5 tips to boost your family’s health on a budget!

From Evernote:

5 tips to boost your family’s health on a budget!

5 Tips to Boost Your Family’s Health on a Budget

Put every food dollar to excellent use by adopting some of the following

cost-cutting tips whenever possible;

1. Eat at home more often (or always). Not only does it cost less, but you also have better control over portion sizes and can freeze any leftovers for another day when you don’t have time to cook. It’s works like a charm for me all the time. If you are fortunate to live near mom’s home cooking, or in-laws, take advantage!

2. Don’t go to the grocery store on a whim. Rather, check what you already have in your refrigerator and pantry and have your shopping list in hand (or better yet, an app on your phone). This will help you avoid overbuying. Also, avoid going to store when you are hungry. You tend to want more than you really need.

3. It seems obvious, but only buy food that you’re actually going to eat. And then actually eat it. If time gets away from you and you’ve got some rotting fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator, think of creative ways to use it – how about tomatoes to make a marinara sauce or ripe fruit for a smoothie?

4. At the store check packages and perishable items for expiration dates and try to pick the latest one possible (these are usually kept in the back of the shelf as the grocer is trying to offload the stuff that will go bad first by displaying it more prominently).

5. Go to grocery shopping every 3 to 4 days. The more you go to store, the more it means you are buying fresh foods that are healthy and putting you on the spot to cook at home and avoid eating out.

6. Teach your children the value of a food budget. Take them shopping with you and teach them to use price, actual need, nutritional value and portion size to determine buying decisions.

If Sugar Doesn’t Kill You, Sitting Will

I ran into this article, and many more on this topic while researching for a project I am working on. The big catchy title read “If SUGAR Doesn’t Kill you, SITTING Will.”

I thought about how I constantly remind my peeps on how avoiding hidden sugars and artificial flavors in foods are more important than focusing on “fat free” catchy phrases on foods. I tell them that cutting out sugar is a huge key to staying healthy and if they really want sweetener rouse Stevia (herb, 10x’s sweeter than sugar and healthy).
Also, this recent research brings up my main concern on how these desk jobs are accelerating people’s aging cycle and eventually killing them. There are many stories out there. Here is just one of many articles that is short and to the point. -

If Sugar Doesn’t Kill You, Sitting Will.
Which is good news because you’re probably reading this while running in the park, and not sitting in front of your computer, at the end of a 9 hour stretch of sitting, right?

Last Sunday’s issue of The New York Times magazine section singled out sugar as the biggest danger to humans. But The Atlantic says that what’s actually worse for you is long periods of sitting.

“Common sense should tell us that sitting for long periods of time is not what humans were designed to do…It turns out that obesity and its related ills will continue to rise until and unless WE more often rise. ”

So, go ahead and treat yourself to that vending machine candy bar and eat it walking back to your desk. It’s better for you than sitting. -KH [The Atlantic, NYT]

Art Aviles

News-Apple Accuses Samsung of Copying iPhone and iPad - Heading to court

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I have to say there are more than one copying Apple’s technology.

Green Tip for moving from one home to the next

Here is a Green Tip that will help the environment, our community and our children’s future!

Non-biodegradable packing materials - Styrofoam packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and foam are useful during a move, but not for the environment. To go green on your next move, whether selling, buying, or renting a new place, try using old newspapers to wrap fragile items, and then recycle the paper when you unpack. Wrap pieces of furniture and art with blankets to ensure they do not get damaged during the move instead of packing them in foam. If you must use non-biodegradable packing materials, ask around to see if anyone has any from a past move to give you. Or ask me. You know that, as a Realtor, I am aware of those who just sold or just bought a home in the Chula Vista community. Reusing is always better than buying new for the environment and your wallet.
Also, don’t forget to look into renting plastic crates, convenient and less expensive than cardboard boxes. Again, if you absolutely have to use cardboard, ask around, or ask me.
-Art Aviles

Workout of the week

Here is another awesome shirt workout from my friend Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training
==============================

Back with another short workout today…this one probably
burned about 350 calories in 30 minutes.

Now that might sound “low” too you, but listen… All these people promising to help you burn 900 calories in
30 minutes (as I saw someone claim on Facebook the
other week), are out to lunch. Hopefully with this.

And they ain’t coming back. Not with those lies.

Listen, if you were a 175 pound guy running at a 6 minute
mile, it would require about an hour of running to burn
1000 calories. That’s extremely hard.

So just be happy with burning 350 calories in 30 minutes
with this cool workout that I put a client through yesterday,
that involves another ladder workout: Big Bodyweight Warm-up

1A) Box Jumps - 3x5
1B) Stability Ball Leg Curls - 3x20 2) Ascending Ladder - 1 rep, 2 reps, etc. up to 10
A) 33% Intensity Squats - use 33% of max squat weight
B) Stability Ball Rollouts
- No rest between exercises

You’ll notice that it doesn’t seem hard until you hit rep 6
on the ascending portion…then it’s heavy breathing for the
rest of the way. 3) Followed by a Descending Ladder - 10 reps, 9 reps, etc. to 1
A) 33% Intensity Squats
B) Stability Ball Jackknife
- No rest between exercises

4) 5 Minutes of 10-meter shuttle sprints, going hard for
15 seconds and walking for 15 seconds. Super-tough. Done.

Blog post - Are you waisting time at gym?

From Evernote:

Blog post - Are you waisting time at gym?

“No I’m not busy, just working out”

- LOL to that often heard comment. I have heard it and used it back in my gym days. Have you thought about how much time you waist at the gym? I recently read a great quick article that I have attached for you to enjoy.

A while back Men’s Health magazine asked its readers to name the one thing that was either keeping them from getting in shape or from exercising more. The overwhelming answer: not enough time. Given most people’s packed schedules this excuse seems plausible until you spend some time hanging out at a gym. There you’ll see those same people who were complaining about being too busy chatting, flirting, reading, waiting and flexing. In other words, wasting time—and wasting their workouts.

Kevin Elsey and Anthony Slater, both performance specialists for Athletes’ Performance, estimate that most people are only about 60 percent efficient in their workouts, which means that 20 minutes of every hour in the gym is being frittered away.

So this week, as part of my month-long quest to de-clutter and refocus my exercise life by throwing out one fitness-related item each day, I’m turning my attention to my gym behavior. With the help of Elsey, Slater and other experts, I’ve identified an assortment of habits, exercises and training routines that I (and maybe you) don’t need:

1. Winging it

Usually when I go to the gym it’s because “I feel like it.” I have less of a plan than the lame-duck Bush administration. And that’s inefficient and just plain boneheaded. “Always head to the gym knowing exactly which exercises you’re going to do,” says Elsey, who is headquartered at the Athletes’ Performance Institute in Tempe, Arizona. “And by that I mean how many sets, reps and rest periods.”

2. Yakking with everyone

As a freelance writer, I don’t get out much, so when I do I like to socialize and see if I can still speak coherently. Slater, who manages the Core Performance Center in Santa Monica, California, says that’s fine as long as all that chitchat doesn’t interrupt the workout. “Reserve your first 15 minutes at the gym for socializing,” he suggests. Actually write it on your training schedule, if that’s what it takes to get it out of your system. “Then concentrate on the task at hand, with maybe another 15 minutes at the end for more socializing.”

3. Watching the scenery

Okay, I admit it. I get distracted when there’s a Brazilian Thrust-and-Combust class going on in the next room. To remedy this problem, I think I have an ingenious solution. From now on, I’m going to leave my glasses in my locker. I can still get by without them, but my world will be a lot narrower.

4. Wasting time warming up

I typically pedal the stationary bike, jog on the treadmill, or do some lazy calisthenics or yoga for a few minutes. While this raises my heart rate and generally conditions my muscles, it’s not specific to anything, which means that again I don’t have a plan. Try “movement prep,” suggests Elsey. This fast series of dynamic movements prepares your nervous system for activity and actually builds strength, stability and flexibility. And it takes about 7 minutes. Click here for a sample routine.

5. Resting after every set

Instead of walking around the gym pretending that I’m huge and that the women in the Thrust-and-Combust class are watching me, I’m banishing most of these brief respites from my workout. Instead, I’m going to do more “supersetting.” That is, performing one movement after another without rest. So after a set of bench presses, for instance, I’ll move directly to a set of dumbbell rows. Then rest briefly and repeat the superset. Since each exercise works opposing muscles or movements (pushing versus pulling in this example), I won’t tire as fast and I won’t spend as much time resting between sets, Elsey says.

6. Waiting for equipment to open up

This is a big time-waster for me. But I’ll be able to stop twiddling my chalked thumbs if I can grasp the concept of “complimentary movements,” says Elsey. For instance, if you just finished doing your bench presses and are waiting for some big, hairy, sweating hulk to surrender the lat pulldown machine (wait, is that Doris from accounts receivable?), “do a movement that focuses on either scapular stability or pec mobility,” he suggests. “Complimentary movements like these help you bust through plateaus, prevent injuries and recover faster.” That’s because you’re improving your all-important stabilizer muscles as well as your mobility, which gives you a solid platform to develop strength and muscle. Click her for some specific examples of circuits using complimentary exercises.

7. Dawdling on the cardio machine

Since I like to eat, I like to burn fat. And I’d always heard that the best way to do that is with steady-state, low-intensity aerobic workouts. Throw out that thinking, says Paul Robbins, a metabolic specialist at Athletes’ Performance in Tempe, Arizona. While there are certainly days when I should do that kind of workout, most of the time he recommends using interval training to duck in and out of different energy zones, for more complete cardiovascular conditioning. “Change up your workload every minute or 30 seconds,” he recommends. “Just by raising your intensity by 15 to 20 percent, you’ll double the calories burned and cut a 40-minute workout down to 20 or less. Plus, you’ll be getting true cardio benefit.”

8. Doing isolation exercises

Biceps curls, press-downs, crunches…these types of exercises work only a single muscle or muscle group. But they’re some of the first moves I learned, so that’s what I instinctively fall back on. But with the help of Slater I’m replacing them with “compound movements” that are more time efficient and physiologically beneficial because they work different parts of the body simultaneously. For instance, instead of doing leg extensions and arm curls, I’ll do lunges and a curl to overhead press. Or combine all three moves into a lunge to curl to press. This doesn’t mean just throwing a bunch of moves together, which can be a mistake. The most basic compound movements—squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, push-ups and rows, for instance—are often the most effective.

Well, that’s enough gym-cleaning for one spring week. Now where the hell are my glasses?

Joe Kita – Joe Kita is a noted writer, editor, motivational speaker and teacher. He authors the blog “One Small Change” for CorePerformance.com.

Guide for Aging Parents choosing to Stay in their Homes

Here is a guide for aging americans who choose to stay in their homes instead of putting it up for sale in today’s real estate market. I am Art Aviles, Real Estate Broker, and I want to share with you the guide that can help you or your aging parents make correct decisions on their home as they age. Many communities, like Eastlake, have a majority of two story homes that can be a big concern for aging adults.

As many older Americans choose to remain in their homes as they age, they will become more concerned about issues related to mobility, home safety and care giving options. My parents who own a two story home in Otay Ranch are not thinking of going anywhere or selling to purchase a one story home. They asked me to research for them on what options they may have for their future needs. Before really digging into my research I ran into an organization that addresses those concerns. The MetLife Mature Market Institute published “The MetLife Aging in Place Workbook: Your home as a Care Setting,” a free guide to help individuals and families assess potential care needs, determine whether their home should be modified or whether assistive devices are needed, identify potential care sources and understand costs. The workbook is awesome, and it also includes a list of organizations and government agencies that can provide additional assistance. The free publication is available at www.maturemarketinstitute.com

Hope this can help relieve you and your family of any concerns and avoid any heavy costs or discomfort in the future.

-Art Aviles, RE Broker & Exercise Coach

Blog ChulaVIsta365

Baseball is Back! Opening Day around Major League Baseball in a City Near you!

Good old American past time is in full swing to welcome 2011 Baseball season. My boys in blue, Dodgers, open today against the world champion San Francisco Giants. You could not ask for a better day, sunny 88 degrees. The Angels play away in KC, and the Pads are in STL. I love the opening day games brings back childhood memories and reminds me that spring is back! So, Play Ball!

Blog: ChulaVista365.com
Twitter.com/ArtAvi365
Facebook.com/ArtOfRealEstate

Homes to Get A New Look in 2015, As Become Eco-Friendly

Homes To Get a New Look by 2015
Newly-built homes in 2015 will be smaller, they will include more environmentally friendly features, and their living rooms will either merge with other spaces in the home or be eliminated altogether, according to a new report from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Survey respondents say they expect the average size of single-family homes to be 2,152 square feet by 2015, 10 percent smaller than homes started in the first three quarters of 2010. More than two-thirds of respondents (68 percent) say homes will have more green features, followed by technology features (29 percent), greater universal access (20 percent) and more outdoor living space (10 percent).

As homes get smaller, the living room area will also change. More than half (52 percent) of respondents expect the living room to merge with other spaces in the home while 30 percent believe it will vanish to save on square footage. So-called great rooms and walk-in closets in the master bedroom will become more common, while two master bedroom suites, sunrooms and media rooms will be less likely to be featured. TUE, MAR 8, 2011

Council of resiDential specialist

Healthy Tip of the Week

Good Fats

Hey don’t feel guilty and enjoy a south of the border treat! You don’t have to avoid the delicious guacamole in Mexican Restaurants just because it’s high in fat. So, it’s high in fat calories but the fat is a “MONOUNSATURATED” which is the “GOOD” fat that our bodies need and also helps lower cholesterol. Now, why you have to dip those unhealthy chips in the nutritious guacamole to flush straight down your throat is a question no one can answer. LOL.