Artslim
 
The Giveaway:

In conjunction with Mummified Times Five, I am giving away up to $1000 worth of Maimeri Classico oil paints!

Each prize pack includes 10 tubes of Maimeri Classico paints valued at $9.55 each…so with free postage, that’s a prize pack valued at over $100!! And we have 10 packs to give away!!

To enter, all you need to do is:

-comment on any post ON EACH of Kathy Shell’s blogs (listed in my blog side bar and below):

http://www.artslim.org/
http://www.cards-art.com/
http://www.kathy-shell.net/
http://www.doggiesblog.com/
http://www.gray-nomad.com/
http://www.bloggermuse.com/
http://www.functional-art.net/
http://www.postcards-art.com/
http://www.campfire-yarns.com/
http://www.fridgemagnetart.com/
- then go to the competition post at

http://mummifiedtimesfive.net/2010/02/01/spotlight-on-kathy-shell-giveaway/

and say why you would like to win a 10 pack of Maimeri Classico paints.

(Both steps are mandatory to be in the running to win this prize)

Giveaway finishes 15 Feb 2010

 This blog post has been illustrated by postcards from the art of Kathy Shell. These can be orderd through the artist's postcards-art web site or purchased 'direct from the artist', in her caravan awning studio
 
 
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Reg and I love exercising out of doors.
This week has been a big celebration week for me.  No cake, but many fitness related gifts have been purchased in the last month, not to mention some gorgeous, slim fitting summer dresses.

All this increased health, fitness and healthy size, because I made the decision to not allow ill health or injury to hold me back any longer, I rejected the looming continuing deteriorating health, status and I swam, walked then jogged, weight lifted, full body workouts, yoga and skipped my way back into fitness and a more attractive shape and size.

I did not do it on my own.  I asked for expert help at every step of the way.  I’ joined on line support forums, sort guidance from a certified practicing dietician and I used a physiotherapist, a fitness coach and I have attended two of the best gyms in Victoria, having private personal training sessions, attended group fitness classes  and even attended an evening Boot Camp. 

I believe that it does not happen (my goals), by itself, I have to make it happen.

Right now, I am highly committed to achieving some fitness and weight loss goals and I am currently one week into a four-week goal, one week into a three-month goal and tomorrow morning I am beginning an on line 12 week slimming challenge

To be highly motivated to not just set these goals and begin the challenge, I look for increased fitness tips and motivations and experts and equipment that help me make the effort I need to make, to achieve the goals I want.

I found a great on line Fitness, Nutrition and Wellness, Newsletter from Agilis Fitness. I found it here:-: Long Beach personal training .

My current fitness work out is one I have complete confidence in., It has great weight, balance, aerobic and stretching components and I can safely do all the movements without risk of injury because I have used the services of sports injury prevention trained, personal trainers like those here:- personal trainer Long Beach.

Even when I exercise from home and when I tour interstate in the caravan, I do stay in close touch with exercise experts. For me it is not just about exercising it is about exercising safely so I minimise the risk of back injury in my daily life, rather than risk injury through exercise.

Trying to do a ‘lunge’ for instance, on my own always caused me knee injury yet once I was shown by a personal trainer, how to do it and what not to do, I can now for the first time do lunges and I feel my knees becoming stronger as a result.

 

This week while I have worked very hard focussing on Fitness, Nutrition and Wellness, I overheard the conversation below:-.

Friend 1, told her fiends that she had just lost a lot of unwanted weight, and ‘it was amazing what eating healthy and exercising right, had done for her figure’.

Friend 2, said, ‘If you find the secret to the weight you lost, let me know’.

Since then I have heard that same conversation, expressed in slightly different words, many times this week.  

There isn’t a magic ‘secret’, to find out, it is all about  following a path toward Fitness, Nutrition and Wellness, the path that professionals like Agilis Fitness are qualified to advise and guide you with.

I am looking forward to adding the newsletter I have signed up for, to my mix of other professional fitness equipment and services I use.

I am a firm believer in the sayings.

 
 ‘Step outside your comfort zone if you want exceptional results’.

 

‘Don’t keep doing the same things

and expect a different result.’

 
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Fitness training in the fresh open air, My prefered exercise.
 
 
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Advance Notice.

$1,000 . value of Oil Paint to be given away FREE to my blog readers during

February 2010.

Not just any oil paint but,

 quality Italian Maimeri Classico 60ml tubes.

These paints are the artist’s daily bread and butter. Anyone – professional or amateur – who picks up a tube of Classico oil paints will find in it just what they need. They contain no waxes or thickeners, and pigment concentration is very high. Bright, lively colours with overall harmony in the palette, these paints from Italy are made with non-toxic, non-polluting pigments that improve light-fastness.

They are versatile paints, offering exceptional value for money, but you could own a set plus postage FREE.  Watch this blog and http://mummifiedtimesfive.net for further details and be the first to enter this FREE competition.

 

 
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THREE YEARS OF NOT DIETING. :-)

Three years of consistent, healthy, mostly nutritious, portion controlled foods that I love, the occasional non-nutritious food and over indulgence once I got into double digits.

Three years of exercising, beginning with exercises suitable for a unfit senior, swimming, stretching, then being fitted with excellent walking shoes, and beginning to walk. Putting away the walking stick and beginning to hike up hills, run on sand, then weight work outs, jumping and skipping and now I am doing full body work outs and yoga while maintaining all the other activities I began three years ago and have added to my fitness routing as I progressed.

Initially I gave up my sedentary work so I could focus on my fitness training. This past year I have gradually managed to put my sedentary work (writing and art), back into my life and by increasing the intensity of my work outs, I have been able to get the balance right and keep steadily losing excess body fat while building healthy muscle and maintaining, even strengthening bone density.

I still have many fitness areas to work on.

Getting my full quota of sleep I think should be part of this fitness years challenge to myself along with achieving a weight of at least 70 kilo and possibly 64  ~ without dieting, without thinking 'this is what I am doing to lose weight. I will be staying consistent, balanced in my nurture of myself, consistent to loving myself enough to care for my body and mind, NOW, TODAY, and for the REST OF MY LIFE. 

I am not on a diet, during this successful remodelling of my body from an unhealthy, injured and morbidly obese one to the fit one I love today, the one I will continue to care for, I have not 'dieted'.

I have never been tempted to 'bust off' 'give up', what I am doing, because I'm not 'on a diet', I'm on a path of self care.   Join me and know YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL ~ TODAY.  CARE FOR YOURSLF ~ TODAY.    You do not have to wait until a 12-week challenge starts, or Monday, or next month.

Lifestyle change WORKS: By all means, set yourself, 12 week challenges, I will even join you in one, but my advice if you want to be successful in that challenge, is to not try to do anything you are not prepared to do for the rest of your life, becaue it is :-
lifestyle change, not dieting that achieves successful healthy bodies.


The rest of our lives starts TODAY let us make it a great one :-).

Do only what you can 100% believe you can do and maintain for a lifetime.
Do not do anything that you feel you can only keep up for twelve weeks then feel you have to have a break from. If you go to extremes, you are not ready for, you are just swinging in a pendulum from one form of self abusive behaviour, that of overeating and under exercising (I have been there), to another form of self abuse, (been there too), that of underrating and or exercising. 

How do you eat an elephant?
Answer :- One bite at a time. Set mini goals, make mini changes to your life to get started. If the prospect of life change is too much to imagine, just focus on a 10% change that you know will help you. Can you do that?.  I took two years to build up to being able to jog short distances and three years to be flexible and fit enough to do yoga most days. Take it 10%  change at a time and aim for 10% goals so you can see yourself achieving the bigger goals through a series of achieving small though important, mini goals.

The only scales you need are the 'balanced life', scale. The bathroom scales are only an aid,  try not to over rank thier importance in your life. If you cannot maintain consistency, if you feel like stopping caring for yourself, if the scales do not respond with the results you hope to see. If scales affect how you care for yourself, you  are in 'diet mentality', and you are measuring your worth according to a bathroom scale, rather than consistently loving yourself, and nurturing yourself. Think 'diet' and your weight will yo-yo for the rest of your life. Focus on the scales and allow them to influence your mood today and you will still be trapped in a struggle with your weight in five years time.

DIETS DO NOT WORK. Remember that only 5% of dieters succeed. Doesn't that tell you, You do not fail diets, Diets and diet programs, FAIL PEOPLE.  Stop fixating on the scales, fix your focus on YOU, LOVE and NURTURE YOURSELF, and BE the person you long to be TODAY.  Don't wait till you are slim to LIVE and LOVE LIFE, and YOURSELF. Do not give your scales any power, over you, they are a tool, that is all.

I strive for a healthy body composition of strong muscle and bone density and reduction of excess body fat, not a weight goal. I don't care what you or I weigh, I care who you and I are are and how you and I feel and act.  I only give my weight in forums as it is a prerequisite of the forum, it does not measure my fat percentage or healthy body tissue percentage

.

Love yourself today and start doing the things you do for your mind and body out of a healthy desire to nurture yourself, and your body will gradually change to become the one you now believe you have. 

Think and act the roll of the person you wish to become.

Visualise that you are that fit healthy slim person and your body will become as close to the image you carry in your mind as it can.

Believe anything is possible, think healthy, visualize being fit, visualise long life and make future plans and for some of us, a little miracle of recovery from chronic ill health is thrown in too and the positive mind generates powerful messages to restore the health of the immune system of the body.
 
 
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I am a member of the Biggest Loser Club AU.  I mostly chat in fitness and exercise related forums, as Kathyjoy.  Rank: Advanced Member
 
If you are looking for great healthy eating, consuming adequate calories, non of those metabolism depressing, health wrecking, poor nutrition or very low calorie dieting, or emphasis only on the silly (my opinion), bathroom scales. If you are willing to become active ad exercise, and focus on fit and slim, not slim at any cost, I would recommend the Biggest loser Club to you.  A one year membership is not expensive, on a per week basis.

I do not like purely weight loss only orientated programs, they are ‘not for me’..

The first healthy weight loss forum I joined  three years ago was fantastic, it was good nutrition, portion control and exercise with each of us doing our own thing, but all of us being focused on the healthy way to do it.  The thing is, it was so successful those who joined it, mostly achieved their goals and moved on. It was a small group of similar minded people most of whom I have developed a lifetime friendship with and we are all, winners for having met and motivated each other to achieve wonderful healthy goals.

It interested me that those who lost weight fastest, by cutting calories to 1,200 or below, struggled to maintain the weight loss and even regained.  Those who focused on good nutrition, adequate calories, but controlling portion and not binging, and exercising regularly, lost the weight gradually but maintained the weight loss and gained greater health.

I know I frequently emphasise that osteoporosis is sometimes called 'the slimmers illness'.  When you put fitness and nutrition, first in your mind, slimming happens naturally, without effort and what is more, you maintain it. :-). 

The Biggest Loser Program, may not be the program for everyone, some people need more help with the emotional issues of overeating. This program suits me because I have found fitness interested forum members I can enjoy interacting with.

So I AM taking part, in the Biggest Loser Club AU Club, 


~~~~~~~~~~~ FABULOUS IN FEBUARY!        

        Ready ?

ON YOUR MARKS..........GET SET.............GO!

 
Wii Age 01/27/2010
 
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But.Drum rolls.  I am two days away from my three year aniversary of making the decision and acting on it, to change my lifestyle and become healty and slimmer. ......... The very BEST gift for this three year anniversary, came today, when I did the fitness test in the Wii fit plus and it said my Wii age was down from my start of 62 years which was minus one year, from my actual 63 years of age, to ..........drum roll again J. 35 years Wii fit age. J  I am pleased with myself.  I feel it tooJ, I’ve never felt fitter or healthier in my life.  In this last three years of gradually increasing fitness activity, I am certain I have added over thirty years to my life.  What better gift could you give yourself?   lol, I also bought a lovely cotton sun frock to wear on our caravan tour up  the coast.  fresh and bright, just how I am feeling today.
 
 
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Wii Workouts, Home Grown fruit and Vegetables, My man, becoming fit and well again :-) and a Weight loss Goal, achieved.

Reg and I 'played' on the Wii Plus yesterday and he played on the Wii sports J  I can't believe not so long ago, Reg was very ill and now he is up playing golf, bowls, jogging, skiing, it's great. 

I am loving the Wii  I bought, after resisting  learning about modern equipment like this for years and not having children to teach me, it took the members of the Biggest Loser Club, setting Wii calories burned, challenges to get me to look into it and I am absolutely thrilled with my buy.  I always compare prices on line these days and look for the best shopping deals as it pays to compare shopping prices.  I ended up having to search simply for anyone who still had the Biggest Loser, Wii program, still in stock; it was, sold out, in most stores.

I am very keen to increase my fitness, even hope to lose a few more kilos before our tour for 2010 begins. I am planning everything carefully, to ensure we can eat and exercise well, even while travelling.  I have been looking at 12 or 240-volt fridges or freezers, for the car to extend the available fresh vegetable storage space. It is near impossible to store a big cabbage or several large heads of lettuce in a caravan fridge and fresh healthy food is one thing I do not wish to skimp on in our meals when we tour.

I had set myself a January, weight loss goal of three kilo by Australia day, I have made this goal J, I know it was the loads of fresh home grown fruit and vegetables , especially tomatoes,  nectarines and strawberries  and the Wii Fit Plus and the Wii Biggest loser exercise sessions that have helped me achieve this J.  So any doubts as to the wisdom of spending the money to buy this Wii Package has been resolved and I think it’s the best fitness investment I have made, since I discovered my Brooks Running Shoes and got moving, three years ago.

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.  
 
 
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Quick Facts...
  • Sodium is one factor in the development of high blood pressure.
  • Sodium is a component of salt; table salt is 40 percent sodium and 60 percent chloride.
  • Most foods contain some sodium because it is naturally present.
  • Several food industries are trying to find methods to decrease sodium in the food while ensuring its safety.
  • The maximum recommended level of sodium intake is 2,300 mg per day.
Sodium is a part of everyone's diet, but how much is too much?

You can read the full transcript here :- Sodium in the Diet, by J Anderson, L.Young and S.Prior
 
 
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Guest author and creator of the new blog, 'A dose of Dannie', Dannielle Wallace Wallace.
Introducine, Dannielle, the author of the new blog, 'A dose of Dannie'. Dannie writes with a flair and a wide interest range based on extensive life experience.

WAYS TO CARE FOR YOURSELF

Rest when you're tired.

Cry when you are sad.

Learn when to say NO.

Play with your favourite toys.

Ride a merry-go-round.

Go for a walk with someone you love.

Brush your teeth.

Play with your best friends.

Hug a stuffed animal.

Hug your pet... not too hard!

Learn how to talk about your feelings.

Take a bath.

Be angry when you need to be.

Listen to the birds.

Read a book.

Colour.

Laugh.

Eat when you are hungry.

Stop when you're full.

Talk to someone who really understands.

Make new friends.

Exercise.

Listen to the rain.

Be honest to yourself and others.

Ask for help when you need it.

Write a journal.

Bake your favourite cake.

Go to a gym.

Enjoy a milkshake.

Do yoga or tai chi.

Walk the dog.

Take some amazing photos.

Play in water.

Wear your favourite clothes.

Look at the stars.

Plant something.

Pick or buy yourself flowers.

learn to listen to your body.

Get a back rub.

Have a massage.

Write on your sidewalk with chalk.

Play make believe.

Do something nice for someone else.

Listen to your favourite music.

Paint a picture.

Do some Tapestry.

Make a tent.

Learn about something new.

Turn off the television.

Listen to the silence inside you.

Take a nap.

Spend time with others who let you be you.

Get a hug.

Wrap yourself in a blanket.

Listen to beautiful music.

Help someone who needs help.

Blow bubbles.

Sing a song.

Play a instrument.

Give yourself a big hug!

Have a coffee with a friend.

Do an aerobics or pilates class.

Meditate.

Smell some lovely essential oils.

Buy your friend a thoughtful gift.

Walk through the Botanic Gardens.

 

CELEBRATE YOU!!!

Author: Danielle Wallace Wallace

 
 
 
Apple cider vinegar helps to alkalise the body so the body draws less calcium to do the important job of maintaining the correct pH of the blood and thus more calcium becomes available for the bones to remain strong.  Osteoporosis is sometimes termed the slimmers disease because so many women in particular, in concentrating on cutting calories, also cut nutrients and therefore anything and everything you do to ensure you maintain nutrition and the correct pH balance of your diet so you can absorb the nutrients, especially if getting your nutrients from fewer calories, is very important. 

You would really need to be having about 6 teaspoons full of Apple Cider Vinegar a day to make a great affect on you pH. I personally could not drink that much, hate the taste, yes to the lemon juice in water idea :-), that's a lot easier and on 6 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar a day you start to smell like a rotten apple so you need to be dedicated to follow that advice.

Eating many vegetables and getting protein from a mixture of sources including legumes and not over consuming animal products, is another way to balance the pH of our diets. Apple Cider Vinegar is only one way to do something about balancing pH. 

Most of us are not eating those huge steaks we once might have eaten before we became weight management conscious. Most of us 'healthy diet thinking ', weight loser/winners are eating a lot vegetables.  Most of us would be having a reasonably balanced pH diet anyhow. Ph is one area of nutrition that is very important and it tends to be neglected, or overlooked. 

Certainly having Apple Cider Vinegar up to, a certain amount would if you tolerate it, do no harm.  It can help you assimilate other nutrients better if your diet is heavily animal product and therefore acid based as that drains your bones of calcium, as calcium is the mineral your body uses to maintain pH balance at a healthy level if you are not eating healthy. This acid balance is why total reliance on acid forming dairy product for your calcium needs does not guard you against osteoporosis if your total food intake is acid forming.

In other words, eat up on the vegetables. Onion and green leafy vegetables are great for maintaining a healthy pH balance and is a squirt of lemon juice in water rather than calcium robbing drinks like diet coke and extra coffees.

A varied diet is better to do the job of maintaining the correct pH of the body and providing nutrients, than to look for and rely on a solo wonder food or product. IMO. J

The author, Kathy Shell has a certificate in Health sciences, including Nurtition and is a graduate of a Bone Health Program.
 

Apple cider vinegar has become popular as a “fat-burner” and as a natural appetite suppressant. In fact, there’s even an apple cider vinegar diet, which involves taking one to three teaspoons of apple cider vinegar or apple cider vinegar pills before each meal.
 
The earliest proponent of apple cider vinegar for weight loss was Jarvis, who wrote that people who consumed apple cider vinegar regularly would burn fat instead of store it. Although some say that the pectin, enzymes, vitamins, or potassium may help with weight loss, there is no reliable research showing that either apple cider vinegar or the combination of apple cider vinegar, kelp, vitamin B6 and lecithin can influence metabolic rate or the help us “burn fat” faster than we normally would.

One small study in 2005 found that those who ate a piece of bread with a small amount of white vinegar felt more full and satisfied than those who ate the bread alone. It’s possible that vinegar may affect satiety by lowering the glycemic index of carbohydrates eaten at a meal.

More research is needed