Different Levels of Health

Here are some levels of health from the worst to the best. Be truthful with yourself and find out exactly which health category you are in. Once you have the answer, your goal should be to get to a better, healthier level.




Fast food and junk food. Eating out at fast food places or when eating at home, eating meals out of a bag, such as chips, frozen dinners, cookies, everything extremely processed. In this category huge alcohol consumption may be added.



Junk food. This level means that you’ve limited your fast food to a couple times a year. But you still have your junk food at home. Ex: cakes, pies, cookies, candy, chocolate, sodas, store bought juice.



Processed food, but without junk food. This means that the junk food from the previous category is gone, but you are still eating lots of processed foods. Processed foods are any foods that come in a box. For example: cereals, breads, pastas or foods that most people consider carbohydrates. (There is more to carbohydrates than these processed ones, look below for answers.)



Switching off to whole foods. You’re starting to eat mostly whole food. This means eating whole vegetables and fruits, meat and fish. Everything is cooked and prepared at home.



Whole foods Raw. Eating mostly whole foods, but instead of cooking your vegetables, you’re eating them raw. Same goes for the fruit. Raw vegetables have a much higher nutrient content than cooked, making it more nutritious for the body.



Whole foods organic. Same as eating whole foods, but you’re slowly switching to organic.



Whole foods organic raw. You’re eating mostly organic with all of the vegetables and fruits raw. Meat can be raw if you choose.



Some of these categories may overlap. That’s fine. The whole goal is to get as much nutritional value out of your food as possible; well that’s my goal anyway. What is yours? To learn more about why nutrients are important, read Surviving or Thriving.



Any questions contact me at yuri@absolutefitnj.com

I Go On Vacation 12 Times A DAY...

How often does an average American go on vacation per year? One week? Two weeks? Maybe a month, if you’re lucky. How would you like to go on vacation multiple times a day? This is not some fast scheme marketing program, this is for real. Watch this 2 MINUTE VIDEO. If you don't have 2 minutes then you can fast forward to the 1 min and 30 second mark.

Now I know that is not the vacation you were thinking of, but this vacation may be even better for you than most vacations you take now. It does not require any packing, traveling, money expenditure or anything else that comes along with going on vacation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking going on vacation, I'm just saying there is now a better way for you to do it all the time. Mental vacations are a must, especially if you have a stressful job. And I know we all have stressful jobs at one point or another. This vacation will help us cope with those stresses. One of my favorite vacations is a 2-3 day outdoor camping trip where I unplug from the world. I turn off my phone, throw it in the back of the tent, read a book and relax. Gathering wood for the fire, catching fish so that we have food to eat, and preparing food over a real fire also helps me relax. I go to sleep when it gets dark and I wake up when it gets light. This recharges me mentally so I can get back to the real world and tackle all the things I need to get done. EVERYONE needs their own daily mental vacation. Come up with a great mental vacation and comment below to give other readers some great ideas.



P.S. this mental vacation can be used to help you relax before going to sleep.

Contact me with any questions at yuri@absolutefitnj.com

Difference between surviving and thriving.

All living creatures do whatever they can to survive. Lions hunt and kill for survival, not knowing when they will feed again. This goes for many other predators as well, even herbivores, which eat plants in order to survive. The sole intent of all living creatures is to survive, and to do so long enough to reproduce. Come to think of it, this is our basic need as well. Survive and have offspring. But since we are humans and are on top of the food chain, shouldn’t we want more than just the need to just survive and reproduce? Our goal is to survive and to thrive while doing it. That means that we should not be eating processed foods that shorten our life span and that are linked to certain diseases. To top it all off, low sperm counts in males are at an all time high. Now this maybe embarrassing for some people to discuss, but it's a huge problem when you cannot reproduce. Not only are you not thriving you are not even surviving.

So which do you prefer?

To survive (dictionary definition):

1. To remain alive or in existence;
2. To carry on despite hardships or trauma;
3. To remain functional or usable.

We as a society have started failing to meet criteria 1 and 3 of the definition.

To thrive (dictionary definition):

1. To make steady progress; prosper;
2. To grow vigorously; flourish.

Next time you are presented with a choice of working longer hours so that you can buy that fancy car, or picking up fast food because it's more convenient, ask yourself if that is helping you to survive or to thrive?

Start living your life so that you can thrive. Wake up every morning pain free. Have more energy throughout the day. Enjoy physical activity that requires you to move, such as walking, hiking, snowboarding, surfing or any other activity that you choose. Start enjoying life. Make it your priority to thrive in this world.

Contact me at yuri@absolutefitnj.com

Distractions And Excuses

We all have things that we must do daily that sometimes we are not so eager to do. That something for me is chores. Today I had to vacuum and mop the floors in my house, a task that should have taken about an hour. I managed to prolong this grueling ordeal, taking 2 to 2.5 hours to finish it. It took me so long to complete this task because I got distracted way too easily. In the time that I was doing my chores I checked my emails 3 times, and answered some of them. Then I checked my texts and phone calls about 4 times. I found any and every excuse to distract myself from the task at hand. I’d rather answer my emails then finish the chores. I found distraction everywhere. It was way too easy.

At the end of last year I had said that I would increase my blogging to at least once a week, and so far I have more then delivered. I used to find it difficult to come up with my blog topics and it was hard to find the time to sit down and write them. I have been doing it for about a month now, and it's become part of my pattern to sit down and get my thoughts down on paper. Ever since then, the topics are coming to me more easily. The only thing that changed from then until now is the fact that I apply all of my energy to writing my blog while I'm writing it. That keeps me focused, and prevents me from becoming easily distracted. Now I enjoy doing something that not even a month ago I found so difficult.

How do you minimize the distractions and excuses that you come up with? No matter what task you are doing; whether it's cooking, shopping, working, training, your nutrition, even chores, put 100 % of your energy into whatever your task is. If you do this for 2 weeks, it will become part of your daily pattern. My dad always says "if you are going to do something, fully commit to it and do it right" (this was spoken to me in Russian but carried the same message). This advice comes easy to us for the things that we like to do, but extremely difficult when we need to get out of our comfort zone and do the things that we don’t like to do.

Get out of your comfort zone more often. That is the only time that we grow as human beings.


Contact me with any questions at yuri@absolutefitnj.com

F*ck Calories

How easily are you offended by bad language? How interested are you in learning the proper way to view food and how to eat? The reason I ask these questions is because I recently read the EBook called Fuck Calories. The author uses a bit of profanity, but I think that it portrays the message more than taking away from it.

This EBook is a great read, and should only take you an hour or so to read. I’m a slow reader because I take my time reading and digesting everything that I read, taking in as much information as possible. Also, English is my fourth language, so reading and writing takes me longer than most. What does that have to do with anything? The point that I'm trying to make is that if an immigrant like me can read this EBook in one hour, then all of you at home should have no problem polishing off this easy to read guide book. No Excuses! Even if you read 5 minutes each night before you go to sleep, you will be done by the end of the week. Take the time to learn, take the time to better yourself. Those 5 minutes spent reading can be more important than anything else you might be doing at that time.

Follow the link; give them your email address, and bam! Download and learn. Once you’ve downloaded the EBook you can unsubscribe from any future emails from them if you choose to do so.

Enjoy the read. I’m looking forward to hearing your opinions on this EBook.
http://www.stumptuous.com/fuck-calories

Contact me at yuri@absolutefitnj.com

SOPA and PIPA Fail!

I would like to take a second to thank the Internet. Do you know how lucky you all are to have this wonderful invention at the tip of your fingers? Think about this, not even 20 years ago, if you needed to find information on something, you went to your local library. Now anything you need is on the web, all you have to do is type what you’re looking for into a search engine. Books can be downloaded right to your computer or delivered straight to your door. That way of life was threatened recently by the SOPA and the PIPA. I just want to say thank you to all of you that fought to make sure that this information remains free.

But just like anything else, when something good happens, there is always the bad that comes along with it. Since the internet is so readily available to everyone, everyone has an opinion. Now, that's not necessarily bad, but then we are bombarded with a ton of information and it's extremely difficult for us to figure out which is a reliable source and which is not.

So it is my job to sift through all the material that’s out there and provide you with the best sources. But don't just take my word for it. Do your own research. Question everything and everyone. Form your own opinion.

Feel Free to contact me with any topics that you would like to be discussed at
yuri@absolutfitnj.com

What Is Your Excuse?

My grandmother is 86 years old. She still goes out every morning or afternoon for at least a 20 minute walk and soaks up the sun rays if it's sunny out.

Many NEW studies show that if you walk for 20- 30 min a day 3 times a week, your cardiovascular system improves, and the likely- hood of developing other diseases decreases as well.
The reason why I have the word NEW capitalized is that it’s not a new study at all. This information has been around for ages. When you exercise more, you become healthier. This is especially important for the elderly. Walking is a low impact exercise, especially if done outside, and it can recharge the body the mind and the soul. (If you do not know what I'm talking about, take a nice peaceful walk on the beach, in the park, in a forest, or in the mountains. Wherever you think you would enjoy it the most. You will see how at peace you are afterwards). My grandmother does not know about all these new studies. She goes for a walk because she knows that she feels better when she does.

Watch this short 10 min video to see one of the scientific studies. This is beautifully illustrated and simply explained.


Feel Free to contact me with any topics that you would like discussed at
yuri@absolutefitnj.com

What should I eat when I don't have the time?

I have had this question asked of me by many people: What should you eat when you are unable to eat for a long period of time because of the nature of your work? Well, it’s time to give you guys the answer. Here is the exact question I recently received. "Here’s a topic that I would find interesting because of my job schedule. I normally don't eat dinner until 9pm because my normal hours are 2-9 during the week, and I am running around teaching classes or talking to customers. However, on Friday, I eat at around 6 because I work 7am on Saturday morning. How can I work a nutrition schedule into a weird schedule?"

I'm going to answer this question specifically, and then give a general answer to the rest of you out there that also have a tough schedule. Since you do not start work until 2 pm, you should have eaten at least 2 meals at home before going in to work. The next question I will ask is whether or not you have time to go to the bathroom. This sounds silly, but certain jobs don't give you enough time to even do that. If you get bathroom breaks, then take a good bar/shake with you to the bathroom and eat it there. I happen to like Larabars. They taste good and use few ingredients. Any other good organic bar would do the trick also. I would keep away from meal replacement bars or protein bars, because they are all processed garbage with tons of sugar. Basically they consist of all calories and have no nutritional benefit. I also mentioned shakes. Shakes can be bought or made by you. The following is the recipe for the shake that I make myself: I use 2-3 raw eggs, raw milk, and banana. That's the basic recipe. If I feel like adding more flavor to it, I add raw nuts and sunflower seeds, organic strawberries and raw honey if I want it sweeter. I look for the best quality ingredients to add to my shake. If you don't want to go through all the trouble of making your own shake, then buy a good quality organic shake. Read the labels to make sure it's beneficial for your body, not just empty calories and sugar. Again, I would keep away from ALL meal replacement shakes or protein shakes.

Basically this all comes down to preparation. Prepare yourself for success, and you will succeed. Eating a meal late at night is not a problem. The key is to make sure that you are eating throughout the day. If you skip all your meals in the beginning of the day, and then have one huge meal at night, your body will start storing fat.

If anyone has any good suggestions regarding the bars or shakes that you use, please comment below.

If anyone has any specific questions that they would like answered, please ask away at yuri@absolutefitnj.com

Flinch

When someone jumps out at you, do you jump? Do you get scared? Do you flinch? If so, then that is your defense mechanism working, protecting you from harm. This defense mechanism is in our genes. It is what has helped us survive when we were cavemen and cave women. It is what causes our reflexes to adapt to a quick CNANGE in our environment. Although now we tend to flinch at any small CHANGE, this is where the problem lies. We flinch at anything that is out of the norm for us, such as public speaking, talking to a person of the opposite sex, trying new things etc. We are too comfortable in our little bubble that we call a world, and are afraid to take a leap of faith. Anyone who has ever been mentioned in the history of mankind had conquered their flinch and lived their life the way they saw fit.

I got the term flinch from a great book called The Flinch. It's a fantastic read that challenges you mentally to break away from your nervous habits that are holding you back. This book was recommended to me by my friend Rob, who is a coach at Absolute Fitness. As I mentioned in my earlier blogs, make sure you surround yourself with people you admire, people that you can learn from and people that will teach you to achieve greatness.

If for any reason you are not totally 100% happy with the way your life is right now, read this book. It's a brand new year. Dare to make positive changes in your life. Is this book going to solve all your problems? Hell no. It will show you many doorways and many windows, but you yourself will have to do the work in order to walk and climb through them.

This is a free Ebook on amazon. Download, read, and learn.

Feel Free to contact me with any topics that you would like discussed at
yuri@absolutfitnj.com

Definition of Definitions

Much thinking has gone into the creation of the name New Redefined Wellness. The average individual does not know what this stands for. Therefore, I will break down the name into small parts in order to fully explain to you what it means.

New Redefined Wellness

New: something fresh, of an unknown origin. Basically, no one has ever heard of it before.
Redefined: giving a new or different definition.
Wellness: the state or condition of being in good physical and mental health.

These are all dictionary definitions.

Now, what it means to me:

New Redefined Wellness.

New: There is nothing new to what I'm offering. My logic and expertise comes from what is actually old and ancient ways of living. It has become so old that it died off and has been resurrected. Confused? Well, what I advise people on, is how they are supposed to eat. The best diet is one that is filled with whole foods, fresh good quality meat, and very little or no grains. This is how we used to eat before scientists and chemists decided to "improve" on Mother Nature by designing lots of heavy processed foods.

Redefined: I simplify the facts and explain them from many different perspectives in order for you to fully understand how nutrition and exercise should be practiced. Because of the many conflicting diet plans and exercise programs out there, many people become extremely confused as to which is the best and most effective regiment. Being healthy does not mean it has to be difficult. And it is not.

Wellness: Merging the entire body, mind and spirit as one. It is accomplished through stress management, exercise, proper nutrition, sleep/rest and much more.

When these words are defined separately they do not make much sense. But when combined together they form the New Redefined Wellness- Educating on a simpler, more effective, pain-free lifestyle.
Contact me at yuri@absolutefitnj.com with any questions

Positive Thinking Challenge

Positive thinking: I mentioned that everyone should do an exercise to help change the negative thoughts into positive thoughts. I explained that as soon as you get a negative thought; substitute it with an opposing positive thought. If you can do that exercise for 30 consecutive days, you get one on one personal training with me, for a month. You have 90 days to complete this challenge. If at any point you have a negative thought and it's not replaced right away, you restart your count from day zero. Since there is no way for me to track whether or not you did this positive thinking exercise for a full 30 days, I will be using the honor system. Please keep in mind that is extremely difficult to fake being positive.

Trust me, if you do this exercise, whether you do it for 30 consecutive days or not, it will still benefit you. You will start noticing what type of thoughts you are having, and for once in your life you will have control over them.

Practice Makes Perfect

I know I listed a couple of my New Year’s resolutions before. Here is another. After watching this VIDEO, I wanted to get better control over my body’s awareness and strength so that my handstands would get better. After a whole week of working on one handed handstands, I achieved my goal. It took me a week to do it, but I finally did it. It's a great feeling to accomplish something you have been working on. It makes it that much sweeter after all of the effort that was put into it.

Today your goal may seem extremely far away, but no matter what it is, keep chipping away at it, and you will achieve it. Whether it takes a week, a month, a year or a lifetime, you are still improving and getting better. You can apply that to any goal. Whether it be for work, a weight loss goal, a specific lift, or your ability to cook, anything is possible, as long as you keep practicing and working towards that specific goal.

Limitless

The weekend is almost here, which is the most celebrated time for most people. Some people enjoy their weekends by going out; some enjoy the quiet and serenity by staying in and relaxing. Whatever you choose to do during the weekend, I hope that you enjoy it and make the most of it. For those of you movie fans out there, I have suggestion for you. Watch the movie Limitless. Not sure if you’ve seen it or not, but it’s a great movie and it makes you think.



The premise of the movie is that there is a pill that lets you access 100 percent of your brain cells, making you extremely smart. You can do anything, get any guy/girl you like, learn any language in a day, become a millionaire, and basically do anything you choose. The world is yours for the taking. But there is a catch.....Which of course is death, and an extremely quick death.

Since this is the age of pills and quick fixes, I thought that this movie was excellent way to demonstrate our society and our way of thinking. Any and all of the pills on the market right now have negative side effects, death being one of them, and yet many people take these pills without a second thought.

If you have 2 hours this weekend, watch this movie. After watching it, ask yourself, would you take that pill? Or any other pill for that matter?

Surround Yourself With People You Admire

Take a look around the people you surround yourself with. Many say that you should surround yourself with positive, successful people so that that you can always learn from them and become a successful, positive person as well. However if you are surrounded by negative people see what you can learn from them as well. Why do they affect you? What lesson do they have to teach you? It all comes back to you. Your reaction to that individual is what dictates the positive or negative situation.
If a negative person in your life does things that always put you down and belittle you then the best thing to do is separate yourself from that relationship. Do so after figuring out the questions asked above.
From every encounter every situation their must be a lesson learned.

To sum up: learn from everyone and everything, surround your self with like minded positive people.

Feel Free to contact me with any topics that you would like discussed at
yuri@absolutefitnj.com

Nutrition Seminar VIDEOS

I finally figured out how to upload my videos...with a little help of course. Watch the videos and try to benefit from everything that I discussed. There are a couple of points that I stressed over and over and over and over again.....That is because they are important.

Those points were:

• Learning to listen to your own body, and start interpreting what it means.
• Power of positive thinking
• Incorporating diet into a lifestyle
• Looking for nutritional value in food versus calories
• Rest, meditation and yoga

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Video 5

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting is currently the new health craze. I read a fantastic Ebook on the subject and I will post the link below so that you guys can check it out. This is a free Ebook, and yet at the same time, it’s worth 100,000 dollars.
Why did I give it such a high price especially since it’s free? Is it that effective?
The reason why I enjoyed this book so much is: A) it’s a quick read. So this is the perfect solution for those of you who don’t like to read, or don’t have the time.
B) It is very easily understood. It uses simple terms and flows so easily that it makes you want to keep reading. And finally, the most important reason: C) The way that everything was recorded was extremely detailed. The author of the research is a scientist, and he uses himself to test out different diet crazes. Talk about self sacrifice for a greater cause. He is extremely unbiased and records everything that he encounters, whether it’s positive or negative.
**His approach to finding and handling a problem was the most fascinating. As he only changed one variable at a given time (usually 2 weeks) and studied how his body reacted to it.** This is extremely important for anyone who is trying to get any results.
Let’s use weight loss as the goal that we are trying to reach. Since most people are so eager to get started, especially if it’s a New Year’s resolution, they tackle it full force. This is great if it works and continues to work but sadly most of the time it does not. What they do is they change their diet (or at least I hope they do), they may start a supplement program, and start exercising. Which is all good and great, these are the basics of getting to your goal. But what happens if, after doing all of that, they don’t get any results. What to do next? They have no idea whether it’s their diet that’s bad, if the supplements they are taking are a total waste of money, or the exercise program is boring, stale and is not producing any results because it is the total opposite of what their body needs. To avoid running into this problem, first and foremost, READ THIS EBOOK. As I mentioned before you will feel like you have found 100,000 dollars. And, most importantly, make sure you always work with a professional that can help you with whatever your goals are.

Enjoy the read. And make sure that you apply the knowledge.

Feel Free to contact me with any topics that you would like discussed at
yuri@absolutefitnj.com

The Sweet Smell of Success.....

So I hosted my second nutritional seminar today.

Besides the fact that it was 65 degrees outside, which is unheard of in January, I had a good turnout of about 40 people. I want to thank everyone who attended the seminar, and hope that you were able to learn something from it. For those of you who were not able to make it, I had Tito video tape the seminar so you can thank him for it (he said tips are greatly appreciated), and I will post the videos as soon as I figure out how to upload them on the web. They should be there in the next few blogs that follow, so stay tuned. For those that came, I highly recommend you watch it again, because I'm sure you will get more information out of it the second time around.

We also had a weight lifting clinic with coach Vlad that followed, and everyone that attended was extremely happy with how their form was improving.

Overall, it was a very good and successful day.

We still have a couple of spots open for the Paleo/ Alpo challenge, so if you did not sign up you still have a chance to do so. I will be keeping everyone posted as to when we will begin. Next week I will coordinate the time with all of you to make sure that it works for all of us.

For those that did not make it to the seminar, and would still like to sign up for the challenge, feel free to contact me.

yuri@absolutefitnj.com

Nutrition seminar

I’m quite excited for Saturday, because I will be teaching my second nutrition seminar.
When I taught my first one over a year ago, I had anticipated being nervous, but to my surprise, I was not nervous at all. I had always hated getting up in front of people and speaking it did not happen on that day, I actually enjoyed it.
One of my best friend’s fathers always told me that if you are quite passionate about something, then all the fear dissipates. That was when I realized that this lifestyle of health, fitness, happiness, and vitality is for me. Now why did it take me so long to host another seminar? All of my reasons turned out to be just excuses. Every one of us has fears. Those fears are rationalized to us by our own excuses. Well its 2012, and my excuses and my fears are being subdued by a greater need. That is the need to share my knowledge and to help more people. This revelation was made to me by one of my friends, Sonia, who also happens to be my client. Thank you for that.

Even though I have not hosted a seminar in a year, I am still a year wiser. I have acquired another years worth of knowledge, as well as how to relay it to people so that it’s more easily understood.

This seminar will open your eyes, ears, and maybe even hearts to a better lifestyle. I will be discussing how to reach your goals and also how to make yourself grow as an individual in everyday life. I would like to invite anyone and everyone who is interested in nutrition, health and fitness, to come and join me on January 7th. Click here to get more details.

ATTENTION: as a special bonus we will have an Olympic Weightlifting coach running a free clinic right after the seminar, so bring your work out gear and enjoy the class.

Feel Free to contact me with any topics that you would like discussed at
yuri@absolutefitnj.com

Make a Decision

When we feel overwhelmed and are confused about what to do, sometimes we do nothing.





I want to start off by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. I hope that everyone had a fun and safe celebration. On January 1st my plans were to go snowboarding with my friends. Those plans fell through due to extremely warm weather.
I had nothing to do that day so I decided to capitalize on the opportunity. Since my new year’s resolution is to grow my business (one of many resolutions that will get accomplished this year) I knew that I needed to get organized and make a great plan for success. I had read many books by successful individuals who always made it a point to say that the first step of any business is to have a plan and to be organized. I had always skipped the first step of organization because well.... many reasons. I guess one of them being that I thought I knew better.
I’m very happy to say that I made great use of my time since my plans fell through. I organized my files, my books, my folders and my room. Now I feel like I can be more efficient. It’s a brand new year and because my working space is now well organized, it actually makes me want to do the work that I usually consider busy work and do not like.

THE LESSON THAT I LEARNED from this is: always follow the advice of people that have done what you are trying to do. And don't skip any crucial step. That lesson can be applied to more than just business. It can be applied to a workout program, nutrition program, even driving a car.

My Promise to myself is to keep my room and workspace clean for the rest of the year. That is a huge commitment on my part because I haven’t done it in previous years. But this time I have you guys to keep me honest. I will update you on the status of my organization every month.