It's how you see it

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered:

"I saw that we have one dog and they had four.

We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!

Using mind to build muscle

I've always believed in the power of visualization and now breakthrough research in the field of exercise physiology has yielded stunning revelations about the way we get fit. The big surprise, though, is not what we "have" to do, but what we might "not" have to do.

Our thoughts can literally redefine the size, shape and strength of our bodies.
Read this interesting article by Jonathan Fields (Source: JonathanFields.com) on how imaginary workouts can build strength and fuel weight loss.

http://www.mindpowernews.com/ImaginaryWorkout.htm

How To Get Rid Of Flabby Arms

You won't want to hear this but the first priority is to reduce the body fat overall.

Now, in order for that flabby area under your arm to become tone, you'll need to build the triceps muscles in the back of the arm. There are several good exercises you can do to build up that area.

Some of the more common and better exercises you can do for the back of the arms are * Weighted dips * Close grip bench presses * Close grip push ups * Lying barbell French presses * Overhead cable extensions * Cable press downs * Reverse cable press downs

Combining these exercises with a good all round fat reduction program of diet factors and high intensity interval training will see those flabby arms tone up nicely. And the bonus will be...

So will the rest of your body.

Tone your legs

Even the busiest people have many idle moments in their day. With a little thought you can get more value out of that time rather than accepting it as lost time.

Here are 3 tips to firm and tone your legs during idle moments.

Increase your walking speed by taking longer strides rather than shorter, quicker steps. When you lengthen your pace you use more of your thigh and hip muscles.

In the theater, on a bus, or during meetings, sit with your lower back against the chair and press your legs tightly together as if they were one for as long as possible. Cross them at the ankles and try to pull them apart. Again with the ankles crossed push the top leg down as the other one pushes up. Then swap legs so the other one is on top.

These are all simple isometric exercises which can be done in otherwise idle moments without any equipment or anyone even noticing.

Swap it around

People often ask, "What's the best weight routine to use?"

Answer: There is none.

Okay, sure, some are better than others maybe, depending. God what sort of an answer is that!!!

The fact is there's an infinite number of routines you could do and there's hundreds of exercises and variations on how they can be put together. Fast, slow, super slow, one rep max, heavy, light, high rep, low rep, ascending, descending, matrix... the list goes on.

Just make sure you keep changing what you do to keep your body from adapting to whatever you're doing.

Let's say you are training your back, biceps, forearms and abs on Friday. Instead of always doing them in that order, why not train your abs, forearms, biceps, and back (in the opposite sequence).

Yeah I know they say work the big muscle groups first. That's good but you can occasionally switch everything upside down. This will ensure that the smaller muscles get an opportunity to train first in the week when your body is the most fresh.

There are plenty of ways to mix it up. This is only one. Keep your body guessing what's next.