By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Mar 18, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Part 1 of 4: FINDING A HOME. When we left home we hoped that we’d find the city for us. We’d walk the streets and feel comfortable. We’d savor the foods and feel fine if we got fat there. We’d see the homes and picture ourselves growing old there. It would feel like home. After visiting more than 200 cities, where have we decided to settle? Follow us on the second Wednesday of each month to discover what traveling the world taught us about where we want to call home.
The biggest question of all was what do we need in a home? Do we need the creature comforts of the developed world, or do we want the daily adventure of the developing world?
HE SAID…
Developing vs developed says it all, one is present-tense, happening now, one is past-tense, as in finished. I can’t lie, I love the idea of the developing world, the constant change, the action, the loose liquor laws, but I don’t think it’s for me.
The reason to live in the developing world is simple: it’s where money will be made for my generation. As the economies grow, so will the prosperity, get in early, play your cards right, and wealth will be created.
Vietnam, one of the places growth is happening today.
The downside of the developing world is the lifestyle. Sure I can live great, have a driver to deal with the endless traffic jams, have a housekeeper to clean, and have assorted other staff that I’ll never be certain what they do. Within a walled house everything seems great, but living with the crappy infrastructure, having to send my children to pretentious private schools, and being part of such a vast wealth distribution doesn’t interest me.
Read the rest of… Matt and Erica Chua: Finding a Home
Sports teaches us about ourselves. Who we are, who we want to become. They also teach us about drive, the inner fire that tell you to keep going when it hurts or not to quit when you want to.
The above video is a true story, an inspirational story if you will. A story, on some level, we all can relate too; the fight to not quit when things get tough and the inner fire to keep going when you don’t want to. Derek Redmond was an Olympian, a world class athlete who was competing for his country. There could be no bigger honor than that, to be on the largest stage in sport.
The unfortunate part is the way the story seems to end. Derek, in a position to take home an Olympic medal, pulls his hamstring in the semi-finals of the 400 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympiad.
To work your entire life to get one opportunity and your body just says “No.” What happens from there is the definition of courage and a “never give up” attitude. Derek knew in his heart and mind he had lost but he would not quit, he would finish. He picks his broken body up and carries it, with the help of his father, to the finish line. Take a second and reflect, have you ever quit something? Have you given up on your fitness goals and past achievements because you don’t believe you can do it anymore?
Use this as an example that life will always build walls you must break down and obstacles that you must climb. It are these missions that truly define us as human beings and we must remember that nothing and I mean nothing is impossible.
Just never quit. Never quit on yourself and never quit on your dream. The time is now.
“I’m not eating this weekend because the girls at school want to be skinny.” Emily, 9.
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In 2004, after years of processing my own body image issues, and with a determination to have things be different for my daughters, I didn’t expect my own child to begin that steep slide into dieting misery so soon, if at all.
I took a few hours to recover from my little girl’s statement of deprivation, and then I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted things to be different, I would need to take action myself, and fast.
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The conversation and research that followed opened my eyes to several truths:
Kids talk. And they are all affected by media messages (billboards, commercials, print ads, Hollywood glamour) about protruding stomachs, fat thighs, and jiggly arms.
Women talk. We do, and it’s a lot of self-criticism about protruding stomachs, fat thighs, and jiggly arms. And, we talk about other women in relationship to all those things, and about how she looked in that outfit. Constantly, constantly, constantly.
Conversations overheard about appearance become messages about what is acceptable, desirable, worthy of love, and they are more potent than any billboard costing 1,000’s of dollars to print, because they are personal—about real people we know—about ourselves. And, our girls are listening closely, all the time.
The seeds of self-esteem and self-image are planted long before girls approach puberty. Though criticism may be directed at others, and even if we only ever complement our little girls, they grow on the reality that criticism is just around corner if they grow into women of stomachs, thighs, and arms, of any type.
So what’s a mother to do? I wasn’t certain, but I was sure that I wouldn’t allow one more generation of women in my family to struggle with the self-hatred that comes from a legacy of criticism, peer pressure, never ending dieting, and debilitating low self-esteem.
I did have a hunch that in order to help make changes for my daughter and her friends, I needed to help make cognitive and emotional changes for moms, too. Because after all, we were all once girls who grew on those very messages. No one ever told us to stop listening.
And so, with mother-bear determination, I called health and wellness professionals in my Lexington community who seemed to carry some authority: pediatrician; nutritionist; psychotherapist; police-officer. And I asked them to become a part of the community that would influence and help raise healthy girls.
With professionals on board, Girls Rock!: Workshops for Girls and Moms, was born. We would all come together, pre-teen girls, mothers, and professionals, for a big empowering day of programming that would make all of us responsible for healthier language, relationship to self and friends, and habits at home.
But still, the kids in attendance would need real, up-close and personal role models to emulate—people they could think of as big sisters—the ultimate role models of omniscient authority to a girl.
So I recruited a diverse team of teenagers with leadership potential who seemed to defy what Mary Pipher identifies as one of our culture’s greatest tragedies, “Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.”
Something profound happened in our very first workshops when the Girls Rock! Teen Mentors spoke. They stood with confidence in front of girls, mothers, and professionals and said, “We are all different sizes, shapes, and ethnicities—this is what normal looks like—this is what pretty looks like”.
The young audience of girls listened closely, but the mothers and professionals were moved to tears.
And then it was clear. Hearing for the first time from people who represented our own youth, that beauty was never meant to be one-size-fits-all, opened the blinds and let the sun shine on the truth that we always were, and are right now, pretty enough and good enough, and that we are so much more.
Isn’t that what we really want for ourselves?
It is exactly what we want for our daughters.
One workshop led to another, and another, and we became a non-profit and published a book (Click here to order), and I can report that my daughters now teens themselves, are Girls Rock! Mentors, today. Hallelujah.
Looking back now, it’s amazing to me that I could have pulled this off—recruiting and training teen leaders, finding passionate professionals and generous keynote speakers, and reaching out to other mothers and girls who would attend.
Technically, I didn’t know anything about running this kind of thing—I was driven intuitively, and I found that women both young and old could relate, so I kept going. I prayed that my daughters and their friends would benefit, and that I could send my girls to sleepovers knowing they would be influenced in positive ways.
Year after year, Girls Rock! continues to be one big community of volunteers and families showing up just because we have all been affected, are still affected by a ridiculously unfair standard. But most of all, we gather because we care about the development of self-esteem in girls.
Though there is undeniable power in pervasive cultural messages especially saturated by media today, there is something more powerful about women coming together to educate, heal, and find inspiration together. As girls and women we are a part of something that is much bigger—it’s called Sisterhood, The Women’s Lodge, the Feminine Divine.
This is a place anywhere and everywhere on this planet where females of every age, status, and background can gather to nurture one another with acceptance. It’s simple and it’s a magical thing to be a part of. It makes us grateful to have been born as girls.
So, it turns out that my years of healing before motherhood were just the very beginning for me. My young daughter’s fateful entry into self-doubt felt like familiar territory—I couldn’t have imagined it would provide me the drive to heal more deeply, nor to help find a solution for my community.
While the distance travelled to arrive to a place of peace is never easy with these issues, I’m feeling it’s been worth the journey so far.
Most of all, as my daughters grow into adulthood with perspective, confidence, self-esteem, I will say that I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Prayer has helped a lot too.
To invite Lisa to speak at your gathering, contact her directly:
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 8, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Confession.
Not like St Augustine’s….but a more modern version with dental implications.
I would like to make a public confession about something I have been deliberately deceptive about for over 40 years.
I continue promising things will change, but frankly, they never have. And I feel guilt and shame…and mild pain that is helped only by Anbesol gel.
For over 40 years when asked by the dental hygienist and/or dentist “Are you flossing regularly?” I also lead them to believe I have been flossing more than I really have—and to make matters worse—add that I will do better before the next appointment. But don’t.
(Once I indicated a flossed with some limited regularity when, in fact, I hadn’t flossed even once in the last 6 months. Except with the corner of sugar packages and once with a toothpick.)
Over 40 years of cumulative deceit can weigh heavy on a man’s heart. And on his dental health. And I need to come clean.
So I can again, look myself in the eye in the mirror. And at the three remaining wisdom teeth when flossing.
If not for my teeth, I need to at least do it for my soul.
First things first, I am not an endocrinologist (only play one on TV J) and I am not a registered dietician. I like to think of myself as a problem solver, a MacGyver of sorts. Because in all reality that’s what we do as trainers, we solve problems with the knowledge base that we have, no matter how unconventional it is. With that said, there are a lot of theories out about people lose and gain weight. With the rise of obesity at an unparalleled high, people are trying to get healthy and lose body fat in record droves. From Atkins diets to the Zone diet, to the weird tropical fruit diet and my favorite the carrot stick and apple diet (holy cow!), people are trying to find the quickest way to lose weight. The fact is there is no easy way, if it were easy the obesity rates would not be where they are now. We would not be spending billions of dollars on medications that control weight related diseases. This is not an easy process by any stretch of the imagination. However when I look at weight loss books and these fad diets, I rarely see anything about a person’s hormones. When in fact it is your hormones that decide where and how much fat you store. That’s a fact. Throw the calories in vs calories out out the window, your hormones are in the driver’s seat. Lets take a look at them:
Fat Burning Hormones- hormones that when present in your body, will help you burn body fat
It’s so easy to forget that we are so powerful, but it is the truth and it is an inherent quality of the human spirit. I was a walking, breathing example of a girl, who out of trauma and struggle dreamed a different life for herself, and made it happen. Today I understand the grace and the quantum mechanics behind this, but living it came first—it always does.
A funny thing happened yesterday. Funny interesting, and strange, that is. And, kind of awesome (an experience leading to awe).
After planning for months that several days at the end of February would be dedicated to the specific and serious de-cluttering of my home space, and after very painful procrastination during designated well-planned days, I unexpectedly ran into a colleague who offered up an identical story, strangely.
While waiting in line for our lattes, he recounted his story of scheduled organizing, in the final week of February, and a lack of giddy-up in the GO.
My antennae picked up the signal with maximum alarm.
Inside my head it sounded like this: What?! Beeeeeep! Beeeeeep! Beeeeep! What?!
I knew immediately that this encounter wasn’t just about the random coincidence of a mirrored situation from someone I rarely see and who never discloses information about his personal life. Nor was it about the unbelievable story of what was happening in the latte line.
Nope, much bigger, much, much bigger, and I became consciously, thrillingly aware of it in its unfolding this time. Right there, in that informal setting surrounded by average people and beverages, I recognized the inter-relativity of everything, and, that I create my own reality whether I realize it or NOT.
And this is what it look like:
Read the rest of… Lisa Miller: Synchronicity & Intention
To preface this entry I would like to say the following; I am very opinionated and if you are easily offended, quit reading now.
Now, that we have crossed that bridge I’d like to get into the subject at hand.
I was in the Baltimore Airport recently and I went to the magazine stand to look for some reading material. There were dozens of different magazines covering subject’s matters from money to parenting to exercise. However, I started to see a trend that did not set well with me. It seemed like every magazine cover was obsessed with physical characteristics highlighted by “Ripped Abs in 30 days” “Lose 30 LBS without Dieting” or my favorite, “Reduce Your Belly Fat by Eating this Fruit.” If that isn’t bad enough, the covers of these magazines make things worse.
On the “Muscle Mags” you have an Incredible Hulk like figure with muscles in places most people don’t have places. On the other side of the coin the magazines aimed at women have relatively thin, almost emaciated cover models. What is going on here? What is the “media” trying to tell our society?
Now, I have no issue with the people on the covers of these magazines, they are in great shape (in most cases) and it’s their job to look like that. I myself have trained; physique athletes, a Miss America contestant and other “body conscious” athletes. I have no issue in competing in something that judges your body in some way. What I do have issue with is the projected image of what is beautiful and in shape. It is unrealistic for the average people that picks up one of these magazines and expect to look like these people. Most of these individuals have been athletes all their life, have put in the hard work to look the way they do and have a great genetic profile. Should that stop them from trying? No! But should it convince them that because they saw this on a magazine cover that they are inadequate if they don’t look this way? Our society’s opinion on what is acceptable, beautiful and realistic is warped.
I have driven over 300,000 miles in the last 6 years. It wasn’t until recently I started to feel the extent it was having on my body. I woke up one morning and my hip was killing me and my shoulder ached, I just thought it was from hard workouts. Possibly, but when I evaluated the situation I realized I am in the most amount of pain when I drive a lot of miles in a short amount of time. Having the knowledge of how the body works, I can understand and appreciate the havoc sitting can have on one’s body.
The fact is MOST jobs are now sedentary jobs, where people; sit at a computer, sit in meetings, sit in a car or airplane and basically sit on the rear end all day. I realize this is part of it, everything in this world has become technologically advanced where people are more sedentary in the work place than ever before. That’s ok. No, really it is, because I am going to show you how to overcome this (more on that later).
Here is a stat for you that you may want to sit down for: According to a poll of nearly 6,300 people by the Institute for Medicine and Public Health, it’s likely that you spend a stunning 56 hours a week sitting on your butt- staring a computer working or watching TV trying to think about work. That is a lot of time in one position. Let me tell you how much that effects your body.
Let’s start with the lower half first, when you sit your hip flexors and hamstrings become shorten (not a good thing). This can lead to improper movement patterns leading to pain in various regions of the body. Also, since you are planted on your butt, your body sees no use for your glutes or your core musculature so they become lengthen or turned off. This is also, not a good thing. Your glutes act as the powerhouse of the low body allowing you to generate the most amount of power. If you have faulty glutes the lower back must pick of the slack.Everyone with lower back pain raise their hand! Is this starting to make sense? I hope so. So the technical version of the story is lower cross syndrome, whereas your hip flexors and hamstrings become shorten and your glutes and core musculature become lengthen and nonexistent. This contributes to knee pain, back pain, neck pain and many other types of “pain.” “JB, all from sitting??” YES!
Now, let me complicate the situation a little more. You decide to workout and you go to the gym and you find your favorite 5 machines. What do those machines have in common, you have to sit! Oh no! What good does that do? Sure your chest and arm muscles may look tone, but you still have pain in your lower back. Not a good trade off if you ask me. But are you asking me? I hope so, here are some tips to not sit so much and correct some of our imbalances.
