. We have these amazing natural warning signs that are built into our bodies to inform us of the mistakes we might be making in our lives: The more alcohol, the more sugary drinks, the more we smoke, the more we partake in activities that are not in tune with how we are designed to live, the worse our symptoms ultimately become – just as nature intended.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of what you believe, I hope you have kept an open mind and have found something intriguing about what I wrote that will lead you down a path of self-discovery and self-healing.

Whoever you are, whatever your background, I know that you have problems that you could use some help with. We all have problems. My goal in spending my time writing this is to provide a beacon of hope for those that might not have access to resources or people that can help you to change and become the best version of you that you can possibly be.

I understand that change is not easy, especially change that goes against what everybody else has been telling you is true your entire life. But this isn't about everybody else is it? This is about what is best for you. You deserve to be happy, healthy and free from the shackles of a chronic illness. You already have it in you to heal yourself. Take control of your life and have the courage to become the person you were put on this earth to be.

Take care of yourself!

-Corey Barton

P.S. If you would like some guidance, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm here to help.

why you should exercise (especially men)

2012-06-27T14:03:00.001-04:00

When I was on my seven mile run this morning, I got to thinking about all the tremendous changes that have taken place in my life since I adopted this active lifestyle. The more I started to think, the more I realized how helpful this information might be to other people – especially men (since I am of course writing this from a male's perspective).

So below you'll find a list of random things that popped into my head today that I would like to share with you that have impacted my life in a positive way since I adopted this healthy, active lifestyle. Enjoy!

1. Larger (male) genitals

Yes, throughout my life I have had many ups and downs in regard to my weight. In sixth grade I was rather chunky and unfortunately that stuck around for a while. So right at the time when we were starting to take showers after gym class in the sixth grade, I happened to be the big kid in the locker room. One thing I was always uncomfortable with back then was the size of my privates compared to the other "normal" boys. I remember thinking, "Why did theirs look so normal and why did mine seem so abnormal?" It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I finally discovered the answer: I was fat!

What I discovered was that overweight males develop what is called a "fat pad" in there pelvic area once their body weight goes above a certain level. Once I started exercising however, I definitely noticed that my genitals became more pronounced than they had ever been before.

The reason behind this is rather obvious to me now: as the fat disappeared, my genitals went back to a normal, healthy state.

So if any of you guys out there are having trouble finding some motivation to get off your butts and go for a run or a walk or a bike ride every day, keep this little fact in the back of your mind: the heavier you are, the smaller your junk is.

2. More energy throughout the day

When I was overweight, I remember getting home at the end of the day and feeling just beat from having to stand up for eight hours at work each day. Now that I am much healthier and far more active, the idea of my feet hurting or feeling exhausted from standing or walking around all day is absurd.

What I found was that the more active I became, the more active I wanted to be in all the other areas of my life. Parking farther away from the entrance of a store was no longer a big ordeal for me. Now I took my time grocery shopping and if I had to go back and forth to get a few items, it wasn't a problem. Going for long walks around the city no longer required rest stops along the way. And by the time I would get home from an activity packed day such as this I felt rejuvenated, not beat up.

So if you want more energy and fewer excuses to be lazy, I suggest you start exercising... today!

3. Low resting heart rate

I don't know how important this little tidbit is to you, but to me it was kind of a fun surprise to discover that the more I exercised, the stronger my heart got. To you, this might sound like kind of an obvious statement but to me it was more like an aha moment. It just clicked: more exercise = stronger heart = less effort for my heart to beat when I was not exercising!

The implications of this seemingly elementary statement stretched far beyond that simple observation. To me I thought, "If my heart is healthier and is beating less throughout my waking day, then that means I am setting myself up to live a long and healthy life!"

Believe what you will, but I advise you to take in that information and see what it could mean for you in your life. Does having a strong and healthy heart matter to you? If it does, then perhaps it would be a good idea if you started exercising more often.

4. Naturally drinking more water

Before I started exercising regularly, water was not a staple for me. If anything, water was just something I would drink when soda and other processed drinks were not available to me. Of course, there were those rare occasions where I would find myself walking for an extended period of time with my friends and I would become so parched that water was the only thing that could possibly quench my thirst.

Well the good news is, once I started exercising every day, that feeling became more and more prominent in my life. Gone were my cravings for the sugary and processed garbage you find in most convenience stores. Nope, all I wanted –day and night– was water.

This change helped me in two very important ways: 1) The less soda and slur pees I drank, the more weight I lost 2) Little did I know, but the more water you drink, the easier it is for your body to eliminate fat and other toxins from your body!

So if you are familiar with that craving for water and if you want to have more of that craving in your life – exercise!

5. Clear headedness

This might be hard to understand for those of you who have never had to endure the misery of being overweight, but when you are, it clouds your mind. For me, I was only able to recognize this feeling after I lost the weight because until then I didn't really have anything to compare that feeling to.

When you are overweight, I truly believe that –just like the fat around your pelvis– fat finds its way into your brain. Despite my lack of research on this particular subject, from my experience I believe that the excess fat in your brain causes long lasting impairments in your judgment and cognition.

It was only after losing all the weight that I began to see the world through a new and much clearer lens. The more fat I removed from my system, the clearer my thoughts became. Now I can say with a great deal of certainty that if this had been the one and only benefit from adopting my new healthy lifestyle and everything else would have remained as it was, I still would have done it.

Having a clear mind has truly brought so much peace to my life. It's like seeing the world through a brand new lens; and I like what I see now too much to ever go back to that dirty lens I had before.

So if you happen to find yourself in a place where you believe your lens could use a little bit of Windex, for the love of god don't wait and start exercising!

6. Happier

Looking back on it now, when I was an overweight sloth I was absolutely miserable. Despite my best efforts to deny my unhappiness, eventually it got the best of me. After years and years of mistreating myself through my poor life habits, my body and the life that I had manifested finally came to a screeching halt and I decided that enough was enough – I deserve to be happy.

Sure, my transformation started out slowly. But I knew that over time, in the long run, it was all going to work out for the better. Now I have achieved my weight loss goal and have moved on to other health goals that I want to achieve. The difference now is that I am finally happy with myself! Boy what a difference it has made in my life to go from being displeased to finally being proud and happy.

If this is something that sounds appealing to you then you guessed it... exercise!

7. No more boredom

I remember back in the day (which I believe was a Wednesday) when I was overweight, I would regularly find myself sitting on the couch complaining of how bored I was and expecting the people around me to somehow manifest entertainment out of thin air for me.

If only someone had the foresight and the courage to just tell me to get off my butt, go outside and do something with the body I have been blessed with, what a difference it would have made. Nowadays though, boredom does not exist. In my world, whenever I start to feel angry, frustrated, irritated or restless, I don't complain... I exercise!

If this sounds like you, give it a whirl and see how it feels.

8. Craving fresh, healthy, organic foods

As you might imagine, when I was overweight I did not have the healthiest diet in the world. The majority of what I consumed was highly processed, highly refined, and nutritionally starved "food". Looking back though, it was an appropriate diet for someone who was living the lifestyle that I was living. Of course I ate lousy food, I felt lousy about myself didn't I? I felt like junk inside so of course I ate junk.

Once I started exercising and feeling better about myself, my diet naturally started changing all on its own. Before I knew it, that slice of pizza didn't really seem that appealing to me because I knew that it was not good enough to fuel my workout the following morning.

It's actually really basic stuff if you stop and think about it. Once you start treating yourself the way you ought to be treated, the idea of treating yourself poorly is no longer an option. For me the more I exercised, the more I understood how powerful and precious and fragile my life really was. After that, I resolved to allow only the most powerful and healthy foods into my body in order to fuel it.

Final Thought

It all happens for a reason, so what's keeping you from finding your reason? Start by figuring out where in your life you might not be treating yourself as well as you should be and fix it. Who knows... it might even start with... exercise?

-Corey Barton

how to lose weight and keep it off

2012-06-05T21:24:00.001-04:00

There is (literally) a huge problem going on in this country today. Statistically about 68% of Americans are overweight and about one third are clinically obese! What makes matters worse is that these numbers continue to climb – where will it end?!

Three years ago I was a part of this frightening epidemic, then one day I decided that enough was enough. For most of my life I was in denial over what I was feeding myself every day until I could no longer hide from it.

If you are looking for advice from somebody who has actually been in your shoes and can understand how you are feeling, I urge you to keep reading. If you are not then I am sure you know someone in your life that is in need and could benefit from this information. If you do then please share this article on your facebook wall or on twitter.

Who knows? You might inadvertently change someone's life...

Step 1. Admitting I had a problem

For years I strolled through life paying absolutely no attention to my health or to my body. Every now and again people would try to help by telling me (in their own polite way) that they were concerned about my health – but I never took their concerns seriously. In my mind, I was fine. I can remember telling myself that "it's perfectly normal for a person to gain weight as they get older... that's just life."

Inevitably I had to wake up from this fantasy and finally face the numbers on the scale. At the age of 23 I looked down to see that I weighed more than 330 pounds! To help put that in some kind of perspective for you, a healthy BMI (for me) would have been anywhere between 18-25. My BMI was over 42! By definition anyone over 40 is considered a class three (morbidly) obese individual. The jig was up. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I had to admit that I had a problem and that I needed help.

Step 2. Do research and learn from others who have already done what you are about to do (like this site)

In my experience, it is always best to take advice from people who have been successful at what they do.

If you want financial advice for instance, you wouldn't go out and talk to a bunch of broke people would you? Of course not! Instead you would go out in search of someone who has a proven track record of winning with money! If you wanted weight loss advice you wouldn't talk to overweight people or people who have been thin their whole lives. Instead you would talk to people who have successfully accomplished the weight loss that you're trying to accomplish. To me that just makes all the sense in the world. That being said, my advice to you is to get advice from individuals who used to be big and not only lost the weight, but have also kept it off for some time.

I can't tell you how often I come across these 'one-hit-wonders' who lose a bunch of weight, get on YouTube, make a video about it, reach a ton of people and then wind up gaining all the weight back. I don't know about you but I am not inclined to take the advice of someone who consistently succeeds then fails at what they do. Instead I'd rather spend my time seeking out people whose advice I feel is worth following because they did it the right way.

Step 3. Trial and error

After you have found a few people who you believe are the "real deal" and who have offered their advice, your next step is to try that advice on for size and see how it fits. Let's face facts: What you have done in your past is what brought you here today. So based on that same logic, the only way to change your future is to change your current behaviors.

To do that you have to commit to doing different things every single day that will help improve your situation now and in the future.

For example: If you can commit to burning an extra 300 calories every day through exercise while also making the commitment to reduce your caloric food intake by 200, you will lose roughly 1/7th of a pound each day. At first blush that number might seem rather insignificant but you must keep in mind that it was this exact same slow and steady progression of excessive calorie intake that got you into this mess in the first place. All you are doing now is acknowledging that same pattern and turning it around to benefit you.

You have to remind yourself that you are in this for the long haul so you need to start looking at the big picture: Yes, 1/7th of a pound doesn't feel like much progress today. But after just one week that 1/7th will have turned into an entire pound! Before you know it a year will have zipped by and voila! Now you are down more than 50 pounds! (or you are down to your ideal weight: see below)

Another thing to keep in mind throughout this entire process is that your body will allow you to lose only so much weight before finally leveling off. This happens because if you were to keep losing weight forever you would eventually just disappear! So before you begin it is a terrific idea to do some research and learn what your "ideal body weight" is so that you have a ballpark estimate for when you should expect to see your weight level off.

Step 4. Eat healthy food

I've written about this in great detail already so I will spare you and simply state that you are what you eat. If you would like to learn more about my philosophy on healthy eating please feel free to check out the following links:

'how to live naturally'

'ten ways to easily improve your health and well being'

'how i see the world: food & nutrition'

Step 5. Cardio, cardio, cardio!

There are a many different exercise programs out there to help people lose weight these days and if followed, I believe that most of them wind up being beneficial in the long run. However, for people who are trying to lose a large amount of weight, I would highly recommend focusing most of your time on doing cardio exercises like cycling, speed walking/running and swimming.

Some people would love to tell you that weight training is thee way to go if you want to lose weight. Don't get me wrong - I am a strong supporter of weight training and I agree that it can help with weight loss. All I am saying is in the initial stage of your weight loss, it will be far more beneficial if you focus most of your energy on cardio workouts. The reason behind this is purely logical: doing cardio gives you the most calories burned for your workout buck while simultaneously improving your muscle tone and strength.

Think about it – you can't go for a run or on a bike ride and avoid using your leg and calf muscles can you? With cardio you are burning a ton of calories while also building muscle (which in turn burns even more calories) and improving your cardiovascular (breathing) capacity so that you can work out even harder and longer later on. These are three very great benefits packed into one awesome workout! That's why I suggest doing cardio exercising first and then...

Step 6. After you hit your "ideal weight," focus on strength

Like I said before, there is only so much weight a person can lose before their body finally says, "Alright! I'm done!" It is only after reaching this stage that I recommend adding strength specific workouts to your already stellar cardio regimen. Specifically what I mean is to try and develop a cardio and strength training routine that will help you gradually (remember that we are in this for the long haul) transform your lighter frame into one that has more lean muscle mass.

Remember though that this is just a general outline of how I personally went about losing the weight. Feel free to experiment and reformat this to fit your individual requirements– I'm just providing you with the basics.

Step 7. How to keep it off for life

The key to long term weight management is to never give up! I believe the reason so many people find themselves in situations where they lose the weight and then gain it all back is because they simply give up and revert back to their old way of life. I am here to tell you that you can choose a different path – you can choose to be different. All you have to do in order to stay motivated and keep yourself on track is follow three simple rules:

Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day
Always have a goal you're trying to reach
Once you reach that goal, set a new one for yourself

Perhaps you decide that after you reach your ideal weight, your new goal will be to run a certain distance that you've never run before? Maybe you decide that now you want to focus on reaching a certain body fat percentage? Or maybe your goal is to reach a new push up or pull up max? The point I am trying to make here is that it doesn't matter what your specific new goal is as long as you always have one!

Final Thoughts

So that is the long and the short of it ladies and gentlemen. Losing weight and getting in shape is really not rocket science. It's simply a matter of consciously doing more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff.

One thing I had to keep telling myself at the beginning of my weight loss journey was that it took years to put on... expect that it will take years to come off. I know that is not what most Americans want to hear because most overweight or obese people are constantly on the lookout for the next quick fix. The reality though is that there are no quick fixes – if you can't gain a hundred pounds in one day, why would anybody think they can lose a hundred pounds in one day?

The way I see it you can either choose to stay where you're at right now and not change anything knowing that in a few years you'll still be the same (overweight). Or you can decide to change your behaviors today and guarantee that in a few years you'll be thinner and healthier for it – the choice is yours.

I've said it before and by golly I'll say it again... slow and steady wins the race!

- Corey Barton

how to improve your health and wellbeing

2012-05-29T17:30:00.000-04:00

With the onset of summer and the beautiful weather that comes with it I thought it might be helpful to some if I wrote about simple things I believe anyone can do that will help you feel great and have the best, most health-filled summer ever!

1. If you are not a vegetarian, try to reduce meat consumption to once or twice per week

I could go on for hours about why I believe that consuming meat is bad for your health - but I am not going to do that today. Instead I am going to try to compromise by making a reasonable and simple suggestion: Make eating meat a once or twice per week treat.

When I was initially in the process of transitioning from 'meat-eater' to 'vegetarian', I went down a lot of different paths in order to get there. Not long ago I was like most Americans, and meat was a staple of almost every meal. But the more I learned about what meat actually does once it is inside of us, the less appetizing it became for me. Slowly but surely I began to phase meat out of my diet and replaced it with healthier (and frankly more tasty) alternatives.

So all that I am suggesting is that if you are anything like I was and you consume meat at almost every meal, why not try to cut down a bit and explore the exciting and delicious world that exists outside of meat? Who knows, you might even grow to love it?

If you would like to learn more about how I have come to understand the health issues surround meat and dairy, please feel free to check out the following links.

2. Move your body 30-60 minutes each and every day

I've said it before and I will say it for the rest of my life: God gave us the ability to move around; therefore it does a body good to move around. It does not take a genius to understand that the more active you are, the more healthy and vibrant you will ultimately feel, right? There have been numerous scientific studies done in recent years conducted by brilliant individuals that all back up what I am suggesting, but the long and short of it is simple: Daily movement (i.e. exercise) of at least 30-60 minutes can:

significantly reduce and even eliminate stress.
help you sleep more soundly.
help to maintain and/or even reduce body weight to 'normal' levels.
make you feel happier.
improve self esteem/confidence.
help regulate blood pressure.

I am not even a doctor and yet with a little bit of research and a lot of personal life experience, I can say beyond a reasonable doubt that these kinds of results can be expected if you just make the conscious decision to intentionally move around for about 30-60 minutes each day. I have experienced these results myself so take it from me and please give exercise a chance.

3. Try hard to reduce (or even eliminate) dairy from your diet

After all the major changes I have made to my lifestyle and to my diet over the past three years, this is the change that I have been struggling with the most I think. The reason I have been struggling is because of my inherent love of cheese. Meat was easy to give up once I understood what it did to my body and how it negatively affected my health. However, for some reason - even though I know that cheese is not good for me - I continue to eat it now and again.

Cheese, for now, is my conscious unhealthy cheat. And honestly I think its okay so long as I keep it under control. To be fair, I have practiced what I preach here and have reduced my dairy consumption significantly over the past couple of years and like anything else worth doing, it has not been easy.

Once I did my research and learned about all the diseases and health complications that consuming the milk of another species can cause human beings, I took a long and hard look at my diet and decided that I would do my best to reduce as much as I could. (Cow's) Milk was actually really easy to give up once I learned about all the pus (yes, pus!) and bacteria that can be found inside the average cup. I also learned more about how dairy is highly acidic and over time can cause calcium deficiency along with a host of other harmful diseases and ailments once it enters your system.

Knowing all of this about dairy has helped me to monitor and make more conscious decisions when it comes to the kinds of food that I allow into my mouth. Just like it was with myself and meat, dairy is one of those diet adjustments that has just taken some time to eliminate from my diet completely. And like I said before, I feel like I am on the right track. I no longer drink cow's milk or eat yogurt, and I very rarely eat cheese - maybe once or twice in a given week. And just like with meat, it is only a matter of time before I completely eliminate it from my diet. So my advice to you would be to simply consider what I have to say and then if it intrigues you, please conduct your own research and educate yourselves about whether dairy is right for you.

4. Get rid of television

Another classic suggestion but definitely worth mentioning: The more television you watch, the more sedentary you become. And just like any other bad habit, it is a lot easier to quit once you've eliminated the temptation to partake in said habit. For example, people who smoke have significantly better chances of not smoking if they do not have access to cigarettes.

The same can be said about television addiction so do yourselves a favor and nip the television habit in the bud before it becomes a problem.

5. Eat more organic fruits and vegetables

For those of you who are not familiar with the health benefits of eating organic produce, let me put it as plainly as I can so it can really sink in: Organic produce has almost 17 times the amount of vitamins and minerals compared to its non-organic counter part. So what does that mean to you, the consumer? Well essentially what it means is that the soil that the plant has been cultivated in has 17 times the amount of nutrients and therefore the plants that grow within this soil soak up these essential life-giving nutrients and produce a much stronger, healthier plant for us to eat.

Non-organic - nutrient deficient - produce on the other hand requires the assistance of man-made chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides to prevent the plant from dying or being eaten by bugs. Organic produce is naturally strengthened and is able to defend itself from the threat of pests without the interference of man-made chemicals and toxic pesticides.

So to summarize: Organic produce contains 17 times more life-giving vitamins and minerals that our body needs minus all the chemical agents and pesticides that are typically found in their non-organic, nutrient deficient counter parts. What conclusions can I draw from this information? Organic is an all around better and healthier product.

6. Prepare more of your own meals

What home cooking and bag lunches provide are reliable, healthy meals that you can really depend on to give you adequate nutrition without the excess junk that you would find in your typical fast food meal.

Along with those benefits, I have found that by making my own meals I am more appreciative and have more respect for the meals I eat. When you eat fast food, you kind of have this disconnect between the food you eat and what it took to make it. On top of all that, I'm sure you all understand by now that preparing your own meals at home can save you boat loads of money compared to the cost of eating out.

So if you are the kind of person who eats out regularly, my advice to you would be to try to make it more of a once and a while treat instead of the 'norm'.

If you would like an idea of what you can cook at home (especially without meat and dairy) check out this link - 'The Engine 2 Diet Recipes.'

7. Mediate for five minutes every morning

This one is rather simple but it takes a while get into the routine. First off, why should you meditate at all? Well, from my experience, what mediation does is essentially takes me away from the hustle and bustle of my busy life and brings me back to a peaceful and balanced state of mind. I don't know about you, but my life can get pretty hectic at times. What with cell phones, facebook, email, wireless and mobile internet access, I easily become distracted. So by meditating in the morning, I am purposely taking time out of my day to turn off all my distractions and reconnect with my inner self and my physical body. There are numerous methods in which a person can meditate, so if meditation sounds like something you might want to try I suggest doing a web search for mediation techniques that most resonate with you.

8. Spend more time outdoors!

Easy to say but not so easy to do, huh? I know that in the winter time, certain areas of the country can be almost unbearable to be outside for longer than the walk to and from your car. So with the warmth of spring and summer now upon us I would like to suggest that we all try to purposefully spend more time outdoors this season. Like exercise, being outdoors has an almost therapeutic effect on the human body. The fresh air, the sun on your skin, the peacefulness of nature; the entire experience of being outdoors reconnects you with your natural heritage and has innumerable positive effects on your overall health and well-being. So do yourselves a huge favor and try to get outside as much as you can this summer!

9. Drink more water!

I was reading an article the other day about the role that water plays in the lives of human beings and needless to say, it was fascinating stuff. For example, without enough water:

we would die within 3-4 days.
we wound not be able to go to the bathroom.
our liver and kidneys would not be able to dilute and eliminate toxins.
we rapidly lose the ability to think clearly (since our brains are made up of about 80% water)
we could not sweat and would then overheat.
our joints and muscles could not stay lubricated and would deteriorate quickly.
we would not be able to produce offspring.

The list went on and on but the more I read this, the more I understood the importance of water in our daily lives and how much I had personally been neglecting it. So my hope is that this message influences you to pay closer attention to the amount of water you consume each day. In this past month especially, I have been much more conscious about the amount of water I have been drinking and I have noticed a big difference in my energy levels and in the amount of 'waste' my body has been removing. Stay hydrated and you'll stay healthy!

10. Try to reduce or eliminate the stressors in your life

It is truly remarkable the effect that stress can have on the human body. Just a few weeks ago for instance, I was in line to run a major endurance race (marathon, half marathon and then a 25k) back-to-back, and the amount of stress I was under the weeks and days leading up to each event was enormous. Even though I believed in my own mind that I was maintaining quite well, the effects of my stressing out over each event had become clear the day after my final race when I noticed my bathroom habits became much more regular. Little did I realize, but the stress of having to run back-to-back races had essentially clogged me right up.

It wasn't until after the races were behind me that I was able to take a deep breath and not stress so much. Now granted, this probably is not a typical situation that the majority of you will likely ever face in life; but it is more a lesson that each of us can learn about the damaging effects of stress and how important it is that we learn to keep what stresses us out under control.

Every now and again try to honestly evaluate your life and assess what might be causing you undue stress. Like any problem, we must first identify and admit that we even have one before we can go about the business of solving it. If there is anything in your life that is causing you stress, what can you do today to help reduce or eliminate that burden?

Maybe you're in need of a change of scenery? Perhaps it is time to have a heart-to-heart with your boss about that raise that you earned and never received? Or maybe you just need to find someone who can help you cope with your overloaded plate? For me, my two biggest stressors were my dissatisfaction with my career path and my former addiction to food and drugs. I don't know what your stressors might be, but what I do know is that whatever they are, you're going to have to deal with them. Having a bunch of pent up stress and anxiety is not conducive to a health-filled life.

Final Thoughts:

These are just a few of the many different things that I have personally done in my life that have caused dramatic improvements in my overall health and well-being. My advice to you would be to take whichever recommendation that most piqued your interest and for about a month or so try it out and see how it makes you feel. Maybe even keep a journal so that you can have a record of your progress.

In my experience, integrating just one of these principals into my life caused a kind of chain reaction that ultimately lead to more and more positive change. Who knows, maybe my suggestions will help you too?

Peace and love,

Corey Barton

10 tips to get you through a race

2012-05-08T21:01:00.002-04:00

In light of the approaching summer running/racing season, I thought it would be helpful (and kind of fun) if I shared with you a few tricks that I have picked up over my past three years of running that will hopefully be of some use to you in your current and future running endeavors.

So please enjoy and happy running!

1. Picking Apples

I don't know about you, but when I run I build up a lot of tension in my shoulders. What I've learned over the years is that if you have this same problem, all you need to do is – while you're running, mind you – lift both of your arms up in the air and pretend like you are picking apples off an apple tree for about ten seconds. Then – again, while you are still running – drop both arms below your waste as if they suddenly went numb and shake out all the built-up tension.

I can't tell you why this works, all I know is that it has done wonders for me.

2. Tie your key to your shoes

This one is really simple but it took me about a year before I learned about it while getting ready for a race and I saw someone else doing it.

Pretty self-explanatory! If you are in a pinch and you don't have anywhere to hide your car or house key, simply just loop your shoelace through the top and tie your shoes. For those of you who did not know about this, you are welcome! Now just pass this on to the next person.

3. Reeling people in

This is a fun little trick I learned one day while watching a running documentary. It's really easy: while you are running, pick out another runner that is ahead of you and imagine throwing a lasso around them. After you have the lasso securely fastened, just pretend like you are "reeling" that person toward you so that you can speed ahead of them! I know it sounds kind of silly but for me it's fun and it works!

4. Start slow and finish strong

With everything that goes on during race day, it is really easy to get over excited and start your race off going faster than you had originally trained for. I made this mistake once and I paid the price by running out of energy toward the end.

The simplest way I have found to avoid this common mistake is to know your pace and the finish time you are aiming for. Then at the start of the race just find whatever pace group you belong to and stick close to them. That way you will know for sure that you are not going to fast at the start of the race and that you will more than likely have enough energy to finish strong.

5. Drink at every aid station

Now that it is getting warmer outside, it is especially important to make sure that you stay hydrated during your race. So do yourself a favor and take advantage of the fluids they provide at each aid station.

6. Your arms help move your feet

This may differ slightly from person to person but I believe the fundamentals are pretty much the same for everybody: in order to run it really helps if you move your arms in a way that is comfortable for you. For me, I hold my arms close to my hips and at a 90-degree angle when I run. For you it might feel more natural to keep your arms higher up, closer to your chest.

There has been a lot of great studies done on this subject and if you would like to learn more I would highly recommend you checking out this link from RunnersWorld.com regarding "The Perfect Running Form".

7. Play music in your head

You might not know this but for safety reasons many races these days will not let you to listen to music. For a lot of people this is a challenge. For me it is kind of a double edge sword because I enjoy hearing the crowd cheer me on yet I realize there are going to be those moments during each race where it can get kind of boring. This is why I think it is important for you to know how to listen to music in your head. Maybe this will help you, maybe not. I just wanted to throw that out there in case you didn't know.

8. When you start to feel weak, focus on your cadence

I've touched on this before but I actually just learned today that whenever you start to feel tired during a run it can really help if you focus on your steps per minute (cadence) rather than on the pain or fatigue you might be feeling. Ideally what you want to shoot for is a count of 90 strikes on your right foot every minute of your run (which equals out to a cadence of 180 steps per minute). I tried it out today and it actually helped me out a great deal, maybe it will help you too?

9. Do some research on how to avoid hitting the wall

I was reminded the other day that in spite of my burning desire to help people, I need to make it much clearer that I am not qualified (yet) to dole out specific nutrition advice since I am not a certified nutritionist (yet). That being said, I really want to encourage everyone to do their own research to figure out their own nutritional strategy to avoid hitting "the wall".

I can tell you that personally, eating a lot of carbohydrates the days leading up the race have helped me out a lot. But just because that worked for me does not necessarily mean it will work for you. So don't be afraid to dig until you find a plan that works best for you.

10. Have fun!

I know that nerves and self-doubt have a tendency to creep in the days and hours leading up to the big race; that's only natural. But a great way I have found to alleviate all that pressure and anxiety is to just remind myself to have fun out there! What's the point of doing it if you can't enjoy it right?

Final Thoughts

Please remember to take my advice with a grain of salt. Yes I am an avid runner, but at the end of the day I am really just a normal guy on my own journey. All I want to do is share what I've learned so that it can hopefully help you out on your journey.

Take care and thank you for spending your time reading my article!

Corey Barton

how to eat healthy on a budget

2012-05-04T16:17:00.002-04:00

When it comes to the matter of eating healthy food, a lot of people have developed this knee-jerk reaction where they throw down a flag and declare out loud that it is just way too expensive to eat healthy, organic food these days! Well, I am going to do my best to explain to you why I believe this way of thinking is silly and tell you what I believe you can do to overcome this seemingly impossible dichotomy of eating healthy on a budget.

Why I believe the bulk of the population feels that healthy food is too expensive:

I believe that the main reason people bitch and moan about the high cost of healthy food is because they have a completely inverted value system. I used to be one of these people so trust me, I know! Typically people like this live in a place that is eating up more than 35% of their take home pay and drive around vehicles which eat up roughly 30%. The remaining 35% is usually blown on things like: restaurants, entertainment and cheap boxed or canned foods from their local big league supermarket.

People who live like this are usually the first to complain about having to pay an extra dollar or two for organic produce while they arrogantly stand there with a $5.00 cup of coffee, a $2.00 can of soda, a $6.00 pack of cigarettes or a $17.00 case of beer sitting in their cart...

Does anybody see the problem here? People are complaining about having to pay an extra dollar or two for the "healthy" stuff (which will in turn make them healthy), yet they won't bat an eyelash when it comes to blowing $2.00-$5.00 for a drink? Like I said before, we have a major values inversion happening here.

The individuals who gripe about "overpriced" produce are typically people who overextend themselves and live a lifestyle that is beyond their means. Again, how do I know this? I was one of them! Rather than making the adult decision to scale back on my living/lifestyle expenses and invest more of my money into eating a healthier diet, I just complained about it.

For those of you who find this offensive: I sincerely do apologize, but I am not sorry. I apologize that it took having to read this article for you to realize that your ability to budget effectively is simply not up to par. If it makes you feel any better though; when I first learned this lesson I was damn-near homeless and getting assistance from my brother (who was on food stamps) in order to just survive from week-to-week. So take a deep breath, punch a pillow if you have to, suck it up and lets fix this.

Getting your values in order:

This part is really all up to you. Why? Because I can't possibly sit down with each and every one of you and help you figure out what you might need to cut out in order to make up for your current lack of grocery money.

I can however give you some examples of things my wife and I have decided to get rid of so that we can afford to spend more of our money on the things that truly matter to us and make us healthy and happy (i.e. delicious, healthy food).

Gosh, where to start? Throughout our relationship and well into our marriage, my wife and I have been on a seemingly never-ending cycle of downsizing the amount of financial obligations we have so that we can spend more of our money on whatever the hell we want. For starters: we live happily in a small studio apartment right now so that we don't throw our money away on stupid space to house useless junk in. We believe in living a very simplistic and minimalist lifestyle. Together we decided that all we really "need" right now is just a place to eat, sleep, shower and shit.

Living in such a small space yielded a lot of unexpected advantages and has actually been tremendously beneficial for us. By living in a studio we are sort of forced to make as much use out of our tiny space as humanly possible -- and it has actually been quite fun coming up with new ideas on how to do it. It has also forced us to constantly take inventory of the stuff we have accumulated and determine right away whether or not that particular item is necessary for us to keep -- unlike some who have so much space that things inevitably wind up getting tossed in a corner or on a shelf to be forgotten.

Other things that we have decided are unnecessary expenses are things like cable television. Instead of paying 50 plus dollars per month just to sit on our butts and get bigger, we now only spend $8 per month to have Netflix. Since we only watch maybe one hour of television per day at best, this has worked out very well for us. Also, instead of driving around all the time we occasionally decide that we aren't going to drive for a few days per week when it's nice out and we walk instead.

When it comes to things like our cell phone bill, I have done extensive homework and found a couple of loopholes that allow us to get the most service for our buck while also saving 25% off of every phone bill.

And finally; when it comes to our grocery budget, just because we have extra money to spend from our careful financial planning does not mean we go on a spree every time we hit the supermarket. As a family, we believe that how you do anything is how you do everything. That being said, we allow our frugalness to flow into our grocery buying habits as well. We shop at discount stores like Aldi for most of our basic food staples and toiletries, and then we drive to the big league grocery store down the road (Meijer in our case) for things like: organic produce, almond milk, organic cereals, etc. While we are there, we do our best to take full advantage of any specials they have going on and we are incredibly mindful of how much we are spending so that we don't go over our budget.

Now that it's summer and farmer's markets are going to open up we certainly will be upping our budget and springing for the higher quality local foods that you find there -- but we still have fun and try to be as frugal as we can be. What's fun about farmer's markets is you can sometimes barter or finagle your way into a really great deal once you get to know the people you are buying from week after week.

Final Thoughts

The main idea I want you to take away from this article is that you have all the control when it comes to what you spend your money on. Do you really want to be the kind of person who spends more money on your home, car and entertainment than you do on your health and well-being? These are serious questions you need to ask yourself and answer honestly. If after all of this you find that your budget is a little (or a lot) out of balance, stay calm and just take it one step at a time.

If you need some help, feel free to read my previous article on how to take control of your money.

Spend some time figuring out the unnecessary expenditures that exist in your life today and then figure out what you can do to get rid of them so that you can spend more of your hard earned money on the things that truly matter to you.

Remember, how you do anything is how you do everything. Set a good example now and watch it flow into every area of your life.

Cheers!

Corey Barton

how to get your life back on track

2012-04-28T22:23:00.003-04:00

I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can use my weight loss story to help other people achieve similar success in their own lives. I am constantly trying to come up with new analogies to help people understand the mistakes they might be making in their life and what they can to do make things right again.

Today I am going to talk to you about a simple technique that I developed which has really helped put things in perspective and get every area of my life back on track -- especially my weight!

Your Life Path

It has been a few years now since I have achieved my goal of losing (over) one hundred pounds and dramatically improving my overall health and fitness. After having successfully kept the weight off for the past year or so I have been at my wits end trying to come up with an explanation as to why I succeeded where so many others have failed.

Finally the answer came to me one day when I was out on a long bike ride and suddenly came to a section of the bike path that was too muddy for my road bike to handle. I tried my best to press on but eventually I had no choice but to turn around and find a different way home.

It was at that moment in front of the bridge that it became perfectly clear to me why I became overweight in the first place: I had gone down the wrong path in my life. So what was the solution? What did I do that helped me reverse my weight problems? I turned around and I found the right path.

Imagine for a moment that there is an ideal life path for everyone and that by following this path it would lead them to all the places they were ever meant to go in their lifetime. Just like this path I had been traversing on bicycle, I believe that once upon a time there was an ideal life path I had the option of taking which would have brought me anywhere I could have ever wanted to go in life.

Sadly, like many young people today, I got distracted by the pressures and expectations of life and I wound up hitting a very abrupt dead end. I had to learn the hard way that the farther you stray from your ideal life path... the worse your life becomes. After many years of aimlessly wandering the "forest" I finally decided that enough was enough; I have to turn around and figure out how I can get back on track to become the person I was put on this earth to be.

The only problem was that it had easily been over four years since I last set foot on that path! I remember thinking, "Jeez! Is it really going to take me four years just to get back to square one?!"

Of course I knew the answer was not going to be as simple as all that. I mean, throughout the four years I spent wandering the woods I had taken several detours along the way. So I figured, "If I just spent the better part of four years getting myself lost in these godforsaken woods, it would certainly take me less time to get back where I started from just by knowing where it was I was going."

Sure enough I was right. I spent four years of my life aimlessly wandering the forest only to wind up lost and afraid. But once I decided that I was no longer going to live my life this way, everything became clear. Things like smoking cigarettes, abusing alcohol and overeating were now just stupid things that I did back when I was lost and scared in the woods. Now that I was certain about where I was heading, I could see now that these behaviors and habits were doing me no good and were only preventing me from reaching my life path.

Sitting around and wasting time was no longer an option for me. I had somewhere I needed to be and the more bad habits I could get rid of, the more room I had to pick up the good habits I had been missing out on. Running and cycling were natural choices for me because they helped me reach my path quickly and they were habits that I knew I would hold on to even after I arrived.

Were there times when I got discouraged? Absolutely! I don't care how determined or motivated you are, there will always be unforeseen challenges that will make you consider giving up. But after dedicating all the time and after seeing all the progress I had made along my journey... quitting and going back to my old ways was no longer an option for me. There was no way around it, I was going to succeed or I was going to die trying.

That is the beauty of all of this – if you can just follow this simple blueprint and apply it to your own life, I honestly believe that you will be able to accomplish anything you set your mind to. You want to lose weight? Figure out where you started to stray from your original life path and devise a plan to get back on track as soon as you can. You want to quit a bad habit? Again, figure out where you started to slip and come up with a plan to get yourself back on track as fast as you can!

It is really that simple. Once you discover when you started straying and how long it took to get where you currently are, all you have to do is turn around! It doesn't matter if you are one step in or halfway there. The moment you decide to turn back toward your ideal life path, choosing to get lost again will no longer be an option for you.

Much love and good luck!

Corey Barton

how i see the world: food and nutrition

2012-04-14T22:06:00.003-04:00

I have known for a while now that I have a very unique personally, apparently it is one that only about 1% of the entire world has. That personality I am referring to is called an INTJ.

On a side note: If you are interested and would like to learn more about this and other personality types (including your own) go to www.personalitypage.com.

Anyway, according to this (and every website that writes about personality types), I am unique in the sense that I am capable of recognizing patterns and deciphering difficult problems in a systematic way in order to create a simple and easy to follow solution that I can then apply to my life.

So basically I am able to recognize and understand things that are not so easy for other people to see and understand.

For those of you who know me personally, this might help explain why I am the way I am: I just see the world as one big problem and unlike many, I can actually solve these problems.

So before writing I always ask myself, "What has transpired in my lifetime that could possibly be of some value or use to another human life?" It wasn't long into my meditation before my subconscious mind produced this rather clever idea: Start writing about how you see the world -- specifically from your uniquely logical and systematic perspective.

So here I am.

This is going to be the first in what I am sure will be a continuous series that will involve a variety of topics ranging from health to diseases and everything in-between. These are for the most part going to follow suit with my previous posts and be a mixture of hard facts and anecdotal evidence which I have drawn from my own life experiences.

Now that I've gotten that all out of the way... let's begin!

Food & Nutrition from My Perspective

For those of you who follow me closely and have read my previous posts, by now I am sure you understand to a certain extent my general point of view in regard to diet and nutrition.

So now I am going to go much deeper into my psyche and attempt to reverse engineer my dieting background in order to help you (the reader) understand to a greater degree how I came to believe what I believe...

So here we go!

Brief History: Age 0 - 22

My life before the age of about 22 is really hard for me to remember. Whenever I try to look back and recall what I ate or how I behaved or what I was thinking I can never come up with any solid answers. The reason behind this I believe is due to the fact that I was not really living a very conscious-filled lifestyle. Everything I did was ultimately influenced (in one way or another) by some outside force and I never really took any responsibility for my life.

From Elementary all the way to High School I rarely ever questioned anything out loud. When it came to breakfast, lunch and dinner I didn't really see the point in worrying about it. In my mind I suppose I believed that as long as I didn't go "hungry" than I would be alright. I had no clue what all the foreign stuff on the back of the ingredient labels meant. All I knew in regard to food is whether or not it tasted good enough for me to want to eat it.

After about 22 years though, that way of life had severely taken its toll on me both physically and mentally. As I look back now it is painfully clear that the reason I had such trouble recalling past life events and had become so addicted to drugs and alcohol was because of my lifetime of poor food choices.

The Turning Point: Age 23-24

A lot of things started to change the moment I asked myself why I was eating meat. As time went by I remember I gradually grew more and more interested in conducting research to learn how food affected our health.

It wasn't an overnight thing by any means. I would overhear someone in a restaurant talking about how bad something was to eat and I would remember what they said and when I got home at the end of the day I would sit down and figure out if what they said was true. As the months rolled by the pieces of the puzzle started to fall nicely into place and the big picture was getting clearer every day.

Soon research wasn't enough for me, I needed solid information. More than anything I wanted to hear from people who had actually experimented with and tested these theories in real life on real people. It wasn't long before I went from independent research to obsessively watching health documentaries like Simply Raw & Food Matters. These documentaries convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt that many of the mainstream diseases we see so abundantly in our culture today can be cured by something as simple as a change in lifestyle!

I wrote a rather in depth article about this health documentary experience titled "The Health Benefits of Fruit & Vegetable Juicing". Feel free to click on that link if you would like to read more.

It was only after the hours of independently researching and studying nutrition mixed with the hours spent watching documentaries like these that I finally began to consider the idea of experimenting with these different diets myself.

Again, I never would allow myself to think that I could snap my fingers and suddenly change my life overnight. I kept it slow and steady at first by eating things like oatmeal and bananas for breakfast instead of sugary processed cereals. After a few months of eating like this I noticed that I was dropping rather significant amounts of weight.

What is really interesting to me though is that during those periods of weight loss, like I said before, I really had not changed my diet all that much... the only thing I changed was breakfast.

The more weight I lost, the more curious I became about food and the role that it played in my overall health and well-being. What did nutrients have to do with anything? How could monitoring and ingesting more protein help me reach my weight loss and fitness goals? Once I began asking questions like these I literally could not stop. I had to know everything! Sound crazy? I know -- it's an INTJ thing...

Think about it though, haven't you always been (at least a little bit) curious to know why the majority of people you see on the streets today are overweight? For me it all stems back to that natural curiosity about why I was ever fat to begin with. I knew in my heart that it could not be a coincidence; there had to be a reason. So just like before, I asked questions and conducted research until I found the answers I was looking for.

That tenacity is what helped me uncover the secret to deciphering the ingredients listed on the back of food labels. That discovery in turn lead to me uncovering the real reasons behind our countries overwhelming obesity epidemic:

Government Decided to Subsidize Corn -> Genetically Modified, Inedible & Nutrient Deficient Corn Was Then Mass Produced -> That Then Became High Fructose Corn Syrup -> HF-CS Goes Into Almost Everything You See At The Grocery Store -> We Eat This Crap -> Our Nation Becomes Fat and Sick

After learning about why people are the way they are, I then started to look back in time when HF-CS wasn't even around; when the majority of people were relatively thin and healthy. It was no surprise to me when I learned that pretty much before the fifties (and the boom of the microwavable dinner), the majority of Americans consumed a much more raw, organic and local "diet".

Not only that, but their eating habits were much different than the eating habits of the world we occupy today...

Families did crazy things... liking eating at the table! They had conversations about their days and there was relatively nothing that existed at the time (or was allowed at the table anyway) that could distract them. Because of this they were completely and fully aware of not only the the food they were consuming, but of the conversations they were having as well.

Compare that to the world we live in today: over-sized portions, information inundation, families rarely eating together -- let alone at the same table. Now we have the convenience of drive thrus (I hate that spelling) and fast food chains where people get to eat alone in their cars. Now we have delivery services, "Chinese" food (which isn't even Chinese BTW), pizza nights, refined and processed white breads are everywhere now... the list could go on and on but what this essentially all boils down to is genetically modified, nutrient starved, highly processed, man-made "dead foods" have taken the place of the all-natural, local, wholesome and whole grain foods that we used to eat not so long ago -- and it's killing us.

The reason we have become fat and chronically ill is actually quite simple: Our technology has advanced rapidly in the past 50 years and yet our bodies are still wired the same as they have been for millions of years. If you took away: electricity, cell phones, computers, internet, facebook, pens, paper, shoes, designer clothes, expensive homes, gasoline and automobiles... what would you have left? The human body. It hasn't really changed that much over time; and for what little it has changed, it certainly has not evolved anywhere near as quickly as our lifestyles have over the past 50 years.

When I was first introduced to this simple concept, something clicked inside my brain and everything sort of just made sense to me. I was finally able to see the big picture.

You see we as human beings have foolishly convinced ourselves that our superior and ever-expanding technology will ultimately rescue us from the "inconveniences" of daily life. Unfortunately this is not the case; it actually could not be further from the truth. The truth is that the majority of modern technologies and inventions that were originally designed to help and enhance our lives have actually wound up doing the exact opposite!

If you really stop and think, it really is not that hard to see why our society has been getting progressively worse instead of progressively better:

Shoes | Designed for comfort but they are actually preventing our feet from doing what they have evolved to do very well over millions of years of being shoe-less: walk & run barefoot!
Medicine | Designed to heal but is often making us sick and even when taken correctly, medicine has claimed the lives of millions of people!
Makeup | Created to enhance beauty but it is actually causing more harm than good because most makeup is chock-full of toxic chemicals that when applied get absorbed into your body through the skin and cause internal & external damage.
Fast Food | Meant to be convenient but it is actually making us fat, sick, miserable and dead.

Even seemingly innocent things like electricity and gas heat are not always helpful when it comes to living our lives in the best and most natural kind of way possible. It is no secret that electricity and gas heat have killed people and have caused their fair share of harm to our environment.

Furthermore, it has been known for some time now that electricity, or rather the electromagnetic waves emitted from using electronic devices, can cause cell damage in humans. I could go on and on but my point is that we have become disconnected from our roots and now we are paying for it with our health and with our lives when we really don't have to.

Now I am not suggesting that in order to reverse these problems we all need to completely get rid of all forms of technology and go back to living in caves. What I am suggesting instead is that we all must find a balance between the luxuries that we have the privilege of using every day and the responsibility we have to use and nourish our bodies the way Mother Nature intended.

Again, does this mean that I recommend everyone quit driving or completely give up alcohol or fast food? No! What I am suggesting is that we all need to start today and shift our daily habits to a more natural state of being. Maybe instead of driving to work every day we can commit to either: walking, riding a bike or taking public transportation and purposely get off a few blocks from your destination so you can get a nice walk in before and after work a few times a week. Maybe instead of having fast and heavily processed foods as your standard for breakfast, lunch and dinner... why not try to incorporate more natural alternatives into your meals and have fast food or pizza be the once or twice a week treat?

I can tell you that through my own experiences, this gradual method of converting your diet over has produced tremendous results in my life compared to all the times when I tried to change everything overnight.

Fast change has never worked for anybody. So whenever you are in trouble and you feel like you're ready to give up just remember this: slow and steady wins the race!

How I Saved My Life Through Food: Age 25-100 (or whenever I die)

I am going to be 27 years old soon. And after about two years of dedicating myself to eating healthy food (most of the time), I can testify that it has made a huge difference in my life.

Before I started eating this way, sure I had lost some weight. But I learned later on that I wasn't really doing it the right way. After basically starving myself and rigorously working out three or four hours each day there was no doubt that I was going to see results on the outside -- but on the inside I was still a wreck.

It's hard to describe with words but after changing over to a more natural and organic diet, I just felt like a completely different person inside.

Before I changed what I was eating, yes, I did lose weight. On the outside everything seemed to be going my way: people were congratulating me and giving me a ton of support and constantly asking me what my "secret" was. Looking back now it's kind of funny because my secret was really not a secret at all: I was eating a lot less than I should have been and I was moving my body a lot more than I ever had before. What is funny about that to me is that this is exactly what so many people in this country resort to in order to lose weight -- and it's a crock of shit.

All this ever did for me was help me weigh less and look different on the outside. What I've learned over the years is that the majority of people -- thin and fat alike -- are constantly struggling to find peace and happiness on the inside. But rather than doing the natural thing which is to heal themselves from the inside-out, they believe that it can work the other way around. I thought it could work that way too. I can't begin to tell you just how wrong I was. You can do what I did and work your ass off every day and you will achieve results... but in the end, losing weight and looking better on the outside won't fix anything.

If you are troubled on the inside and you are lacking in nutrition and emotional peace of mind, nothing you do on the outside will ever fix that. This is why I believe so many people in our culture resort to destructive methods of stimulation. Whether it is drug addiction, sex addiction or food addiction it does not matter. The main cause of all of these problems ultimately stems from within. And until you address that, I believe that you'll never truly be happy.

For those of you who know me and perhaps think I am some kind of a kook: I respect you and I understand why you think of me this way. It is a defense mechanism; I used to feel the exact same way about people like me. All I can say is that the only reason I am so passionate about these issues is because it would be wrong for me to have experienced all of this positive change in my life and not even try to share it with those I truly love and care about. All opinions and bullshit aside, I do care about you. I wouldn't be writing for hours on end and racking my brain night and day if I didn't.

If you are struggling with any of the issues that I have mentioned, then I want to help. I feel like I've been given this amazing gift, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it go to waste.

You Can Do It Too!

So what can you do today to improve your life? There are millions of things you can do today to get you on the path towards true peace from the inside-out. I'm only going to give you advice that I have personally used and have since had amazing success with in my own life.

Eat the way nature intended and learn what organic food is and why it is good for you | I'm not going to do the work for you. Bottom line is your body needs vitamins and minerals (not in a pill form!) in order to feel satisfied, happy and fulfilled.
Move what nature gave you | I don't know if you realize this but your body is not yours -- it is on loan from Mother Nature. And when you pass away you do not get to keep it. So my advice to you would be to start waking up every day from this day forward and use it! Do you realize how many people are living in this world right now that would kill to be able to go for just one run? Or a swim? Or a bike ride? Or a walk!? Quit taking your body for granted! It's the most amazing thing you have control of in this world and you need to start treating it that way.
Deal with what is going on between your ears | If you have pent up emotional or psychological stress or anxiety (or whatever it might be), you need to get help. Life is too short to carry that load all by yourself. And you certainly aren't doing anybody any favors by sitting there trying to take care of it alone. Let it out.
Love yourself and love each other | This one has taken me a long time to come to grips with because for a long time I couldn't possibly understand how anybody else could possibly love me. As I've learned, there are a lot of people out there who, like me, grew up inside dysfunctional and "not-so-happy" homes. The stresses of living in that environment inevitably took its toll on me and for most of my life I was unaware of just how much it affected me. Things from my childhood that I had long since repressed all of a sudden began boiling to the surface and it wasn't until I finally recognized and dealt with these emotions that I was able to forgive myself and let it all go. It's was not easy, but it was definitely worth it.

Final Thoughts

I don't know what you're going through in your life right now. My hope is that you are able to live your life to the absolute fullest and learn how to love, appreciate, grow and become happier and healthier every single day for the rest of your life!

Life is short; live it to the fullest!

Love,

Corey Barton

how to overcome the fear of change

2012-04-11T18:40:00.002-04:00

I know a lot of different people who are all at very different stages in their lives, and I realized today that they all have something very special in common: At any given moment, every single one of them has something in their lives that they desperately wish to change.

It doesn't matter if they are wealthy, poor, middle class, fat or thin: everybody is trying to change something about their life today. The problem is that too many of these well intentioned people believe that in order to successfully change something about their lives, all they need is the will to do it. This approach is not wrong necessarily, it is just incomplete. What I have learned is that the best way to affect real and lasting change is to combine that same level of will power with faith and forward thinking.

Whenever you are in the process of carrying out change, will power alone will not help you. Why? Because will power rarely gets you past today. And whenever you attempt to change, today is always going to feel incredibly difficult; that is just the nature of the beast. If you are trying to lose weight, then getting off your butt and going for a half hour walk every day is probably going to be really hard at first. If you are trying to quit smoking, then getting through the next 24 hours without a cigarette is also going to be hard. So to get through these tough "todays," you have to mix that will power with a little bit of faith and forward thinking if you truly wish to succeed.

Think of these three change elements in the same way you would the three most common macro-nutrients that are so vital to human life: will power is similar to a carbohydrate (quick burning fuel), faith is like protein (the building block), and forward thinking is like fat (long term energy/fuel).

Without these three macro-nutrients, the body would not be able to sustain life for very long. The same can be said about our three change elements.

Will power might get you through the first day, or maybe even the first week. But if you have no faith and you are incapable of envisioning what your life will ultimately look like once you achieve your goal, your dream will likely die.

I believe this is the reason why the majority of people fail so miserably when it comes to creating positive change in their lives. For whatever reason they believe that will power alone is all they need to get them through the hard parts and see them through to the end. But it never works that way does it?

I can recall numerous times in my life where I foolishly believed I could will myself into quitting or adopting any given habit whenever I pleased. Unfortunately it took me several years before I finally understood that I had it all wrong: I could not do it on will power alone. I had to have something to look forward to every day. Something that I could put my faith into. Something that let me know without any doubt that I was on the right path to achieving my goals.

Let me give you a few examples of how this method has helped me in my life:

When I decided to quit smoking, I knew that for me to succeed I had to keep my attention off of smoking and shift it somewhere else. So every day, rather than obsess over not being able to smoke cigarettes, I chose to obsess over putting the $5.00 a day (that I would have spent on cigarettes) into my savings account instead. Before I began, I had complete faith that this would work for me. After 30 days, I seriously could not have cared any less about smoking. I was so excited to see that I had money in my savings account that the idea of wasting it on smoking was not even an option anymore.
When I decided to lose weight, instead of focusing on how hard it was going to be to exercise and monitor what I was eating every day, I put my faith in (and focused only on) the end result: the healthier, thinner, happier version of me. I held (and still hold) on to that mental image every single day. In the mornings when I woke up and that voice inside kept nagging and telling me to give up and go back to sleep, that image is what kept me going. Why? Because my will power faded quickly, that image of my future self did not.

Final Thoughts

All you have to do is apply these three simple change elements to your life and you will be well on your way to experiencing all the wonderful dreams that you hope to achieve in your own life. Real and lasting change is possible, all you have to do is believe in yourself and you can make it happen.

Best of luck and thanks for reading!

Corey Barton

with privilege comes great responsibility

2012-04-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

Ever since I was a young child I have had a rather skeptical temperament. Looking back over the course of my lifetime I can recall dozens of different situations where I was very quick to question the validity of what I was being told or lead to believe. And what I found was that many of the things that I had once believed to be true were actually lies manufactured with the clear and explicit intent to keep me ignorant to the truth, to keep me in line, and keep me under control.

When I was a young child, I confess that I was awestruck when I was first told about the existence of good old Saint Nicholas. Now, whether or not I actually believed that he was real is debatable because I honestly can't remember. What I do remember though is that I always had my doubts...

When I was about seven years old, I came up with this brilliant plan to prove whether or not "Santa Clause" was real. So on Christmas Eve night I went up to my room at my usual bedtime and pretended to fall asleep. After a few hours of patiently waiting I heard a noise come from our living room downstairs! I opened my eyes slowly to make sure the coast was clear before I slipped out of my bed and tip-toed down the staircase.

I arrived at the bottom with ninja-like stealth and then proceeded to crawl through our dining room to get to the living room where our tree was located. When I arrived at the archway I was a bit stunned to hear what sounded like the voices of my Mother and Father..."It couldn't be, could it?!" I had come too far to turn back now; I had to see for myself.

I slowly stuck my left eye past the archway to take a look at what was going on. My suspicions had been confirmed. What did I see? None-other than my own mother placing the presents under our tree while my father delicately polished off the chocolate chip cookies that we had specifically prepared for Santa... along with the milk!

That was it, the mystery had been solved and I had seen enough. I tip-toed my way back up the stairs without being detected, I slipped back into my warm bed and fell into a deep, peaceful slumber.

What is so interesting about this story for me is that it perfectly sums up my unique drive to stop at nothing to find the truth. Even at such a young age when I learned that the whole thing had actually been a lie, I was not the least bit upset. In fact, I remember feeling sort of relieved to know the truth. The pressure that I had been putting on myself mixed with the stress that was caused from my constantly questioning the existence of such a being had been eating away at me for so long that when I finally learned the truth I felt liberated -- like everything was finally right in the world.

Ever since then you can imagine that I have pretty much questioned (read: challenged) the authority and validity of pretty much everyone and everything you can imagine: parents and teachers, police officers, doctors, babysitters, vaccinations, abortion rights, human rights, popular diets, illegal drugs, prescription drugs/medications, fast food, meat-eating, the relationship between gas mileage and personal driving style, human addictions, the human propensity to hold tight to relationships that are obviously not healthy, our broken health care system, you name it...

As a result of my questioning everything, I have developed a rather unique ability to see through the glitz and glamour of the various popular belief systems that exist in our culture today and I am able to clearly see them for what they truly are: Santa Clause-like hoaxes designed to keep people ignorant to the truth, keep them in line, and to keep them under control.

Hmm... Sound familiar?

Gotcha! The Diet Trap...

At this point, you're probably thinking, "He could pretty much break off and discuss literally anything that relates to human beings and their particular vices right now." And you'd be right, I could. But for the sake of time I am going to skip all that other stuff (for now) and focus instead on a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I want to talk to you about what I believe is one of the most elaborate and dangerous hoaxes that exist in our world today: commercial diets.

Fact: More people die from diet and lifestyle related diseases today than any drug (legal or not) in the entire world!

According to The Boston Medical Center, approximately 45 million Americans "diet" each year, and together they spend roughly $33 billion on weight-loss products in their pursuit of a trimmer, fitter body.

What that means is approximately 45 million Americans today are voluntarily prescribing to one form of fad "dieting" or another. Dieting has essentially become a national pastime in this country. And because of the deceitful ways these dieting programs are being marketed, it is really no wonder why so many people feel compelled to try them.

Three years ago, when I was actually part of this growing epidemic of poor health, I tried every fad diets you could think of. Inevitably my penchant for truth and justice finally broke free and I woke up to the reality of what was truly happening to me. When I looked in the mirror, I knew right away that before I could ever get the chance to help other people overcome their own weight issues I would have to set an example by taking care of myself first.

Today I feel confident that I have proven beyond any doubt now that fad diets do not work. After three years of dedication, hard work, relentless study, trial and error, I believe that I have finally come up with a real solution that will effectively help people overcome this "dieting" problem once and for all.

What is the solution...?

Education!

I believe that first and foremost, everyone, regardless of their current weight, health or fitness status, needs to spend some time and become properly educated about not just the foods they are choosing to put into their bodies every day, but also about what their food is actually doing once they've finished eating.

Why everyone? Because regardless of your current weight, health or fitness status, everything you eat today will ultimately have an impact on how you will look and feel tomorrow. It's common sense.

If you are overweight and you decide to eat healthier foods, this decision will most likely lead you down a path towards being much more trim and healthy. The same can be said about a thin person. If you are already thin and you choose (or continue) to make poor food choices today, then eventually that will take you down a path of being overweight and/or unhealthy. It does not matter who you are, nobody can escape the repercussions of their past food choices. All you can do is decide to make better choices today in the hope that it will lead to a better future tomorrow.

Second: I believe that the population as a whole needs to start appreciating the fact that this modern world we live in is not a god / nature / universe-given right, it is a privilege! A privilege that I believe has been taken for granted. Due to this lack of respect and appreciation, our country is now experiencing an obesity and health crisis that is unparalleled to any other on earth. For the first time in human history, we might actually have to see our children perish before we do.

As I mentioned earlier, millions of people are putting stock into these fad diets. Over time these people become discouraged and believe that their health is no longer their responsibility. What's worse is that regardless of whether or not an individual actually manages to achieve his/her initial goal of losing weight, almost everyone who goes on one of these fad diets will eventually wind up reverting back to their old junk food diet. Most of them will actually put on even more weight than before they started! Why are people sabotaging themselves like this? Because these dieting systems have failure built right into them.

What most people do not understand is that like cigarettes, processed foods and fad diets are chemically engineered to keep you hooked and coming back for more. The companies that are in charge of them have basically zero interest in selling you healthy food. Their main concern is the selling and marketing of a product. Their bottom line is profits, and you can bet that these junk food and diet companies make a lot of dollars doing just that. But in terms of actually helping their clientele achieve or maintain a level of health that can be sustained throughout ones lifetime, most of them make absolutely no sense.

When you really stop and think about it, commercial diets are nothing more than a way for people to avoid having to take responsibility for the food they are putting into their bodies. And yet day after day, millions of people expect that if they just follow a certain diet for a short period of time they will get thin... and then they can go back to life as it was before...

This is a completely backwards way of thinking, and it needs to stop.

So what can you do if you're stuck in this predicament? Like I mentioned before, I believe that it all begins with proper education. In order to break yourself free from this current dieting paradigm you really need to learn and understand what a diet really is.

Simply put: A diet is nothing more than the food and drink that an organism consumes in order to sustain a healthy, long and vibrant life. Now, compare that definition of a diet with what millions of people are choosing to consume every day and you'll start to see the problem. Instead of eating the kind of food that we were naturally designed to eat, many people are choosing instead to eat food that is unnatural and harmful.

Eating like this is not a way of life; it is a way of death.

Based on personal experience, I believe that the best way to achieve optimal health and an ideal body weight is to purposefully shift your diet back to the where mother nature intended.

How do you do that?

Well for me, the simplest way to figure that out was by asking myself, "What would I do if I were suddenly transported to a remote area of the world where I did not have access to the convenience of supermarkets and processed junk food? What would I eat? How would I survive? Could I survive, or would I just give up and throw in the towel?"

After thinking long and hard about these questions I realized that for me to get my life back on track I needed to start making small adjustments that would eventually get me to a place where I was already living that kind of all-natural lifestyle.

By living in balance with nature, I matured into a new person that depends much more on myself, and much less on the comforts and convenience of modern-day living.

My hope is that after reading this you can better see, appreciate and understand the tremendous responsibilities that go along with the privileges we have all been given to eat what we please.

We only get one body; please don't take that privilege for granted.

Peace & Love,

Corey Barton

how to live an exceptional life

2012-03-24T16:56:00.001-04:00

All the way up until in the year 1954, it was a common and widely propagated myth (created by sports writers) that a human being was physically incapable of running a 4 minute mile.

¹ "The reason the myth took hold was that four minutes was a nice round number which was slightly better (1.4 seconds) than the world record for nine years, longer than it probably otherwise would have been because of the effect of World War II in interrupting athletic progress in the combatant countries."

Then on May 6, 1954, during a meet between British AAA and Oxford University, Mr. Roger Banister finally broke the world record. He ran the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, and achieved what others had claimed to be physically impossible.

Since that amazing feat in 1954, eighteen people have gone on to best that mile record, along with thousands of other people who have since been able to break the 4 minute mile.

Why am I telling you this story? Because this story changed how I live my life today.

You see, for the majority of my young adult life:

I believed that in order to have money and be happy, I had to get a "job".
I believed that it was a true sign of success to live a very high consumption lifestyle.
I believed that debt was a "normal" and necessary way of living.
I believed that exercise was a waste of time.
I believed that animal products were healthy.
I believed that I had no choice but to put up with negative and toxic relationships.
I believed that it was a good idea to party like there was no tomorrow.
I believed that driving a new car was a smart idea.
I believed that it was normal to get fatter as I got older.
I believed that prescription medications were the solution to a lot of our country's health problems.

Basically I believed in a lot of the same things that the vast majority of our society believed (and still believes) to be true, and that made me feel comfortable and accepted by everyone around me.

But beneath that superficial life that I was portraying to the outside world through overpriced apartments and expensive clothing and cars, I was a very unhappy person. I kept trying to fill my life in with all the things I thought I needed to get people to like me, but deep down I knew that this was really no way to live.

The Turning Point

Looking back, in many ways I was incredibly fortunate that the powers-that-be intervened and essentially forced me to make the necessary changes in my life that I had been unwilling to make on my own. Several of my formerly rock-solid belief systems had been abruptly taken away from me and I had to choose whether I wanted to sink or swim -- thankfully I chose to swim.

A lot of very tempting options presented themselves to me during that fragile phase of my life. For instance: When I was without transportation while living in Florida, I easily could have gone to one of those shady car lots that will let you finance a vehicle for zero down in exchange for an outrageously overpriced monthly payment -- but instead I chose to be "weird" and rode my bike to work instead.

There was no way of knowing it at the time, but when I made that decision to not do what everybody else would have done, something changed inside me. It was like an enormous stone had been thrown into the giant pond that was my life. That one decision had caused a new ripple in the way I made decisions, and it completely changed me.

More importantly though, that decision gave me the confidence to open my eyes and see the obvious flaws associated with following the crowd and doing what everybody else does.

The Payoff

Whenever I look at stories like these, they give me the inspiration and encouragement I need to pursue my own dreams without worrying that they might not come true. Thanks to people like Roger Bannister, I now believe that I can pursue and accomplish anything I set my mind to -- regardless of whether people believe it's possible or not.

Ever since I decided to live my life in this way, I have:

lost one hundred and thirty pounds.
quit smoking cigarettes on my own.
reaped the benefits of eating a vegetarian diet.
found my own unique blend of faith that resonates with my heart and soul.
met and married the most amazing woman in the world!
ran and biked thousands upon thousands of miles.
learned how to live from my heart.
learned how to accept (and be) myself, regardless of what other people think.
discovered happiness and fulfillment in my life and work.
learned to live comfortably below my means, free from the confines of debt.
learned self disciplined.
learned to take responsibility for my own health and not depend on health insurance or medicine to get me through life.
become an all around better human being.

Now when I look at the things I'm trying to accomplish in my life -- instead of searching high and low for made up rules or ancient excuses as to why something is impossible or why something can't be done (like most people do) -- I choose to search high and low for the people who have successfully done what I am trying to do, and I follow their lead. If I can't find anyone, then it's up to me to create the exception to that particular rule so that others can follow in my footsteps.

Just think about all the things that have been accomplished in this world that were once believed by the masses to be impossible, and how all it took was one or two individuals to change our world forever. What's stopping you from being the next Henry Ford or Roger Bannister or Steve Jobs? What myth or false belief might be holding you back from achieving your own dreams of becoming the person you ultimately want to be? What can you do today that will put you on the path towards being that person?

Nobody should have to settle for an average life. Whatever you want to do, if you believe in your heart you can do it, then you can do it. No matter what your dreams may be, my sincere hope is that you figure out what they are and let nothing stop you from achieving them.

You know, we only have this one life. So why not take full advantage of your creativity and your curiosity while you still have the chance? Strive to become the change that you want to see in this world -- and then don't stop until you do it!

Remember, it's only impossible until somebody else does it.

Much love,

Corey Barton

¹ Roger Bannister - Wikipedia

don't be afraid to be yourself

2012-03-19T17:37:00.002-04:00

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day, and at one point something occurred to me that I had never really thought about before: A lot of people these days are living in fear of expressing their true selves.

As I began discussing the implications of this idea, I struggled to articulate how I went from being someone who was afraid of the truth, to being someone who embraced it with open arms.

I knew there were many times in my past where I had been absolutely terrified of what would happen if people discovered the truth about who I really was or how I truly felt inside.

Then I thought about how four years ago -- around the same time I began my journey to lose weight and get my life in order -- something happened that changed the trajectory of my life forever...

I let go of my fears!

Fear of judgement
Fear of failure
Fear of rejection
Fear of not fitting in
Fear of ridicule
Fear of death
Fear of being laughed at
Fear of abandonment

I knew that before I could move forward in my life, I was going to have to face the man in the mirror and accept who I was for better or for worse.

The first fear I tackled was the fear I had of being judged and/or made fun of. That was a relatively easy fear to overcome once I understood that some people are (and always will be) pricks, and that the only thing that truly matters was what I thought about myself.

Accepting that fact lead me to the profound conclusion that all of my fears existed only in MY MIND -- I was in control of them!

This simple idea was the key that ultimately freed me from my fears, and I finally began living a life filled with pure honesty and complete transparency. Unfortunately, when that happened, the world at large was not entirely eager to reciprocate...

What I discovered is that the majority of the people in our culture are living their lives just as I had been living before -- hiding from their fears and from the truth.

Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I have any clue as to what kind of junk you might personally be hiding from or have yet to deal with in your life. All I can tell you for sure is that when you do decide to finally own up to (and deal with) your problems, you will discover that they were not as big of a deal as you had previously made them out to be.

Whatever you are ashamed of, it will do you absolutely no good to bottle it up or pretend like it never happened. You are much better off accepting it as a part of your past that you are not particularly proud of -- and then move on.

When you do this you take away whatever power your junk might have held over you, and you can then be free to focus that power towards something beautiful, constructive and worthy of you.

I believe Dr. Seuss said it best...

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter won't mind."

Deep down, people crave authentic relationships. People want friendships that truly matter! So talk with a friend, talk to your spouse, or maybe just talk to someone you trust. It really doesn't matter who, but you need to talk to somebody. No matter how stupid or frightening it may seem, you have to let your junk out. When you do, I promise you will feel better.

Don't waste your life forever trying to live up to the expectations of other people. Instead learn to love, embrace and be who you are!

Peace and love,

Corey Barton

10 simple ways to improve your life

2012-03-10T14:11:00.007-05:00

Over the past few years I have read a lot of fantastic work regarding the different methods one can use in order to improve the quality of their life. More importantly though, I have experimented with them.

As a direct result, I have come up with a pretty neat array of different things that you can do today to help improve your own life.

Below is a list, in no particular order, of a few things that I have applied to my life that have had a positive impact on me personally. My advice to you is to not take my word for it, but to simply try these methods out for yourself and see if they might be helpful to you.

[1] Exercise.

I could talk to you all day about the benefits of exercising, but for the sake of time I will try to keep these brief and to the point.

Thirty minutes of exercise every day can work wonders in your life. To me, exercise is simply a fun and rewarding way to maintain and repay your body for being so wonderful to you. I've said this before, but it truly does not matter what kind of exercise you do. As long as you figure out a way to move your body for 30 minutes (1/48th of your entire day) every day, it will help you avoid weight gain and will also release chemicals into your bloodstream that will make you feel happier.

Exercise is always a win/win!

[2] Spend a little time educating yourself about what you are putting in to your body.

Before I really got in to studying nutrition and raw foods, I was just like many of you: I believed a lot of the things that were told to me. I took comfort and felt comfortable with the little information I had about the food I was eating every day.

When I started to study nutrition on my own, I learned a lot of "new" and really useful things about food that were actually really easy to comprehend, I just never had bothered to take the time to learn them before. Most of what I read, I believed right away because it just made sense to me.

Milk actually draws calcium away from your bones because cow milk is acidic.
The older a food is, the less nutrients it has.
Cooking food (and heat in general), depletes vitamins and minerals in all foods.

The list can go on and on really. The point I am trying to make is that by taking a little time out of my life and dedicating it to teaching myself about different topics that were affecting my life, it yielded a lot of positive results.

Realistically, it only took about one book and two documentaries before I felt informed and comfortable with the decision to change my eating habits around to where it actually began to improve my body and mind.

If you would like some recommendations, you can email me and I would be more than happy to help you.

My hope though, is that I have encouraged you enough with my own positive results that you feel inspired to seek out some truth for yourself that is relevant to you in your life.

[3] Drink Distilled Water.

In my quest to find truth in my own life, I have discovered a lot of not so great things about the stuff that is found in standard tap water these days, namely fluoride.

I'm not going to get into my beliefs about what you should be putting into your body, and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I never drink tap water either - that's just silly.

But I can tell you that from what I have learned, distilled water is relatively inexpensive (0.87 cents per gallon) and is the cleanest water you can drink. I don't know about you, but I just really love putting good stuff into my body if I can help it.

[4] Try going meatless just one day a week.

Meatless Mondays have become a pretty popular new trend that is sweeping the nation right now, and I'm all for it! Despite my own personal reservations about meat, I honestly believe that everyone can have fun and benefit from finding new and delicious dishes to eat that do not contain meat once a week.

I believe that the positive effects from not eating meat for just one day can, and likely will, trickle down into the rest of your week. Over time it will help you enjoy a much wider variety of foods.

Yet another win/win situation!

[5] Eliminate debt and discover fun and creative ways to reduce your current spending.

I am by no means a rich man - at least not yet any way. One thing I can tell you is that even though I am not rich by traditional standards, I am wealthy.

I have learned from the error of my ways that debt is not a good idea, and that the money I work for is important enough to me that I want to spend it in the most wise way possible. What does that mean exactly? It means I have sought out information to educate myself on how to lower my bills and downgrade my expenses so that I have more freedom in my life to do what I want with the money I earn.

To me, wealth is related more to a state of mind than a number. I feel financially free now from debts and because of that I have less stress and less worry in my life. This creates a positive snowball affect that leaves me feeling free and fulfilled to do what I want with the money I have. It also affords me the freedom to pursue work that truly matters to me.

I encourage others to live in such a way that they no longer have to worry about money and can focus instead on joy, abundance and peace.

I would be happy to offer any advice I can to anyone who might be struggling and would like some assistance with getting on a track to winning with their finances.

[6] Take time to discover work that plays to your strengths.

This kind of goes along with what I wrote in the previous step. The reason I feel this is so important is because when you are working in an area that plays to your strengths, you are far more likely to be excellent at it. By excelling at your work and loving what you do, you are also more likely to receive an increase in pay.

This is a subject that I am currently dealing with right now, so I'm not going to pretend that I have it all figured out. What I have learned so far though, is that your strengths and weaknesses are probably not what you believe they are.

Based on what I have learned, your strengths are things you do that make you feel strong, which is a sharp contrast to the popular belief that your strengths are merely the things you are good at.

The best advice I can give you is to watch this thirty minute short film that was made by a well renowned author and motivational speaker named Marcus Buckingham. It has been incredibly helpful to me in my own journey to discover my strengths, perhaps it will help you too.

[7] Read one non-fiction book a month that will help you grow as an individual.

Listen, I know that some of you out there are not very fond of reading non-fiction books. In fact, I even empathize and understand why you do not like them. Perhaps you think they are dull or that they just aren't exciting enough to match up to your fantastic fictional worlds you are accustomed to.

I get it. Truth be told I am not a fiction reader, but I can attest that I adore fictional films. Heck, I can recite every single Harry Potter movie almost word-for-word.

But the fact is that in order to really grow as individuals, we need to learn from people who have already been through what we are (about to be) going through. That's not to say that fiction doesn't have it's place. I have learned a lot from many fictional characters in my life. I have adopted their positive character traits and I feel they have improved my life and made me into a better person.

What I'm trying to say to you, is that in order to learn about the really important things like personal finance, weight management, diet & nutrition, personal hygiene, sexual reproduction, etc., you will absorb a great deal more from a non-fiction book than you ever will from reading a fictional book regarding the same subjects. Like I said before: We learn best when we can relate what we are learning to something real and tangible.

Listen, I want you to be able to do the things you love to do. But in order to do that, you need to learn how to expand your mind and educate yourself about these adult subjects that are relevant and important to you in your own life.

Whatever the case may be, I highly recommend you give this one a real shot. Reading non-fiction has been incredibly beneficial to me in my life, and I truly believe they will help you too.

[8] Watch less television.

I read a statistic once that claimed that for every hour of television watched, your lifespan is shortened by twenty-two minutes.

I don't exactly know how they came up with that statistic, but what I can tell you is that from personal experience, watching less television is always a good thing.

Why? Because it gives you more time to do the things you really love to do: go outside, play music, read books, have conversations with people you love, exercise, draw, etc. Wouldn't you agree that pretty much anything is better than wasting an entire day sitting in front of the television screen?

Me personally, I try my best to limit myself to maybe one hour a day, and that is usually right before I go to bed at night.

[9] Spend more time with friends and family.

This one might sound kind of obvious, but it's amazing to me how helpful it can be to remind myself to do this every now and again. Because let's face it, life gets busy. Before we know it we have become so engulfed in our own lives that close friends and family members fall by the wayside.

The reason I believe this is so important to remember, is because I have personally experienced what happens when I fail to maintain my relationships with the people I love and care about most. I realize now that it has a direct affect on my mood, my happiness and my sense of personal fulfillment.

I don't know about you, but when I go too long without connecting with a friend or family member, I get this nagging sense that something is missing in my life. Then this sort of emptiness and longing for human interaction hits me like a sack of bricks until I wake up and realize that it has been far to long since I saw them last.

I bring this up to highlight the simple fact that in my life, in order to be happy, I sometimes need to remind myself how important it is to spend more time with the people I love. All I'm suggesting is that maybe you might too.

[10] Create!

The last one is rather easy but again, a lot of us get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that we develop a tendency to neglect our built-in desire to express our creativity.

Whether it be drawing, sculpting, writing or singing - set it in your weekly planner to spend at least one hour each week doing something that allows you to express your own unique abilities.

You'll be amazed how much fun and how much happiness that one hour will draw into your life.

Final Thoughts

I have come a long way from being a mopey eeyore, to truly feeling fulfilled and happy inside. Granted, I am by no stretch of the imagination "perfect", but I still strive each and every day to improve myself and find new ways to make the best out of my short time on this wonderful planet.

My hope is that you too will learn to develop new ways to squeeze as much joy and happiness out of life as you possibly can.

Take care.

~Corey Barton

5 tips to lose 15 pounds fast

2012-02-28T19:30:00.002-05:00

In an effort to help people achieve a healthier weight and adopt healthier life habits, I have come up with a short list of five simple things you can change in your life that will help you lose weight quickly. The trick to it though, is that you have to make them a habit.

How do you make it a habit exactly? Real simple: you need to practice said habit every single day, for 28 days.

After that it will become as automatic to you as brushing your teeth every morning. It's hard to explain unless you've experienced it before, but you just won't feel right if you don't continue these habits after 28 days.

So take a deep breath and relax... this is going to be fun!

[1] Give up the white stuff for 28 days.

Before the start of the 28 day clock, go through your entire house and anything that is white, get rid of it!

For example:

White Bread
White Rice
White Flour
White Sugar
White Salt
White Milk
White Potatoes

Does this mean that you can never eat these things again?! No... All it means is that instead of white, you are going to replace it with whole grain and/or whole wheat products.

Here are a few examples of what would be acceptable to eat:

15 Grain Wheat Bread
Whole Grain Brown Rice
Whole Wheat Flour
Brown Sugar (in moderation folks)
If something already has salt in it that's fine. Just do not add any additional salt to anything and you will be okay.
Almond or Soy Milk
Red Potatoes

If you come across something and you aren't sure whether it would be considered white or not, just take a good look at it or read the ingredients label. If it looks white or has the word "white" in the ingredients list, don't eat it.

[2] Give up all soda for 28 days.

There are a multitude of reasons why soda is bad for you. I am not going to delve into the science behind why you should not drink it. Instead I'm going to give you my best synopsis based on what I have learned and experienced in my own life.

Soda has A LOT of sugar in it. Too much sugar makes you fat. Period.
Drinking too much sugar will make you crave more sugary drinks and foods throughout a given day, which will make you even fatter.
Diet soda - even though it has no "calories" - is a chemical soup that tricks your system into believing you consumed something sweet (just like regular soda does). On a psychological level, drinking diet soda makes you eat more calories because you believe it had absolutely zero affect on your system. Well guess what, it did, and guess what else... diet soda makes you fat too.

What should you drink instead? Well... the only thing I would recommend is water with lemon in it. Preferably distilled water if you can, but any water will do. The majority of people don't realize this, but you could work out for 8 hours a day, and if you don't drink enough water, it will all be all for nothing.

Why? Because your body needs a lot of water in order to remove the excess waste (weight) through your bowels. So as a side challenge I would recommend drinking an abundance of water every day for 28 days to help your body do its job.

[3] Do ANY kind of exercise for 30 minutes a day, for 28 days.

Oh no! The dreaded E word!! Relax guys; I'm going to make this really, really easy for you. How? By helping you redefine the word exercise to better fit your current lifestyle. Because to me and the rest of the world, exercise is defined as any activity that brings your heart rate up and makes you sweat - that's it!

So seriously, keep this simple. Just think of anything you enjoy doing that makes you sweat, and then find a way to do it 30 minutes a day for 28 days.

Examples:

Have sex!
Mow the lawn with a push mower
Shovel the driveway
Walk at a brisk pace
Jog
Elliptical
Bicycle
Play a sport
Throw a ball around

Do you get what I'm saying yet? Just find something you can do every day, put it on your schedule in advance, and then have fun doing it! It really is that easy.

[4] Take the stairs and park far away for 28 days.

This one is easy: Whenever you have the opportunity to take the elevator or park close to where you are trying to go, take the stairs and park far away instead.

I know it might feel like a pain in the butt at first, but just remember that those few extra calories will add up over time. Make this a daily habit for 28 days and it will pay dividends for years to come.

[5] Eat more fruits and vegetables for 28 days.

No, I am not asking you to give up eating meat. All I am suggesting is that for 28 days you find a way to incorporate fruits and vegetables into every meal. If you would like more information, you can read my previous blog post about "how to live naturally". I will not go into great detail here; this is meant to be short and simple.

Here are a few examples to get your brain working:

For breakfast if you typically have cereal, try adding a sliced banana to the mix.
For lunch, have a healthy salad with walnuts.
For dinner have a side of steamed carrots or peas along with a side salad.

Final Thoughts

I know it's easy to get stuck on a certain path and forget how you wound up there in the first place. I understand - I really do.

After 28 days you will no doubt go back to being the busy body you were before. The trick though, is that once these habits become your habits, you will finally be able to move forward without having to worry about your weight. By making these small changes, you will finally become the person you deserve to be.

Cheers to a healthy and happy new you!

- Corey Barton

why meat is bad for you

2012-02-25T18:03:00.001-05:00

Ever since I made the decision to stop eating meat, we have encountered a lot of resistance and skepticism from our friends and family regarding our new lifestyle choice. And while I could not care less about what anybody else thinks of us or our way of life, for personal reasons I felt compelled to write an article to help explain to everyone exactly why we stopped eating meat, and why you should too.

So here it goes.

1. It is morally wrong.

How can anyone claim to be an animal lover, if you are also an animal eater? As a vegetarian, I have absolutely no reservations about eating any: fruit, vegetable, bean or nut; because I know that every variety is delicious and nutritious. Now, do you think that a truly carnivorous animal cares about what type of meat it will eat when it gets hungry? No, because they are true meat eaters. Therefore, they eat any and all meat, regardless of species, and they eat it raw and bloody. Sometimes they even resort to eating their own kind!

Humans on the other hand are very picky about where their meat comes from: and no matter what, it has to be cooked and heavily seasoned before it even enters their mouth. If humans were truly meant to eat meat, we too would not care from which animal it came, we would also be perfectly comfortable eating it raw and bloody. So if the idea of eating the raw meat of a cat, a rat, your dog, a family member, a horse, a squirrel or an eagle make you feel sick or uncomfortable, then why on earth would you be okay with eating the meat from a poor, innocent, defenseless, sick and malnourished cow? Wake up people!

Companies that make money selling you meat to eat spend billions of dollars every year to convince you that their product is delicious and good for you. Let's face it; you, me and billions of others have been duped. Your parents, your parent's parents, and their parents before them, have all been tricked by this industry. For generations our families have passed this misinformation down, simply because they never bothered to ask why they were eating what they were eating. Many of them have or will go on to suffer from a variety of horrible medical conditions later on due to their intake of meat - which is fantastic news for the pharmaceutical industry! Lord knows they need more money...

You have to open your eyes people. These companies know exactly what they are doing. They depend and bet on the stupidity of the general public to do whatever they are told to do. They know that meat is horrible for you and causes disease and other health problems. Quit being a mindless drone and use your brain. The only way to stop them is to stop supporting them with your money.

Don't believe me? Watch this.

2. Meat is disgusting and deep down, you know it.

As you can see, it's not hard to find an informative documentary or a clip that uncovers the gross and disgusting nature of the meat slaughter and meat packing industry. These animals are brutally tortured, mistreated, branded, and then murdered. Like it or not, when you buy their product, you are supporting this horrible business. Not only is the treatment of these poor animals disgusting, but the way that some of these animals are processed and packaged, it can be near impossible to determine exactly what part of which animal you are actually eating! How would you feel if you knew that the ground beef in your freezer was made from the combined meat of several hundred cows; and that same package of beef most likely contains a wide variety of different animal parts?

Husband: "What's for dinner tonight honey?"
Spouse: "Well, we'll be having a combination of cooked beef intestine, beef eyeballs, beef tongue, beef heart, and beef anus."
Husband: "That sound delicious!"

Hungry?... No?... I didn't think so.

3. It makes you - or will make you - fat and unhealthy.

Based on what I've learned about what happens to your body when you consume meat, and also on my own life experience, it isn't hard to see that people who regularly consume meat are not the thinnest or fittest people in the world. How does eating meat make you fat and unhealthy? Simply put, cooked meat is calorie dense and nutritionally deficient. What this means is that even though your body can (barely) process the meat and get it out of your system, it does your body little or no good in terms of actual nourishment. Comparatively speaking, meat also stays in your system much longer than fruits, veggies, beans and nuts.

"Have you ever seen what happens to a piece of meat that stays in the sun for three days? Meat can stay in the warmth of the intestine for at least four to five days until it is digested. It does nothing but wait for passage. Often, it usually stays there formuch longer. Medical doctors have found traces of undigested meat remaining in the colon for up to several months. Colonic therapists always see meat passing through people who have been vegetarians for several years, thus indicating that meat remains undigested there for a long time. Occasionally this has been documented in twenty-year vegetarians!"-CelestialHealing.net

On the other hand, the foods that our bodies were designed to ingest (i.e. fruits, veggies, legumes, nuts, etc.) digest much more easily and rapidly, simply because our bodies were designed to eat them!

4. According to celestial healing, more evidence points to humans being herbivores, not carnivores.

"Many people ask me, "If we weren't supposed to eat meat than why do we?". It is because we are conditioned to eat meat.

Also, the ADA (American Dietetic Association) tells us that "most of mankind for most of human history has lived on a vegetarian or lacto-ovo vegetarian diet."

The chart below compares the anatomy of man with that of carnivorous and herbivorous animals.

When you look at the comparison between herbivores and humans, we compare much more closely to herbivores than meat-eating animals. Humans are clearly not designed to digest and ingest meat.

Meat-eaters: have claws Herbivores: no claws Humans: no claws

Meat-eaters: have no skin pores and perspire through the tongue Herbivores: perspire through skin pores Humans: perspire through skin pores

Meat-eaters: have sharp front teeth for tearing, with no flat molar teeth for grinding Herbivores: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding Humans: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding

Meat-eaters: have intestinal tract that is only 3 times their body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass through quickly Herbivores: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length (from mouth to anus). Humans: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length (from mouth to anus).

Meat-eaters: have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat Herbivores: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater. Humans: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater

Meat-eaters: salivary glands in mouth not needed to pre-digest grains and fruits. Herbivores: well-developed salivary glands which are necessary to pre-digest grains and fruits. Humans: well-developed salivary glands, which are necessary to pre-digest, grains and fruits

Meat-eaters: have acid saliva with no enzyme ptyalin to pre-digest grains Herbivores: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains Humans: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains

Based on a chart by A.D. Andrews, Fit Food for Men, (Chicago: American Hygiene Society, 1970)

Clearly if humans were meant to eat meat we wouldn't have so many crucial ingestive/digestive similarities with animals that are herbivores." - CelesitalHealing.net

5. Meat kills you.

I'll try to keep this part short and sweet. Since meat has no real nutritional value (to humans), we would die if that was all we ate. Furthermore, the excess protein from consuming such a diet would inevitably lead to liver toxicity, kidney overload and mineral deficiency diseases. It is my opinion then, that the consumption of meat is one of the primary causes of cancer and heart disease in human beings today. Fruits, vegetables, and other vegetarian friendly foods on the other hand not only fight, but can actually cure cancer and disease. Think about this, when was the last time you heard of someone going to the hospital because they ate too many organic fruits and vegetables? It is common knowledge that raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. contain a tremendous amount of micro nutrients (i.e. vitamins and minerals) that are essential to maintaining a quality, healthful life.

"Fruits and vegetables are high in nutrients; the very thing the body needs to live a long disease and pain free life. The same cannot be said for meat. Nutritionally, the alkaline-based digestive system of humans will not properly break down substantial acid substances of meat." - CelestialHealing.net

Eating meat to me is basically the same thing as drinking soda pop (which I also don't partake in). If you were to quit drinking water and drank only soda, you might survive for a little while, but you will pay for it later on down the road. Why risk it? Do yourself a favor and keep your diet natural! The more natural the food and drink, the better your health and life will be!

6. Eating meat changes you in many negative ways and on many different levels.

I'll let celestial healing do most of the talking here:

"The spiritually aspiring person attempts to work on his/her self. The purpose of spiritual growth is to move away from the animal nature into the more human nature that God intended for us to have. Meat eating inhibits this. The same science that attempts to ignore the existence of a force higher than man also proved that aggression levels are much higher in meat eaters than non-meat eaters! The animal instincts become more powerful every time you eat meat. Another spiritual aspect of being a meat eater is when one must question the necessity and method of killing animals. However, everyone has their own morals to which they must determine for themselves. It is not the purpose of my dissertation to force a specific moral behavior on anyone. Most spiritual people believe in auras. Kirilian photography shows us that a force field still remains around dead or amputated flesh. You adopt that animal aura when you eat it's dead flesh. Fruits and vegetables have a higher vibrational aura than animal products."

“You are what you eat”, is a slogan that I love to use to show the mental aspect of vegetarianism. When animals are slaughtered, fear and aggression enzymes are shot into their muscle tissue. They remain in the meat until the consumer ingests the flesh and adapts the same emotions. Fruits and vegetables do not have emotions; therefore, when they are picked they do not release any emotional cells prior to digestion. The enzymes within fruits and vegetables supply the body with sufficient nutrients that will always uphold a healthy state of mind."

You literally (not figuratively) become what you eat. Your nails, hair, skin, are all made from the broken down nutrients that you put into your body. Take a moment and consider these two questions:

What is the quality of the fuel your body is currently running on?
What can you do to improve that quality today?

7. Dead meat is chock full of bacteria - it poisons us.

After watching the film Food Inc., I came out of it with an entirely new perspective on what the meat industry does, and what the consumption of meat had been doing to my body. During the film, they show you how most animals who are raised to be slaughtered, essentially live in a pile of their own filth until they are killed. This bacteria that they stand in every day doesn't magically disappear once the animal is murdered... many times that bacteria will end up on your plate. That's not all! Check out this clip from Food Inc. that explains how e. coli gets transferred from the runoff of infected dead meat and winds up contaminating other common foods that we consume regularly.

To make matters worse:

"Meats are frozen for long periods of time. Some meats (especially poultry) are frozen [for] up to two years. Cold temperatures do not kill all species of bacteria. Worse than this, as it is shipped and stored, most frozen meat is thawed and refrozen many times. This is almost unavoidable. Meat eaters suffer more frequently from various types of food poisoning than vegetarians. Statistics show that every American has had food poisoning at least once. When you've felt ill, had diarrhea or were just a little sick to your stomach, no doubt you had not the slightest idea that you had been poisoned by scavengers living off the dead carcass you just ate." - CelestialHealing.net

Getting hungry yet? Think about that the next time you bite into that hamburger or steak!

Bottom Line

I have lived on both sides of this and I can say without a shred of doubt, that after everything I have learned about the dangers of eating meat, I am never going back. Being a vegetarian, I maintain a healthy weight and I feel healthier and more energetic than I have ever felt before. My spirit feels calm and peaceful, and my thoughts and my ability to focus have become sharper and more clear. I think celestial healing put it best,

"I love being a vegetarian and it shows. Because I wish the best for myself, it’s just second nature to want the best for others. From my past experience and research, going vegetarian is the best thing anyone can do for their mind, body and spirit."

Good luck and best wishes!

-Corey Barton

what you need to know before running a marathon

2012-02-22T19:38:00.000-05:00

Brief History:

My first race ever was a 25k (15.5 Miles) in May of 2010. After completing that race, I knew it was only a matter of time before I would run my first full marathon. Five months later, that dream came true. I trained hard and studied everything I possibly could regarding what one should do before attempting to run their first marathon. And after sixteen weeks of training and studying, I still hit the wall at mile 22 and struggled to finish.

Below is a general outline explaining some of the major mistakes I made during that first race, along with some great advice on what you can do to avoid them. Enjoy!

Before you even begin training:

First and foremost, if you are like me and you sweat a lot, read this article on how to sweat proof your running workouts.

Before you even think about whether you should run a marathon or not, you must commit this nutrition information to memory! If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Set yourself up for success by first taking the time to understand exactly what you are putting into your body and what it does for you.

Follow Hal Higdon's Marathon Training Guide to the letter! If this is your first marathon, the sixteen week training plan will probably be a little intimidating at first glance, and that's okay! Just take a deep breath, choose which training program you feel is right for you, and print it out. When the day finally comes to get started, do not fuss about week 5 or week 10, just focus on Day 1! If you take it one day at a time, before you know it you'll be race day ready and raring to go!

You'd be doing yourself a huge disservice if you embark on your first marathon training program without first reading and understanding the three basic long run principles. These three principles are going to help you get through your weekend long runs.

Last but not least, you are far better off learning how to avoid hitting the dreaded "wall" now rather than later. I guarantee that if you go into your training with this information in mind, you will not only finish the marathon without hitting the wall, you'll also avoid hitting it during your long training runs.

During your training weeks:

You should already be learning this anyway, but especially during your training weeks you need to educate yourself on how to stay properly nourished! Do yourself a favor and read this article from http://www.runnersworld.com – The Best Foods For Runners. It's got a lot of great tips regarding what runners ought to be buying when they go to the grocery store, along with several yummy dinner recipes that will help fill you up and keep you fit and healthy!

As your runs get progressively longer, you might benefit from creating your own "running mantra" that you can repeat to yourself whenever the going gets tough. When you think strong words and repeat inspiring phrases, you run better!

It will benefit you to get into the habit of completing your runs as early as possible. Trust me, you will feel much better waking up a little earlier and having your runs behind you. There are far fewer obstacles and obligations standing in your way early in the morning than there are right when you get out of work in the afternoon. So think like Nike and Just Do It!

Don't get into the habit of doing this; but if you happen to have one or two days where you seriously just do not feel like running, it's okay! No, that does not mean you get to take the day off and sit on your butt all day. What it means is that instead of running, maybe you go for a nice long walk or bike ride with a friend or spouse. The key here is to keep your body moving. Whenever you don't feel like running - cross train!

24 hours before race day:

Just like we learned before we got into this crazy mess, in order to keep from hitting the wall on race day, you have to consume A LOT of carbohydrates the day before the race. The best tool that I have found to help you calculate how many grams you ought to consume can be found right here: running endurance calculator. - I credit this tool for getting me through every marathon I have run (since my very first) without ever "hitting the wall" or having to stop once.

This one is quick and easy: read this article to learn how to adequately fuel your body for peak marathon performance prior to race day.

Have your running outfit laid out and ready to go before you go to bed! (and get to bed early!)

Morning of race day:

Important: wake up three hours prior to the start of the race.

The morning of race day, it is always best to eat something light. You want to avoid eating anything that might upset your stomach (spicy foods, dairy, etc.) What always works best for me is a banana and two packages of apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Go to the bathroom as much as you can before the race begins! Trust me, you'll want to be completely empty before that gun goes off.

For those of you who have a tendency to sweat a lot, try adding a few shakes of iodized salt to a full 32oz. bottle of Gatorade® and drink the entire thing about 45 minutes before the race begins.

Remember that regardless of how much you sweat, always take your first energy gel 45 minutes before the gun goes off.

Life Saver Tip #1: If you want to avoid chafing, apply Body Glide to: your inner thighs, lower back, and everywhere you might chafe after running 26.2 miles!

Life Saver Tip #2: I believe this is important for everyone, but especially for you guys out there - listen up! If you want to get through this thing and still have your nipples in tact, I highly recommend you invest the $2.99 on a box of these bad boys.

You'll thank me later...

Finally, do not make the rookie mistake of going out too fast. I promise, you will finish faster if you start slow and build up to your average pace. Remember: Slow and Steady Finishes The Race!

During the race:

Utilize (read: drink) at every aid station, even if you don't think you're thirsty. Remember that you are running 26.2 miles here and dehydration is one of the most common reasons people fail to finish.

Remember that to avoid hitting the wall, you need to consume an energy gel or a sports drink every 45 minutes.

Thank and praise the volunteers! They are out there to help you achieve your goal - and they are doing it for free!

IMPORTANT! Read every sign you can get your eyes on. This will be especially helpful in those last 6.2 miles when you start to question your sanity. I'll never forget during my first marathon when I was struggling at mile 23, a little boy had made this sign that said, "The reason your feet are hurting is because you are kicking so much butt!!" Not only did that little boy bring tears to me eyes, he gave me the inspiration and encouragement I needed to kick the crap out of those last 3.2 miles! Feed off spectators, they are there to help you!

My last bit of advice is really simple: enjoy every stinkin' minute of this thing! You worked your ass off to get to that starting line. No matter what anybody else says, you're an athlete now. And once you cross that finish line, your life is going to change forever!

-Corey Barton

you repeat the lesson until you learn it

2012-02-21T22:54:00.001-05:00

By the time I first entered the doors of high school, I had grown into a rather bulky young man. When my freshmen year came to a close, so too went the days of easy gym class. Upon entering the 10th grade, I was forced to choose between taking either a weight training class or aerobics for my physical education credit - I chose weight training.

That first day was a real challenge. To get us warmed up, our teacher had us run an "easy" mile around the indoor track. Suffice it to say, I was the last person in my entire class to finish. That one mile took me over 15 minutes to complete - and that was only the warm up! By the end of class, I was dripping with sweat and wreaked to high heaven.

As hard as that first day was, there was something magical about that class. It fundamentally changed my attitude towards exercise, and that attitude is still with me to this day.

Thanks to that class, I went from about 250lbs to 200lbs in only one semester! I was also running our daily "warm up" mile in 6 minutes 30 seconds. Better yet, I was finally light enough and strong enough to complete my very first pull up - ever!

I was on top of the world, but unfortunately that routine did not last long.

After only being out of school for one year, my weight was already back up to 250lbs. By the time I was 20, my weight had ballooned to over 300lbs. I knew I was in serious trouble, but I honestly did not have a clue what I was supposed to do about it.

You see, psychologically, when you go from being a somewhat "normal" weight to becoming morbidly obese in less than two years, your perception of self becomes unbelievably distorted.

I remember looking at myself in the mirror, and from the neck down I saw absolutely nothing; somehow I had conditioned my mind to believe that as long as my face looked thin, the rest of my body must look thin as well.

I was sorely mistaken...

In case you couldn't tell, I'm the big dude on the right.

It was years before I finally mustered up enough courage to step on a scale and actually weigh myself. When I saw the numbers, I could not believe my eyes. To help me feel better, I would tell myself that the scale must be broken. But it wasn't the scale that was broken, it was me.

I was so convinced that in spite of my sedentary lifestyle, I was still the the same person I was in high school. I was in a state of complete denial, and there was not a single thing anyone could do or say to convince me that I had a problem.

Every now and again I would get inspired by something or someone, and that usually lead to me joining a gym or going for a jog around the block; but the inspiration faded just as quickly as it arrived.

After many failed attempts at losing weight through "popular" weight loss programs, I decided that enough was enough; it was time to go back to square one. The answer was always there, sitting in the back of my mind waiting to be dug up. I remember thinking, "could it really be that simple?" I mean, if I had successfully lost weight in high school through regular exercise and running, would committing to an hour of weight training and running every day possibly work for me again?

And the answer folks, is yes.

Myself circa January, 2012.

One of the best pieces of knowledge I took away from my entire weight loss experience, was that if you want something to last a life-time, you have to make it a life-long habit. There are no short cuts; no magic pills that will help you achieve your goals.

I also learned that before you can completely change your life for the better, you have to be willing to honestly evaluate, and if necessary, replace or remove all of the people, places, things, actions and ideas that are causing you trouble in your life.

Who you are today is merely a residual image of your past life experiences. In my life, I had created a horribly destructive pattern that was easy to diagnose, but difficult to dismantle. The majority of the people, places, things actions and ideas that were making up my life were incredibly negative and toxic.

My weight, home life, family life, person health, love life, financial life, friendships, career and religious beliefs were all in ruin. When I finally took a step back and honestly evaluated my situation, it had become painfully clear that my life was out of balance. The solution? I had to change everything and everyone around me.

It wasn't easy. I had to burn a lot of (bad) bridges that were getting in my way. I had to end relationships with some of my former (so-called) friends. I also had to end my relationship with a former girlfriend of six years. I knew going into it that removing them from my life was going to be difficult, but I had to keep my eye on what truly mattered most - putting my life back together the way I wanted it to be.

This wasn't the kind of situation where I went to sleep, and when I awoke the next morning a better life was waiting on my doorstep. This was simply the first step in what I knew was going to be a very long process of removing the bad in my life and replacing it with good. After all was said and done, it took me two solid years of working hard every single day before I finally turned my life around.

In those two years, I went from:

Horrible girlfriend to incredible wife!
330 lbs to 230 lbs.
Financial ruin to financial freedom.
Smoker to non-smoker.
Toxic relationships to healthy relationships.
Hating myself to loving myself.
Living for other people to living for myself.

Now, I do not know what your situation is, or where you might be hurting in your life. All I can tell you for sure is that in my experience, holding on to what does not make you happy and does not bring you joy, will only hurt you in the long run.

As hard as it may seem, you are going to have to face your fears and deal with these issues. If your relationships have become stagnant and you are unhappy with certain people in your life, you need to ask yourself, "Is this relationship a benefit or a hindrance to my life?" You have to be honest with yourself and learn to trust your instincts. For far too long I held on to relationships because I foolishly believed that "some day" the person would eventually come around, grow up, or change. Unfortunately for most people, "some day" never arrives.

You have to understand that you cannot control other people, no matter how hard you try. All you can control are the people, places, ideas, experiences and actions that you allow into your life.

Regardless of the situation: if it is hurting you, holding you back, or bringing you down to a level where you don't want to be, then it's time to let that person, place, thing, experience or idea go.

The way I see it, life is a series of tests. And unlike school, in life we are forced to take the test first and then we learn the lesson that was being taught. If we fail to learn it, life doesn't flunk us - we just keep repeating the test over and over again until we finally get it right.

Life is short... you better start learning.

keep it simple stupid

2012-02-16T11:39:00.000-05:00

I have come across some people recently that were so brainwashed and so dependent on the opinions and acceptance of others, that they had completely forgotten what it's like to think for themselves.

After Interacting with such people, I feel that it is important that I clarify for you now the distinctions between what is popularly true in our culture, and what is actually true.

To start off, I get that a lot of people think it's weird that I believe in such "radical" ideas as self health care and living healthy; and I am perfectly fine with that. The last thing I want to be in this messed up culture of ours is "normal". Normal is broke, overweight, apathetic and blind to the truth.

I do not want to be normal, I want to be weird.

Truth be told though, five years ago even I would have thought that the me of today was absolutely nuts.

I mean, who in their right mind: runs forty miles a week, doesn't eat meat, doesn't have or want traditional health care coverage, thinks most doctors are misinformed, doesn't believe in credit cards and other forms of debt, and lives significantly below their means?

The difference between the me from back then and the me of today is simple: I learned how to open my mind to the possibility that everyone and everything that I once believed to be right, could be, and most likely was, wrong.

This concept did not come easily to me. You see, as human beings we have all been conditioned to believe that we must: fall in line, follow the rules, blend in, not make mistakes, stay out of trouble, respect our elders, and do what we are told.

Throughout my years in High School, I was never fond of the idea that I had to follow the rules and respect authority without just cause. For the longest time I felt like the odd man out because I refused to follow the pack. My fellow classmates thought I was a troublemaker and my teachers thought I deserved to be punished. Regardless of what everybody else thought, I followed my heart.

Following your heart isn't always easy, but in my experience it is truly the only way to live and still have any respect for yourself at the end of the day.

My freshman year I held strong to my beliefs, convictions and objections to the way things were getting done. By the time I graduated, I had grown so apathetic toward life that I just did not care anymore.

And like the old saying goes, "You reap what you sow."

Boy oh boy did I sow a sorry excuse of a life for myself. If you have read any of my previous blog posts, then you know how much I have changed over the past three years. A lot of people ask me, "What's your secret?" Up until this point I have given a variety of different responses and theories. Then in the midst of writing my book yesterday it finally came to me...

I kept it simple!

If you think about any problem you might be having, regardless of size or severity, the reason it became a problem in the first place is because of your inherent need to over-complicate everything in your life.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you are living your life based on the beliefs, recommendations, and research done by people other than yourself? Why not start taking care of yourself and figure things out on your own before you buy into what everybody else tells you is right? You can have all the research in the world to help you back up a theory or a concept, but until you can say that you made the effort to try it out yourself, it's all worthless.

We blindly listen to people and companies that we trust, and accept that what they tell us is fact without ever considering the possibility that they might actually be wrong. More importantly, we fail to experiment and decide for ourselves if what they say is actually congruent with who we are and what we care about.

Have you ever actually stopped for a second and thought about how inaccurate a popular set of beliefs can be?

Does the milk from another mammal really do a human body good?
Who can you trust more, yourself or your doctor? Why?
Are pills really the cure to our ills?
Are new cars and houses really a great investment?
Should I really trust that the government will take care of me when I retire?

I know how earth-shattering it can be when someone with more life experience than you comes along and rocks your world by questioning your particular belief system.

Once I finally awoke from my apathetic slumber, I was suddenly faced with having to process what was going on in my world. Instead of escaping it or hiding behind the opinions of others, I taught myself how to question my own beliefs again. If it didn't make sense to me, I accepted the fact that my belief system was inaccurate and I changed it.

The reason I bring this up to you is because this is the kind of thing that I encounter on a daily basis, and somebody needs to point to the elephant in the room before real change can occur.

Just the other day while I was at the gym, I overheard some guys complaining about how much milk they were told they had to consume in order to "beef up". Then they complained how they weren't achieving the results that someone had told them they should expect from their rigorous daily workouts. Then they went on to complain about how much of a chore it was to eat all the calories a certain person had told them they had to consume each day in order to build muscle.

I could not help but shake my head and laugh.

These otherwise rational and intelligent men had completely missed the point. They were doing what other people were telling them they ought to do; and when they didn't achieve the desired result, did they think to change anything? No. They kept doing what they were told they should do and then complained how it wasn't working.

What answers might they have come up with if they actually started questioning this persons methods and began thinking and trying things out for themselves?

Does it really make sense to drink the milk of other mammals? - No, it does not. We are human beings, they are cows.
If I am doing everything I was told to do correctly and I am not getting the results I am looking for, should I just keep doing what I've been doing and expect change? - No, that is the definition of insanity. You are either doing the exercise incorrectly, or the person who told you how to do it that way was misinformed to begin with and/or did not tell you the whole truth.
If I do not enjoy eating this many calories, should I just keep doing it anyway? - No, if it does not make you happy or bring you joy, stop doing it and find a better way of achieving the desired outcome.

Human psychology astonishes me. Perhaps it is because I have been on both sides of the fence and can actually say with a great deal of certainty that the grass is truly greener here.

Thinking outside of the box has become a preferred way of life for me. Now I look at every problem in my life as an opportunity to grow. Because of that, I now have the ability to help myself (and others) solve a variety of life problems that others would say are impossible to solve.

Some of the best advice I can give to any of you is to learn how to take a step back from every situation and have the courage to question popular belief. Don't just buy into what everybody else tells you; including me!

If you are hooked on smoking for instance, ask yourself questions that will help you see the problem from a different point of view. Questions like, "Is this helping me become the person I want to be?" "Is it worth jeopardizing my finances and my health to continue a habit that provides absolutely no benefit to me in my life?"

With enough self-conditioning, your way of thinking will change and you will feel empowered to keep asking yourself even more questions!

Here are a few questions that I ask myself on a fairly regular basis:

"Is this really the fastest way to get to where I need to go?" - I take pleasure in finding new and more efficient ways to get from place to place.
"What kind of nourishment will this food provide to my body?" - If I can't prove to myself that what I am about to eat will provide my body with enough nourishment per calorie consumed, I (usually) don't eat it.
"Is consuming dead rotting flesh and drinking the milk from other animals outside of the human race going to be beneficial, or harmful to our overall health?" - Asking ourselves this question ultimately lead to my wife and I becoming vegetarians.
"Is what I'm doing with my life really making me happy?" - If the answer to this question is no for too many weeks in a row, I will stop what I was doing and do something that make me happy instead.
"Does this person make me feel good, or bad about myself?" - If the answer is bad, I typically will not hold on to that person in my life much longer.
"Is this a want, or a need?" - The answer is usually a want.

The more questions I ask, the more answers I get. The more specific the questions, the more specific the answers, until eventually I have come up with a whole new set of beliefs that I set in place to help me live a better life.

Instead of believing the nay-sayers who tell you that you can't do something, talk to someone who has already done what you are trying to do and learn how they did it! Then apply what you have learned to your own life until you too achieve what others said could not be done.

This reminds me of a scene from the movie The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith.

In the film, Will Smith (Chris Gardner) has a moment where he tells his son (Christopher) that he shouldn't waste his time dreaming about becoming a professional basketball player. When his son throws the ball down in anger and walks away, Chris has a profound realization...

Chris Gardner: Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right.
Chris Gardner: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.

By changing my way of thinking, and learning from people who challenged popular belief systems and actually succeeded, it has truly changed my life for the better. If everybody could learn to be more open minded and accepting of new ideas and new ways of thinking, I truly believe the world would be a much happier, healthier place to live.

Be brave enough to question popular beliefs, and have the courage to experiment with new ways of living. Trust your heart kid... and you'll never go wrong.

~ Corey Barton

healthy weight but still fat?

2012-02-09T17:33:00.000-05:00

What a lot of people do not realize these days, is that being thin and looking good in your clothes gets you nowhere in life if you do not have the fitness to back that ass up.

Let me explain...

There are (approximately) four types of people in this world:

People who are visibly fat.
People who are visibly athletic, fit and trim.
People who are visibly average-looking and fit.
People who are visibly average-looking, yet surprisingly out of shape and over fat.

Unfortunately, with popular culture being what it is, many young adults today fall into the fourth category. The pressure to look good in their clothes has convinced a lot of people that being thin enough to fit into a pair of skinny jeans is all it takes to make it in this world.

This short-sighted way of thinking has been around for decades, and has created a terrible pattern that I believe needs to change -- before it's too late!

These people can not comprehend how they could possibly be at a proper body weight and still be over fat. The truth is, we have become so obsessed with personal vanity in this culture that we have completely neglected our own health. Now we have people in their late teens and early twenties who are paying for their mistakes with sudden heart attacks, strokes, and other forms of heart disease.

We have allowed thinness to become more important to us than our fitness!

How did this happen?!

Well, according to the website Health For Life.com:

"Our modern life-styles are the reason for this modern day epidemic of heart disease. Too much animal food (meat, chicken, fish, dairy foods), too many refined carbohydrates (white sugar, white flour, white rice), too much oil (Omega 6 dominant), stress, alcohol, smoking, caffeine, obesity, inactivity and genetics, all are contributory factors. Having said that, the last factor, genetics, is the least important, believe it or not. Dr. Lamont Murdoch from the World Health Organization has stated: “Genetics loads the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger!”

It has been proven now scientifically, that heart disease is not only preventable, it is reversible!

"Forty years ago it was believed that heart disease was irreversible. Blocked arteries were (and still are) treated with drugs & surgery. Nathan Pritikin changed all that in the 1970′s. He reversed his own blocked arteries -- inoperable at the time -- with diet alone, no drugs or surgery. Other medical doctors have conclusively proven that most arterial heart disease is preventable and reversible if correct dietary principles are followed."

- healthforlife.com

So now that you have all the information, what can you do to prevent this from happening to you and your family?

I recommend that everybody should, at least once every year, get their body fat percentages measured by a personal trainer, nutritionist or dietician. You can find one at almost every gym and health club in the country. If you are a member, there is a chance they might administer the test free of charge. If they do charge a fee, it most likely will be small. If you are strapped for cash or do not have access to a fitness center, you can use websites like these to measure yourself at home and get an estimate of what your body fat percentage is.

Below is a chart that compares body fat percentages between men and women and explains what they mean in relation to your current lifestyle.

Body Fat Percentage Categories


Classification	Women (% fat)	Men (% fat)
Essential Fat	10-12%	2-4%
Athletes	14-20%	6-13%
Fitness	21-24%	14-17%
Acceptable	25-31%	18-25%
Obese	32%+	25%+

Once you have figured out your body fat percentage, my advice would be to immediately evaluate and reassess your current exercise regimen, then figure out how to incorporate as much cardio and strength training into it as you can. The idea here is to focus your effort on not necessarily achieving an ideal "weight", but rather achieving an optimal balance between body fat and body weight.

The cardio will help increase your overall heart capacity, while the weight training will help build up excess muscle mass -- which is the very material that helps our bodies burn fat calories morning, noon and night!

This last bit of advice comes from Dr. John Berardi and his work at Precision Nutrition.

I swear by these habits and can vouch for their effectiveness.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs

Eat every 2-3 hours – this gives you a steady stream of nutrients throughout the day without over feeding.
Include a lean source of complete protein every time you eat – it is easier to meet daily protein requirements for health (not to mention active adults trying to change their body composition) if you spread it out throughout the day.
Eat fruit and/or vegetables with each feeding opportunity – this is the big empty spot in a typical North American diet.
Include 'healthy' fats back into our diets – these would include oils from, mixed nuts, avocados, fish oils, flax seed, and omega-3's.
Eat carbohydrates (those that aren't a fruit or vegetable) when you deserve them – this means your pasta, breads, rice, and potatoes should be eaten the meals following your intense workout. This is when your body is best equipped to utilize carbohydrates for promoting health.
Zero calorie beverages like water and green tea – to make things simple: it is best we eat our calories rather than drink them.
Eat whole foods whenever possible – this is referring to pre-packaged chemically preserved foods versus the fresh organic stuff; and real food vs. astronaut food (e.g. protein shakes, smoothies, bars, meal- replacement drinks etc…)

Now you have all the tools you need in order to win; take advantage of what you've just learned and do not delay! Remember that to truly succeed, you must first remove any false beliefs you have built up in your mind. Every day tell yourself that "I can" instead of "I can't".

If you take nothing else away from this article, then please remember this: will power alone will not be enough. You have to program your mind into believing that you are better off with these habits than without them.

Once you learn how to apply them to your own life, your body fat and body weight will balance out naturally. All you have to do is take the first step...

Links:

http://www.healthforlife.com.au/disease-prevention/heart-disease/

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/library/blbodyfatcalculator.htm

http://www.fitness-nutrition-weightloss.com/under-weight-and-over-fat.html

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/about/john-berardi

how to simplify your life

2012-02-07T20:54:00.000-05:00

I came across an interesting analogy recently that compared our lives to that of a cake. The analogy suggested that throughout our lifetime (as a cake), we continuously accumulate sprinkles (empty baggage) as an attempt to fill in the frosted voids that are inside each and every one of us.

When I thought about this analogy and how it could be applied to the masses, it made a lot of sense to me.

A lot of the people I meet tell me how they feel overwhelmed and dissatisfied with their lives; they want to understand how I can live on (and with) so little and still be happy and fulfilled.

The life philosophy I preach is rather simple: I believe that we were all meant to be creators of our own circumstances, not creations of our circumstances. I strongly believe that life is what you make of it. Jack Canfield (Author of Chicken Soup for the Soul) once said, "If what you are doing doesn't bring you joy, don't do it." I could not agree more.

Yet when I look around, I see a lot of people who have sadly become creations of their current set of circumstances; they've allowed outside forces to strip them of their own self-worth. The only way to break free from this way of living (and thinking) is to learn how to become a creator of your circumstances. To become a creator of your circumstances, you must first learn how to simplify your life, find balance and determine what you truly value.

[1] Simplify Your Life

Going back to the cake analogy, we can all admit that we have things in our lives that can be classified as "sprinkles". According to Nancy Whitney - Reiter, "Belongings require maintenance. Whether it's cleaning them, sorting them, keeping track of them, or the mere fact that they take up real estate in your house, you expend energy on your possessions."

By simplifying your possessions, you are then able to refocus that energy into achieving tranquility and balance in the seven areas of your life.

[2] Balance Out The Seven Life Areas

The seven areas of life are as follows:

Spiritual - Attempts to understand the world and our place in it; beliefs.
Intellectual - Your ability to learn, your memory, the way you reason; knowledge.
Psychological - How we can develop the emotions that support us in life; emotions.
Social - The way we relate to other human beings; relationships.
Professional - Your occupation and how you handle your finances; money.
Recreational - Any activity intended for relaxation, refreshment and pleasure; fun.
Physical - Anything related to your body and its well-being; health.

When I was at my heaviest and most depressed state, the seven areas of my life were in complete disarray. It was only after I did the research and understood what these seven areas of life meant that I truly began to see my life transform for the better.

My advice to you would be to write the seven areas down on a piece of paper, then next to each area write out a paragraph clearly stating how you are going to balance out that particular area in relation to the other six areas of your life. If you are fulfilled with your professional life but your social and psychological areas are lacking, write down exactly what you need to do in order to balance those areas out.

By taking the steps to write these down, you are fueling your subconscious mind with new problems to solve. The same can be said for goals as well; as soon as you write down what you want, your subconscious mind takes over and does all of the problem solving for you.

[3] Reveal Your True Values

After you have completed the prior two exercises, you will naturally progress to the third and final step in the process of taking control of your life. Once you have rid yourself of the unnecessary clutter and devised a written plan for balancing out the different areas of your life, you can finally reach the point where you can declare to the universe what it is you truly value. How do you do this? You need to sit down and ask yourself some very serious questions about what you really want out of life.

Questions like:

Who do I want to be?
What are my strengths?
What steps will I need to take in order to become that person?
Am I willing to do whatever it takes to become the person I want to be?
How do I want to be remembered after I die?
What do I value most?
How can I help people?

These are just a few of the questions you can ask yourself that will give you tremendous insight into who you want to be and what you truly want to do with the life you have been given.

When you write these questions down, give yourself adequate time to really think about your responses, then write your answers down. When you write out your answers, try to be as specific and detailed as possible. When you are finished with these three exercises, you will likely find a few similarities between what you chose to get rid of, how you chose to balance out the seven areas, and what you truly value. If you pay close attention and take this seriously, you will likely learn more about yourself in these three simple exercises than you ever have before.

When you have a written plan, and you design your life around what you truly love and value, you will change your life forever.

Links:

http://unplugyourhead.com/
http://www.jackcanfield.com/
http://personalgrowthmap.com/blog/2009/03/20/understanding-the-seven-life-areas/

effective weight loss tips

2012-01-30T22:26:00.000-05:00

Over the past three years, I have had incredible success with losing weight and keeping it off.

So it killed me when I came across an article the other day that was essentially telling people that eating five hundred calories of organic fruits and vegetables is basically no different than eating five hundred calories of steak with white bread and butter.

What I have found to be common among the majority of these so called "health articles", is that rather than use their power to empower and inspire people, most of them leverage their power to instill fear and doubt; which I'm sure is exactly what their sponsors want them to do.

By publishing this confusing, ridiculous nonsense, they are in fact turning a lot of people off to the very things that (I know for a fact!) actually help people lose weight!

It's outrageous.

So to set the record straight, I felt the need to express to you the truth about how incredibly simple and easy losing weight can be if you just ignore all the nonsense, and listen to someone who has actually done it!

Some of this stuff I have written about before in greater detail, but for the sake of this article I am going to try and keep this as plain and simple as possible.

[1] You have to want it.

I can't tell you how many people I have run in to, who upon finding out how much weight I have lost, express to me their complete shock and disbelief. Then in the same breath, they will tell me how great life would be if only they could do what I've done.

They'll say something like, "I wish I had your discipline," or, "I could never do that."

All that these statements are telling me is that you obviously are not ready to change your life yet. Because I tell you what, in order to lose weight, you have to face your demons, and you have to want to change.

[2] Recognize (and change) your daily rituals.

The way we live our lives today is essentially based upon a series of rituals.

For the most part, the majority of us go about our days essentially stuck on autopilot: we wake up, brush our teeth, take a shower, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then we go to sleep and repeat it all over again the next day.

Before we know it, our rituals have become so automatic that we can't even recognize when something negative infiltrates our routine and sabotages us from within!

Have you ever heard the anecdote about the frog in boiling water?

The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

This is what happens to us if we don't slow down and take inventory of whatever rituals we are allowing to take over our daily lives.

In order to change anything about your life, you are going to have to recognize the patterns and behaviors that are causing your discontent. Then you have to have the strength and the courage to replace them with habits that will benefit you and help you become the person you truly want to be.

For me, I had to completely shift my entire life habits around in order to change my life.

When I was fat, my day consisted of a lot of the same routines that most of you have, just with a lot of sitting on my butt and eating a lot of junk food packed in between.

It took me a while before I could recognize that the reason I was fat wasn't because I was a bad person; it was because I had developed bad habits that I simply was not paying any attention to. My eating habits were so deeply engrained in me that I never even thought twice about them.

It was only after I recognized what my daily habits were, that I could draw out a new plan of action to replace them with healthier habits.

If you were to take a look at my life now, I still do a lot of the same things I used to do. I brush my teeth, I take showers, I eat, I sit down (occasionally). But the new rituals that I have placed in between all of that stuff looks nothing like it did when I was overweight.

Now before I eat breakfast and take a shower, I usually run five miles. Instead of eating sugary cereal: I eat healthy, organic, whole grain cereal with almond milk, along with an organic cup of coffee and non-dairy creamer. Instead of watching television after breakfast, I spend time meditating or reading books that fill my brain with new knowledge. For lunch I will eat an organic veggie burger on twelve-grain wheat bread with organic ketchup, along with a whey protein shake blended with almond milk and a handful of almonds for my mid-afternoon snack. For dinner I'll have whole grain pasta with organic pasta sauce and a side of steamed broccoli mixed with whole grain rice. Then to wash it all down, my wife and I will blend up a delicious concoction of fresh juice using our fruit and vegetable juicer.

Can you imagine what your life and body would look like if you made a commitment to live that way for the rest of your life?

That is the life I get to live out every day, and every new day of my life I feel healthier, stronger, faster, smarter, and more energetic than the day before.

You can't just have it though, you have to want it!

[3] Learn the simplest way to read nutrition labels.

There are a lot of people out there who will talk all day about the pros and cons of nutrition labels. Some people think and believe that they are inaccurate and that you should pay them no attention. Then there are others who go way too far and will stress out over every gram and calorie until the cows come home.

You can choose to listen to whomever you want to.

The way that I lost weight, was by disregarding all the technical jargon and focusing on a set of rules that I created based upon information that I gathered and my own common sense.

Did the food have sufficient calories (energy) and nutrients to sustain me for that meal? If you don't know how many calories your body needs, find out here.
Did it have enough protein to help fulfill my daily protein requirements? If you don't know how much protein your body needs, find out here.
If it has more than 10 grams of sugar per serving, don't buy it and don't eat it.
Buy Organic.
The product with least ingredients is always going to be the best, bar none.

If you look at the back of this Blue Diamond® Almond Package, you can see for yourself all the unnecessary garbage they put into their product.

On the other hand, the ingredient label on my bag of almonds at home reads like this;

INGREDIENTS: ALMONDS, SALT...and that's it.

That's really all the information you should need in order to make the best possible decisions when you go grocery shopping. Oh, and did I mention that I lost 120 pounds doing it this way?..

By now you might be saying, "Well, that's all well and good, but how am I supposed to keep track of all this nutrition information?!...

[4] Keep a food and exercise journal.

Losing weight is a simple math equation. I know this is true, because I used simple math to help me figure out my weight loss action strategy.

Here is pretty much all the math you'll need to know in order to understand body weight:

One pound equals approximately 3500 calories.

So hypothetically, if your body requires 2000 calories to maintain your current weight, and you wanted to lose weight, you really have one (good) option (in my mind): reduce your calorie intake by 250 calories per day, then figure out a way to burn (at least) an extra 250 calories per day through exercise. If you do the math, you will lose about 3500 calories in a week doing this; which is equal to about a pound every week.

The part most overweight people do not understand is that the heavier you are, the more calories you burn doing the same activities as your less than heavy competition!

So for instance, a 170 lb man who bikes for an hour at a moderate pace will burn approximately 650 calories. And if you are as overweight as I was and weighed 330 lbs, you would burn approximately 1,300 calories doing the exact same exercise for the same amount of time! In my opinion, this is the biggest advantage an overweight person has over a thin person, yet none of them are doing anything about it.

So all I did then to lose weight quickly was tap into this concept and I used my heaviness to my own advantage. I would bike for approximately 2-3 hours every single day.

So based on what I just taught you, how much weight should I have been losing each week? You do the math...

I mean it, you need to do the math here. Because frankly, nobody else cares as much about you as you do, therefore nobody else is going to bother to do the work for you.

Now, will you have to do this forever? Up front, I am going to say that for the majority of people out there, a solid no should suffice. Typically after about thirty days of keeping track of the calories you consume and calories you burn, you will develop your own natural rhythm and will no longer require the assistance of the food and exercise journal. My only disclaimer would be that if you find yourself slipping and are eating too much or not getting enough exercise, that you immediately go back to using these tools in order to help you get back on track.

[5] Make it important and keep it simple (because it is).

All I can say is that once you get your life on the path of discipline, where eating healthy and exercising become an important part of your daily ritual, your weight will naturally level out on its own. So long as you keep it up, you'll never have to worry about weight again.

Is it going to be hard at first? You bet. Depending on where you are in your journey, the first three to six months are probably going to be incredibly difficult, but it's worth it.

Try and imagine that your life is like a traveling locomotive that has been cruising along and gradually building up speed for the past however many years; it's probably going to take some real effort to stop that train in its tracks and get it set up on a new track isn't it?

But once you switch the track and get it up and running, after a few months the train just kind of takes care of itself. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

Now that I've put in the work, I really don't even have to think about eating right or exercising every day. It's become such an automatic and rewarding ritual for me that it's gone from being a big chore, to being something I truly love and enjoy doing every day; like brushing my teeth or taking my wife to work.

So take it from me, someone who has actually done what you're trying to do, and keep this simple.

Use your common sense, trust your gut, want the change, believe you can make positive changes happen in your life, educate and empower yourself, and have the courage to follow through.

Trust me, it's easy!

Links:

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

http://flavorscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/BlueDiamondNutritionPanel.jpg

http://organic.org/

http://www.kriskris.com/how-many-calories-should-i-eat-a-day/

http://www.healthyveganrecipes.net/featured/protein-calculator

5 tips to take control of your money

2012-01-20T19:02:00.000-05:00

I grew up in a family that did not manage their money very well. We were always lead to believe that money was scarce, it didn't grow on trees, and that we ought to just appreciate what we had. Now, I have no problem with appreciating the things I have. In fact, I believe that having an attitude of gratitude is one of the most important things you can do in order to achieve true happiness in your life.

I do, however, have a problem with the weak minded, negative idea that money has some kind of a life force, and somehow that life force is hard to come by.

This kind of thinking is toxic and dumb.

The way I think about money now is completely different than it was when I was young; and far more helpful.

Money is a tool. Like a hammer in a tool chest, it is neither bad or good. It is simply a neutral and inert object. Only in the hands of a person can that tool be manipulated to do good or bad things.
Money is obedient. Once you take control of it and tell it where it needs to go and what it needs to do, it obeys.

Unfortunately, many young people today are graduating high school and college with little education in regard to handling personal finances. Inevitably, they wind up living their lives earning money only to spend it.

So what is the solution?

Discipline! Once you introduce discipline into one area of your life, it naturally spreads like a wonderful and glorious wildfire.

Below are 5 simple tips that have personally helped me take control of not only my finances, but indeed my entire life.

[1] Budget.

It took me until the age of twenty-four before I finally took the time to sit down and write out a basic monthly budget. It wasn't pretty at first, and it definitely was not easy, but by the time it was complete, I knew that I had just finished something that was going to positively impact the rest of my life.

For those of you who might not know how to create a budget, I will keep this simple.

Print out a blank calendar.
Write down the days you get paid, and how much money you will get paid on those days.
On a separate sheet of paper, write every single expense you have for the month. Rent, gas, etc.
Assign every dollar you earn each paycheck to every individual expense until you have no more.
Every time you get paid, pull out all your cash and deposit it into an envelope for each specific category.

Whatever is left over, you simply need to tell that money where it needs to go on your budget before you spend it.

That doesn't mean that you can't ever have any fun! All it means is that you are preemptively making a conscious decision to deliberately spend a specific amount of money on whatever type of fun you want to have before you get paid!

You want to save up for a cruise? Start stashing money away into a cruise envelope. You want to go out to a restaurant every weekend? Well, simply make a category on your budget called "restaurant" and when you get paid, place that specific amount of cash inside that envelope; then go out and spend it!

[2] Have multiple sources of income.

This tip is short and simple, never put all your eggs into one basket. One thing I have learned over the years is you always want to spread things out so that you do not have to rely on just one source of income.

How easy would it be for your boss to tell you today, "You're fired."? How much easier would that be to handle if you had say, three or four additional sources of income to fall back on?

Think about it.

[3] Save for what you want.

For some people who had proper upbringing, this might be one of those statements you hear and immediately respond by saying, "Well, duh!" However, many businesses nowadays are set up to entice people into "buying now, and paying later." And as harmless as these little scams may seem, they are actually very harmful once you get sucked into them.

Do yourself a favor, and stay away from credit. Instead, learn how to procure the necessary funds that are required to purchase the items you desire on your own!

Too often we see things we think we want (or need), and we become impatient. By saving up before you buy however, you reap the rewards of delayed gratification!

In the weeks or months that it will take to save up for whatever it is you would like to purchase, you are also giving yourself ample time to think about whether you actually want (or need) to purchase that item or not.

Then, by the time you have finally saved up enough money, you might change your mind and decide that you would rather put the money into a savings account instead. If not, then you get to experience the satisfaction of trading in your hard work and discipline for the item you so desired.

Can you see how this would be more rewarding than swiping a credit card and making payments for twelve months?

[4] Live below your means.

It took me a long time before I learned about the magic of living life below my means. For many years I overextended myself, and I wound up unhappy, overweight and in debt.

Once I learned how to assess my income and properly balance out my budget, my entire life turned around. According to Dave Ramsey, this is how much the typical American should be spending each month in their budget:

Charity – 10-15%
Saving – 5 – 10%
Housing – 25-35%
Utilities – 5 – 10%
Food – 5 – 15%
Transportation – 10-15%
Clothing – 2 – 7%
Medical/Health – 5-10%
Personal – 5 – 10%
Recreation – 5 – 10%
Debts – 5 – 10%

Remember that this is not an exact science. Instead, learn to look at these percentages as a guideline that will help you achieve your financial goals.

If you are above in any of these areas, you may need to think about scaling back a little (or possibly scaling back a lot!). If you are below in a few areas, then feel free to ante-up in a different category; who couldn't use more savings?!

[5] Exercise.

I know exercise sounds like it has no business being placed in a list designed to educate people on how to best control their finances. But throughout my journey, I have learned that taking care of your body is by far the number one way to ensure that your finances and your mind remain under control.

Now, whether you choose to believe it or not, you have two options in the world we live in today: either take care of yourself, or pay someone else to do it for you.

Regardless of whether you live or die, or whether you are healthy or unhealthy, nobody cares more about your overall well being than you do. So why then are so many of us choosing to believe that somebody, somewhere, is going to somehow do a better job of taking care of us than we can?

It's absurd!

How many people today are forced to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every month just to "maintain their health"? Now, imagine living in a world where instead of flushing that money down the toilet each month, we chose to eat healthy and exercise for an hour every day. How much money would we save? How much better would we feel?

The way I have come to understand it, eating healthy and exercising every day is the best and most important investment you can ever make in your life. No amount of money and no prescription drug will ever be able to replace the feeling you get when you consciously decide that you are going to take control of your destiny.

And now, no matter how much money I earn and no matter what I do, I live with the satisfaction of knowing that I am in control. Finances, health and all.