Josie Maurer, creator of YumYucky.com, spreads the message of finding balance between fitness and your greedy side. She lost over 40 pounds after the birth of her fourth child through sensible eating and exercise, yet she still maintains her love for large slices of cake.

Please don’t get happy for all the wrong reasons. These non-exercise techniques do not involve floor-napping, lazy-dazing or sun bathing. They will, in fact, require some effort on your part, but it’s literally no sweat. Even if you’re gung ho about exercise, there are still some nuisance stumbling blocks that might prevent your workout from ever getting off the ground.
Guard your workouts with these three non-exercise techniques. They will help set you up for a great fitness session with limited hindrances, distractions and disturbances.

Technique #1: ORGANIZE

Got messy clutter everywhere? Can you find your running shoes? Are you pressured to skip your workout because the laundry needs attention? Lack of organization is a beastly little culprit that sneaks up slowly and nibbles at your chance for an effective workout. Disorganization can be overwhelming and is many times at the root of the “I don’t have time to exercise” excuse. Organization helps to remove the noise in your life that distracts from your fitness goals. When you slay the disorganized chaos like you’re wielding a ninja sword, you’ll be freed up and better prepared to workout without the need to tend to other matters first. Problems like a messy workout space, “lost” fitness gear, or a pile of dirty exercise clothes will no longer be part of the issues that hinder you from a great workout.
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At the most basic level, weight loss comes from cutting calories and exercising more. But there are certain unhealthy eating habits that also factor into our ability to do these two things. Here’s a list of six unhealthy eating habits that can ruin a diet or make weight loss even more difficult.

1. Bad breakfast. It’s old news that skipping breakfast is bad for your metabolism. But eating an unhealthy breakfast is nearly just as bad. A sugary doughnut or a fatty muffin sets the nutritional tone for your day. Instead, get a healthier and more filling breakfast with plenty of protein and healthy carbs.

2. Eating too little during the day–and overeating at night. If you deprive yourself of too many calories during the day, not only will you be cranky at night, you’ll also be more likely to overeat. Instead, eat several small meals throughout the day.

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Did you know that this is National Public Health Week? With the tagline of A Healthier America: One Community at a Time, the nationwide initiative that encourages everyone to promote healthier choices one-by-one seems like a no-brainer. One person, one change – the incremental amounts of positive effort that each of us makes can turn into big changes in the world around us.

In a study commissioned by the American Public Health Association, entitled A Healthy America Study, 21 percent of subjects responded that they were interested in making changes to their lifestyle in order to become more healthy. Tops on the list of changes that intrigued them? Changes to dietary habits.

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The analogy of an iceberg is not new in describing problems. You may see your child throwing a tantrum because he is not allowed to have a cookie; however, it takes more analysis to recognize that the source of the tantrum is really how tired he is because he stayed up to watch the end of a movie the night before. You may see your child squirming and being silly, but do you realize that she is really just nervous that the doctor may give her a shot?

A client came in the other day and was able to clearly describe what brought him into counseling, as well as recognize the issues in the background that were likely contributing and that needed to be addressed and processed. Although the part of his iceberg above the water did need to be addressed right away, he was aware that the layers beneath the water posed a danger to him also.

Different modalities of therapy address different levels of the iceberg; however, good client care addresses the entire problem. Perhaps a better analogy would be a weed because if you try to cut it off at ground level, it will grow back and continue to cause problems until you address the root.
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For many of us, it has been a long snowy slog this winter. But the end is near, and spring is just around the corner. While it may not match the annual New Year’s resolution everyone makes, spring is also a time of renewal. The scent of flowers begins to fill the air, and we start shedding our layers of clothing… which reminds us that by hibernating for the winter, we now have a few extra unwanted pounds.

Do you have some extra weight that you need to shed before bathing suit season arrives? Then, it’s time to do some spring cleaning in your kitchen. Here are five ways that will shape up your eating habits, and your waistline:

1. Grocery Shop Wisely

If it’s not in your kitchen, you won’t eat it. That may be a simple mantra, but its importance is profound. If you are even the least bit weak when buying snack foods, don’t shop for food when you are hungry. Better yet, go grocery shopping right after a meal. That may be a little difficult – who wants to grocery shop at 7 p.m. after a long day of work? But if you can do it, you may cut thousand of calories a month.
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