The Positive Approach

Changing your mindset to focus on the positive in everyday situations and circumstances is key to reducing stress and increasing joy. What you think, and ultimately say, about your situation, largely determines your path. “I’ll never… I can’t, I won’t…” are powerless words. Try looking at stressors as temporary situations that can be overcome. Keeping a positive outlook improves mood, and approaching stressful situations with hope increases resiliency. Making this a habit ultimately changes how we perceive reality and how stressors affect our lives.

It’s about building on what is strong instead of what is wrong and replacing dread, guilt and shame with hope, love and joy. “I can, I will” and “I am able,” are power words.Remember, your behavior follows your thoughts.

Attitude is everything. How you approach life, your mindset, the things that take your time and focus, so much stems from our attitude. Positivity wins every time. Next time a stressful situation arises, check your thoughts and what you say about the situation. Notice the difference. Bottom line…quit focusing on what you don’t have, can’t do and don’t want.

5 Free Fitness Apps for 2020

Workout apps are all the rage and cover every type of workout. Enjoy strength training, yoga and/or barre workouts? There is an app for those. Here is a sampling of 5 free fitness apps for 2020.

JEFIT: This app is for resistance training workouts (no cardio or yoga). This app provides exercise training as well as tracking. Choose from hundreds of exercises by selecting your target muscle from a body map. Track your progress with photos.

NIKE Training Club: A great app that acts as a substitute for an instructor-led fitness routine. This app offers dozens of workouts led by Nike’s professionals, celebrity trainers and pro athletes. Choose your best workout by narrowing your choices based on specified criteria.

FitOn: An app that allows you to select from a variety of select workouts. Choose a workout by length, intensity, category or emphasis area. Because there is no membership or long-term commitment, you can use it as you like. FitOn offers a variety of workouts, such as HIIT, pilates or dance.

Seven: This app is based on the popular “seven minute workout” concept. This app is great for those that are short on time, dislike exercise and/or have little exercise equipment. Calisthenic-based exercises include body weight squats, step-ups and wall sits, for example. These are quick, straight-forward workouts.

Freeletics: You can effectively strength train without workout equipment. Body weight exercises for resistance training continue to be a hot trend. You can even choose a workout by the amount of space you have available. Freeletics covers all muscle groups and fitness levels, with step by step instructions for each exercise.

Top Food, Weight Loss and Nutrition ‘Apps...

Whether you have an Apple or an Android phone … it’s hard to do without ‘apps.’ A mobile application, (mobile app) is a software application designed to run on mobile or portable devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, etc. They are usually operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as Apple, Google, Windows (think Apple App store, Google Play and Windows Phone store). There are free apps and those that must be purchased. After downloading the software, you can use the ‘app.’ Initially designed to increase general productivity and enhance information retrieval, apps now cover games, music, banking, etc.

There are dozens of food, nutrition, weight loss and fitness/exercise apps designed to help you live a healthier life. Before downloading anything that looks interesting consider that doing so means info overload. Interested in knowing which are the best according to registered dietitians (RDs)? Check these picks out for October and look for regular bi-monthly updates for new options:

SparkRecipes: Easy-to-use, offers thousands of healthy recipes that you can categorize and organize according to various criteria, such as cuisine, occasion, dietary needs…you can save favorite recipes and convert common cooking measures. Cons: nutrition facts for recipes are user-generated and may not be correct/reliable. Platform: Apple, Android & Blackberry

iCookbook Diabetic: Summary: from the editors of Diabetic Cooking (and the original iCookbook app), contains over 500 recipes sorted by category (30-minute meals, vegetarian, slow-cooker, low-carb, etc). Offers a tool to scale ingredients to change recipe yield (portions), also offers  nutrition analysis and dietary exchanges for each recipe. Platform: Apple

Fooducate Nutrition Scanner: Summary: Perhaps not a stand-alone app for overall better nutrition but a nifty tool nonetheless and a great companion to a nutrition plan. Fooducate allows you to scan a food’s UPC and it will tell you the nutrition facts (and more…such as if the sodium level is dangerous, for instance). It ‘grades’ the food relative to its alternatives and even helps you to pick a healthier selection (say, for a protein bar). Overall, you can improve your food choices. Platform: Apple, Android

Calorie Counter MyNetDiary: Summary: Weight loss/management involves tracking what you take in calorie-wise. Apps are useful tools for taking some of the work out of calorie-counting. This app is a useful nutrition aid as it tracks your calorie intake, AND your exercise to help take the guesswork out of your calorie balance for better weight management. Charts and graphs provide feedback on your progress. Like Fooducate, you can scan the bar code of packaged food OR type the first few letters of the name of a specific dish to search from over 420,000 foods contained in the database. Platform: Apple, Android

Food Tripping: Summary: A great food finder for your vicinity….locates everything from small business food artisans to national food and market chains. Customizable search results based on categories such as  farmers markets, coffee/tea, juice joints, microbreweries and vegan/vegetarian options. Businesses are searchable by name, location and category. Platform: Apple, Android