Can you out run the Monkey?

Choose your race, any race!

Activity is a great way to relieve stress, thus outrunning the monkey of stress & leaving it far behind.  Choose your race/activity, set a goal, work toward it and in the words of Zig Zigler, "Keep on keeping on" until you get there!

This month we will discuss athletics and sports nutrition to stay healthy while training and participating...

Step 1:  Choose something.  (I choose distance walking - 60 miles at times - but I didn't start there.) :-)

Step 2:  How far will you take it? Is the activity just for fun or would you like to compete?

Our family loves motor sports of all kinds, (I'm a bit annoyed by drifting - why waste those tires like that?) but my husband's main focus is sportsman drag racing and the occasional car show. For this reason, we don't tune the car for a 500 mile race.  

Your Human Engine is the same! We need to tune our human engine for the sport we choose.  Training and practice is far different for a Marathon, a 5K, or a 60 mile walk!   (duhhh) :-)  

The one common denominator is that your engine needs fuel!  High quality food = high quality performance.

Have a GREAT week and stop by our FaceBook page and let us know what your activity for the new year will be... (boot camp, a marathon, join our 60-mile team, a triathlon, joining a volleyball league, etc.)

Thank you, Uncle Walt Haste for
another GREAT Photo!

http://facebook.com/GreaseMonkeyMarketing

If you've got the Drive, we've got the Vehicle!

The Healthy Grease Monkey is a project by Tess Brennan dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers who are smart about Nutrition & what they put in & surround their body with, passionate about protecting our environment, and are committed to supporing local entrepreneurs. Those who are about healthy weight loss & dynamic living. If you would like to find out what it is like to live a healthy life, we invite you to explore our product line or find out more about our services. Grease Monkey Marketing promotes sound nutrition, ways to improve your success and a little bit of humor.

If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story, after all, this site is just for you. You can find out more about our products by visiting our online storeand/or subscribe to an email newsletter by visiting our Smart Grease Monkey website and entering your email in the subscription area on the right pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog.

Send the Monkey Home!

Send that Blasted Monkey Home!

The Holidays are over, the stress of the perfect gift, 10 Holiday parties to attend in a single weekend, decorating, putting decorations away, and just general over stressing is over.  It is time to take a deep breath and begin working on easing the stress from within ourselves.

We've covered that stress is a complex response in our body, that it causes many hormonal changes, and can slow the metabolism & cause fat content to increase.  

Stress won't go away... until ya die... so ya might as well embrace it and begin compensating for it.  

Whether we are stressed because of crazy amounts of stress at work or we are really in danger, our bodies respond like we are about to be harmed, we need to fight for our lives. To answer this need we experience a burst of energy, shifts in metabolism and blood flow and other changes.

If we remain in this state for a prolonged period of time due to chronic stress our health becomes at risk. Aside from a host of other dangers, chronic health stress also causes weight gain.

How do we send that Monkey Home???

Begin looking for ways to eliminate stress.  Will it matter a year, 5 years, 10 years from now?

My mother used to drive us out to a rural area, roll down the windows and we would scream as loud as we could to release the stress.

My father would wait until there was a sheet of ice or a snow fall and we would go do donuts in the large, EMPTY, church parking lot.

Research shows that even 30 seconds a day of meditation, quiet reflection, can have a significant impact on our health!  Lock your self in the bathroom and choose a mantra to repeat to yourself.

If you look for nothing but the bad things in life, that is all you will ever find and you will continue to be stressed OUT!  Look for one tiny good thing...then another...and another.  If you hate your job, and they are paying you... isn't the fact that you are being paid a positive?  :)

Laugh it off!  Look for silly things to laugh at, NOT people...(unless they are clowns) things.

This week, choose one of your main stress causing events, decide if it is really worth all the pain and suffering you are allowing it to cause, add some B Complex to your diet, and breathe.  Count to 10 as you breathe in, then count to 10 as you breathe out for 5-10 times. Close your eyes and imagine paradise - even if it's doing donuts in the church parking lot!

If you've got the Drive,
we've got the Vehicle!

The Healthy Grease Monkey is a project by Tess Brennan dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers who are smart about Nutrition & what they put in & surround their body with, passionate about protecting our environment, and are committed to supporing local entrepreneurs. Those who are about healthy weight loss & dynamic living. If you would like to find out what it is like to live a healthy life, we invite you to explore our product line or find out more about our services. Grease Monkey Marketing promotes sound nutrition, ways to improve your success and a little bit of humor.

If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story, after all, this site is just for you. You can find out more about our products by visiting our online storeand/or subscribe to an email newsletter by visiting our Smart Grease Monkey website and entering your email in the subscription area on the right pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog.

Playing with the Monkey?

Stress is still our Monkey.

The first thing we need to do is identify what is causing our stress. We did that last week.  This week, lets pinpoint what our reaction to that stress. How is it we are playing with and training that monkey?

In a former life, my answer was to eat, nonstop, and to drink heavily. I thought it was helping my stress, but later learned it was intensifying my problems and my situation. I ended up on six different prescription medications, each causing different side effects which seemed to be compounding my already complicated situation.  

I would forget about my issues when drunk, however when I would sober up, the problems would be multiplied as would my depression. I was having difficulties handling the stresses handed to me and by compounding those stresses it was not getting any better. :-(  Even when I began walking 6 miles a day, 4 days a week, I was not losing much, if any, weight.  My energy levels were dropping, I was spiraling out of control.  I thank good friends, family, and my Church for pulling me out of that situation and getting me back on the road to healthier choices. I had to retrain myself how to deal with the monkey and in which lanes to keep driving.

Stress was affecting all aspects of my life and I wasn't dealing with the "check engine" lights that kept flashing.  I needed to look at what methods I was using to deal with the stresses of life, determine if they were healthy coping mechanisms and change course if I found myself off track.

HOW DO I DEAL WITH STRESS?

Common methods for dealing with stress:

• Cravings for Sweets and/or Salty Foods
• Emotional Eating (absently munching for something to do)
• Social Eating (eating with friends to overcome the stress)
• Nervous Energy (biting fingernails, grinding teeth, etc.)
• Stuffing Emotions (eating to quiet uncomfortable emotions)
• Drinking (to numb the overwhelming feelings)

Although I will not address drinking in my posts, it does add to calories and overall body chemistry, causing things to work differently and less efficiently.

Psychologist Connie Lillas uses a driving analogy to describe the three most common ways people respond when they're overwhelmed by stress:

• Foot on the gas - An angry or agitated stress response. You're heated, keyed up, overly emotional, and unable to sit still.
• Foot on the brake - A withdrawn or depressed stress response. You shut down, space out, and show very little energy or emotion.
• Foot on both - A tense and frozen stress response. You "freeze" under pressure and can't do anything. You look paralyzed, but under the surface you're extremely agitated.

This week I want to focus on discovering what my response to those stress triggers are.  Am I reaching for a bag of chips or chocolate chip cookies to keep moving and stay sane or am I chewing my fingernails to the quick in an attempt keep myself aligned and functioning in society. Then, am I driving with my foot on the gas, my foot on the brake or a foot on both?

If you've got the Drive, we've got the Vehicle!

Thank you, Walt Haste, for this photo!

The Healthy Grease Monkey is a project by Tess Brennan dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers who are smart about Nutrition & what they put in & surround their body with, passionate about protecting our environment, and are committed to supporing local entrepreneurs. Those who are about healthy weight loss & dynamic living. If you would like to find out what it is like to live a healthy life, we invite you to explore our product line or find out more about our services. Grease Monkey Marketing promotes sound nutrition, ways to improve your success and a little bit of humor.

If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story, after all, this site is just for you. You can find out more about our products by visiting our online storeand/or subscribe to an email newsletter by visiting our Smart Grease Monkey website and entering your email in the subscription area on the right pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog.

Where did that Monkey Come From?

Our monkey, in this case, will be stress!

Where does that darn monkey come from anyway? Some causes come from our environment while others come from within.  Our first step in combatting stress is to determine where it is coming from, identify the source and then decide what action can be taken.

Common external causes of stress

• Major life changes
• Work
• Relationship difficulties
• Financial problems
• Being too busy
• Children and family
• Illness personally or in the family

Common internal causes of stress

• Inability to accept uncertainty
• Pessimism
• Negative self-talk
• Unrealistic expectations
• Perfectionism
• Lack of assertiveness

Stress has a direct relation to our weight! When our body reaches the fight or flight state the stress hormones, including Cortisol are released and the body begins changing. Prolonged state of stress alters the way the body responds to what we eat, what we do, and how we respond to things.

This week, I'd like to focus on what my particular stress triggers are.  List out, on paper, perhaps in a journal, where you know your stresses are coming from.  If you are not sure, think about it, and pay close attention to the things that get your heart RACING!  

In coming weeks we will begin to look at these triggers and what reactions are normal, healthy, and unhealthy.

If you've got the Drive, we've got the Vehicle.

Built by my loving husband. :-)

The Healthy Grease Monkey is a project by Tess Brennan dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers who are smart about Nutrition & what they put in & surround their body with, passionate about protecting our environment, and are committed to supporing local entrepreneurs. Those who are about healthy weight loss & dynamic living. If you would like to find out what it is like to live a healthy life, we invite you to explore our product line or find out more about our services. Grease Monkey Marketing promotes sound nutrition, ways to improve your success and a little bit of humor.

If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story, after all, this site is just for you. You can find out more about our products by visiting our online storeand/or subscribe to an email newsletter by visiting our Smart Grease Monkey website and entering your email in the subscription area on the right pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog.

Christmas Stress is making me fat!

Stress and weight gain can be directly related. 


As we head into the Christmas and Holiday season, many people find themselves under greater stress.  To the everyday stress of work, family, home, bills, life, we add the stresses of what gifts to get, how to afford them, to get the decorations up, travel to see family - sometimes multiple locations to juggle, hosting family in our homes, and worrying about fixing the perfect meal for all those guests, and then how to pay for all those gifts we charged on our credit card.

A perfect combination for hitting the wall of stress and weight gain.  No wonder Santa has so much visceral fat, with all the stress of all those children and to not get the gifts mixed up.


What does stress have to do with weight gain? There are several ways that stress can contribute. 1 has to do with cortisol, a stress hormone.

When we are under stress the fight or flight response is triggered in our bodies, leading to the release of various hormones. Whether we are stressed because of crazy amounts of stress at work or we are really in danger, our bodies respond like we are about to be harmed, we need to fight for our lives. To answer this need we experience a burst of energy, shifts in metabolism and blood flow and other changes.

If we remain in this state for a prolonged period of time due to chronic stress our health becomes at risk. Aside from a host of other dangers, chronic health stress also causes weight gain.

Take a break this Christmas season. Remember to take time for yourself, time to relax, time to look at the big picture, and time to reflect, (in 5 years will this really matter).  Pay attention to prevention, give your waistline and your health a break.

Some options to help reduce that stress and help your waistline.

• Take a walk or get some exercise
• Take 30 seconds a day to meditate
• Try a high quality B Complex supplement
• Deep breathing to relax your body (work up to a count of 20 inhale, count of 20 exhale)
• Eat a healthy diet to counteract the stresses on the body (Complete Multi-vitamin)
• Make an effort to get more sleep (try a dose of Calcium Magnesium at bedtime)
• Eat plenty of high quality protein to ensure the energy needed to keep up with Holiday schedules.

Enjoy your Christmas season, and remember...

If you've got the Drive, we've got the Vehicle.