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Learning to Play: 10 Classes to Take Just for Fun

August 16, 2012 by Featured Author Leave a Comment

by Pepper Givens

While it’s always important to keep on learning throughout life, there is no reason to turn learning into a code word for drudgery. In fact, learning new things is the perfect way to incorporate a little fun into your day. Taking classes just for fun is an opportunity to, not only learn a new skill, but to actually learn how to let go have fun again! If you’re stuck for ideas on new things to do, try out some of these accessible and fun courses. You can find most of them through community programs or available at local colleges and universities:

1. Acting

While you may want to make sure you enroll in a class that is not meant for professional actors, there are plenty of different reasons why an acting class can be a blast. If you’ve ever wanted to be on stage, this is the perfect time to just let loose and go for it. You never know, a role could even be waiting if you discover a hidden passion.

2. Ballroom Dancing

[Read more…]

How to Stay Motivated & Keep Your Fitness Levels Up

August 14, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

by guest author Sean Byrne

For many years now I have been involved in developing and maintaining my fitness levels.

Ever since I was a young teen, I was out playing all sorts of sports activities, my favorite one being soccer. I absolutely loved playing sports and it was difficult for me to train my academic side as sports really did take over my life. But as I have gotten older, I have to say that things have changed for me slightly in the sense that the desire to remain focused and motivated has been challenging for me as time has drifted by. Life changes and circumstances too, so it’s important you realize this.

Staying motivated to remain fit has its challenges and I know a lot of people struggle with this too. This is the reason I decided to write this article, as I know people want to learn how others remain motivated to stay in shape and maintain their fitness levels. So after the New Years Eve resolutions begin to slide out of focus, what can we do to strengthen our desires again? Let’s take a look at what I do these days to stay on track.

Picture Your Perfect Body

My first reason on how I stay motivated is picturing the perfect figure I would like to achieve. What do I want to ultimately look like? I go and view magazines, go online to check out images of the type of body I want to achieve. When I do find a body I want to own, I then cut out or print off these images and blow them up into an A1 size image so I can nail them to my wall with a caption that says, “Look At You come the 31 of May 2012!!”. What this caption does is it gives me a time frame to work on. So I could be starting at the beginning of December, allowing myself six months to achieve this look. This is one of the ways I stay motivated, as every time I jump on my treadmill, or workout with my weights, I visually see my end goal and it makes me want to achieve this goal. By taking action, I know I am chipping away at receiving my end goal.

For Reasons Of Heath

The next point on how I stay motivated is for the reason of health. Almost every day I appreciate the fact that I am not cursed with some chronic disease, or the fact that I don’t have any medical condition to worry about. I know that eating healthy and doing my exercises a few times a week will do wonders for maintaining my health and reduce any risk of developing a sickness of whatever sort. I have conditioned myself, through repetitional thought to be thankful for my good health. This in turn keeps me motivated to eat the right foods and exercise on a regular basis.

Maintaining A Positive Frame of Mind

Perhaps one of my favorite reasons for staying motivated is the notion that once I start running on the treadmill, or lifting those weights, I am alleviating stress from my body, building up my self confidence and self-esteem and working towards a calmer state of being. I am addicted to this calmer state of being and I know that if I exercise intensity for 30 minutes at the beginning of the day, I will be in a much stronger, calmer frame of mind for the rest of the day. The desire to achieve this state of being motivates me to maintain my fitness levels and I usually have no problems taking action!

About the Author: As explained in the article, Sean enjoys developing and maintaining his fitness levels and has a few reasons for staying motivated on achieving his fitness goals. When he is not actively fit, he is maintaining and promoting his treadmill website. His site offers reviews and ratings on some of the top treadmills you can purchase online. Take a look at some of the top products in the market today and see which popular treadmill you’d like to purchase next.

4 Online Nutrition Education Resources for Families

July 1, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

Teaching your kids healthy eating habits and preparing nutritious meals for them is one of the most important things you can do as a parent. With childhood obesity rates on the rise, making sure your children eat right should be one of your major concerns. Unfortunately, unless you majored in nutrition in college, you may only have a vague idea of how to create healthy meal plans for your family. Many parents cook the same recipes for their kids that their parents cooked for them: casseroles, pot roasts, spaghetti and meat balls, etc. While many of these traditional home cooked meals aren’t necessarily bad for kids, they aren’t always necessarily the healthiest options.

If you want your family to learn more about nutrition and eat smarter, here are some online resources that you’ll find helpful:

1. Eat Smart, Play Hard – Sponsored by the USDA, this website provides parents with important nutritional information to help their kids make smarter eating choices and healthier lifestyle choices. Additionally, Eat Smart, Play Hard offers a useful meal planning tool for families and tips on how to grocery shop and exercise as a family to promote health.

2. KidsHealth – This website offers nutrition and fitness information and tips in addition to information about the human body and health in general. There are three versions of the KidsHealth site: one for parents, one for kids, and one for teens. The content on each of the sites is geared toward the different age groups. So, your kids and teens can learn more about how to stay healthy on their own versions of the website, and then the whole family can get together and compare notes.

3. BAM! – Made by the CDC for kids, BAM! uses games and cartoons to teach kids more about nutrition, diseases, physical fitness, and safety. If you want your children to understand why it’s important for them to eat healthy and stay physically active, you’ll find this site to be incredibly beneficial. BAM! might even get your kids excited about eating their vegetables.

4. Parents.com Kids Nutrition – If you’re having trouble coming up with healthy recipes to prepare for your family, you’ll find the Kids Nutrition section of the Parents.com website to be incredibly beneficial. It’s chock full of nutritious recipes and healthy eating tips and information.

The above websites well help your family get informed about nutrition. Remember that healthy kids and parents make for a happier family!

About the Author: Nadia Jones is a freelance blogger who loves writing about education, new technology, lifestyle and health. As an education writer, she works to provide helpful information, pointers, and the most recent online college news for students looking into online degrees.

Want to Really Change? Keep Track of the Numbers

February 8, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus

When my children were young, I registered their growth on the hallway doorjamb with pencil marks and knife notches.

Next to each was inscribed a date and name. Since those statistics are most likely meaningless to the latter owners, I assume sandpaper and lacquer have removed that chronicle; yet I wonder if they left those markings intact, pondering periodically where went “Daniel, January 28, 1988” or “Brandon, April 7, 1989.”

Numbers are the language by which lives are recorded; history is kept; and even how the universe communicates. This does not denigrate the clout of intuition, emotion, nor hunches; yet, the bottom line — quite literally — is what the numbers say. Whether checking the weight of a newborn; success of a business; leadership of a country; or the future of our planet; it’s “in the numbers.”

Our language is strewn with numeric references. We hope no one “does a number on us,” or that our “number is up.” We “dress to the nines” for elegant receptions, but refrain from becoming “three sheets to the wind.” There are “no two ways about it;” numbers count (um, pardon the pun).

It therefore stands to reason that that which we monitor expands our awareness, affording concern or confidence. So logically, if we want to change something about us, we must establish a baseline and “keep score.”

This process starts before we can count, as illustrated by how the amount of gold stars on a refrigerator can be extremely effective in fine-tuning a child’s behavior. As adults, step one in altering our lifestyles might involve tracking our accumulation of wealth (or lack thereof), or when we anticipate joyful occasions, “counting the days.”

Of course, that means should better health be the objective, we must track the behaviors associated with those goals. A smoker can become an ex-smoker by paying attention to how often he lights up and setting targets to lower that count over time. If physical fitness is the desired outcome, we can write down how often — or how far — we walk or run. We record our blood pressure. We check our weight. We can even monitor our attitude.

All this has been a preamble to one question: “If we agree that keeping track can make our lives better, why don’t we do it more often?” What’s the resistance? [Read more…]

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