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WELCOME TO FINDING FOCUS AFTER FORTY

Finding Focus After Forty is all about health and working out. Whether it's fitness, food, alcohol addiction, gardening, figure competition-I talk about all of it. Sharing what I learn and learning from you!

Friday, December 31, 2010

A Thousand Awesome Things...


Well, for the last day of the year, I thought I'd just share a fun website that I heard about on the radio yesterday. A guy in Canada started this site filled with some quirky little things, some fun big things and everything in between that make life wonderful. I think as you cruise through the pages you'll find a few things that make you nod and few things to make you laugh out loud. He's even written a book that's due out in 2011.
1000 Awesome Things

Enjoy and have  A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!!!  Stay safe and don't drink too much...start the year fresh & fantastic tomorrow!

(photo from FUNLOGG)

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

New Plans, New Goals & New Directions

Hello people! Hope your holiday weekend was whatever you wanted it to be. I know that much of Queensland has been under water, and many plans have been completely obliterated-but that’s life, hey! We were actually planning on being gone this week to go over some things with the owners of the property we are moving to down in Agnes, but Mother Nature had other plans and the highways have been pretty much shut.

Nonetheless, time is still ticking by, the sun is still rising, even though we can’t see it since it’s under the clouds, LOL. And the New Year is just about here. So, what have you got planned for 2011? Me? Well, I’m now up to 44 of my 50 raised push ups! They are super bloody hard, but I never could have imagined even 40 of those suckers!

Of course, that’s nothing compared to our plans for the new property. We are on a mission here to become as self sufficient as possible; at least 50-75% We have learned so much about the current food we eat and how poisoned it really is, I wonder if many of my aches, pains, fatigue could somehow be related.

Even a jar of olives can be tainted with a form of MSG! Oh, they don’t call it that…it’s citric acid-which often isn’t even related to citrus at all; it’s commonly derived from corn! Yes, it’s that bloody corn again-and it truly is everywhere! Xanthum gum, guar gum, “natural flavouring” are all forms of corn-and that’s just the tip of the ice berg. Why do I care about too much corn? I'm not talking regular back yard, yummy even when raw corn-I'm talking industrial, GMO,  non-edible when raw type corn that is grown in the multitudes in the states and elsewhere. It's in just about everything you eat, except for maybe organic/bio dynamic veggies. It's fed to cows, pigs, chickens, used as a filler, starch, sweeteners, flavouring-it's even in our supplements!!! Too much corn makes an imbalance of too much Omega 6 and too little Omega 3-a huge cause of obesity.

Besides the corn issue, citric acid is a form of MSG-a free glutamic acid. If you would like to learn more about MSG- go here  and get even more info off the articles on their home page here .

This really is the tip of the ice berg…do your research, learn about what is in your food, where it comes from, how it’s produced-you might be shocked…I was! This has formed our goal for 2011 and our direction in life, to try to produce as much of our own food as possible, and try to educate people about the food they are eating.

I know I'm sounding like a conspiracy theorist, scare monger; but think about it, and do some research. Look at the numbers of kids with ADD, ADHD, Auticsm; look at the numbers of people young and old with cancer; the number of cases of people with unexplained epilepsy; the number of older adults with Alzeimers; and of course the obesity epidemic and diabetes to just name a few.  Many of these problems were not seen a hundred years ago, and one thing that pops up over and over is that we did not have the industrialised farming and processed food practices then that we have today. And read enough blogs and websites about people who have had some of the above problems (like the ADD and unexplained adult onset epilepsy and other illnesses), who have made changes to their diets and gotten remarkable results. It's all out there folks and it is kind of scary-but we can do something about it. It might take a little extra effort and time-but isn't it worth it to be healthy, and not have to rely on heaps of pills and doctors for half assed health?

Well-I'll step down off my soap box now, LOL!
Take care, have a great New Year, and here is to a fabulously healthy 2011!
PS-the above photo is of POLYFACE FARM-a fabulous sustainable local farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in the US. I first learned about this great farm and system in the book THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA by Michael Pollan-a book I strongly recommend as a starting place to learn more about where your food comes from-it's a great read!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

2011-Are you ready to test your limits?


Can you believe 2010 is at it's end? The years are just rolling by too fast these days!

So, what do you have planned for 2011? Are you going to finally test your limits in that special something you keep putting off? Are you going to finally start that exercise program you talked about last December? What about going back to school for that degree you were going to get as soon as the kids were old enough to take care of themselves a few hours a day? How about that business venture you started talking about in July?

Whatever your dreams, plans or goals have been in the past-why not make this the year you truly test your limits? John and I are going test our own limits this year in a whole new way (for us that is). With our new farm property, we want to become way more self sufficient; growing our own veg, raising our own meat. We have just had enough of all the additives and unknowns you end up with from regular store bought food-and we are tired of having to question every other ingredient and tired of the entire "factory farm" system-so we are off on a whole new venture to do it ourselves! We have had farm properties before; a few veggies, some chickens for eggs. But this will be a whole new scale. We are excited and nervous, but that's part of pushing your limits.  As John said yesterday, after a truly fierce workout-
"It's impossible to know your limits unless you're willing to test them."
And of course, we will continue test our limits in fitness! I'm up to 42 of those raised push ups; my goal is still 50 by the end of January. They are getting really hard, and I barely squeezed out those last two; but as long as I'm not injuring myself, I'll keep on pushing to see what my limit is.

How about you? Are you going to test your limits in SOMETHING this year? Maybe a marathon? Maybe a figure comp? Perhaps say goodbye to that cruddy job and shift to a whole new career?  Whatever type of mountain you want to climb, you won't know unless you give it a go!

Have a great Christmas and New Year! See you in 2011!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

40 Push ups and a new property!

I can't believe I squeezed out forty of them today...I'm just so pumped and excited about our new venture! Last week I managed to eek out 35 and was shooting for 37 this week....but just kept on going-it was hard, but I'm stoked!

And yep...we are moving to Agnes Water in February! I'm really excited; this property has so much potential-and I really like the house. I can't wait to get down there and get dirty revamping the garden and adding some fruit trees, get a really good herb garden going, chooks, goats, cattle; and of course get a new studio up and running. The hardest part about leaving here is telling current clients that of our plans; so far they have been sad but supportive.

Onward!
Have a great weekend!
Ciao for now!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Push Ups, Holidays & Moving?

Howdy folks! How are ya? I'm flippin' fantastic! I'll blog in the order of subjects in my title...
Push ups: Did those last Friday and got my 2 more in so I'm now at 32. Goal of 50 by end of January is still in sight!
Holidays: John and I went south for a few days, down to a little town called Agnes Water way down from here located between Gladstone and Bundaberg.




We went down with an eye towards a possible new place to live, and well, we quite liked it and are seriously considering a move.
Moving?: We found a couple of potential pieces of property and just need to work out a few things-but there is a very good chance that sometime next year we will be living on a new property out of the mildew and constant rain. We are looking at some acreages as our plan is to become as self-sufficient as possible. We will still do the personal training-but we really want to grow as much of our own food as possible. This is our ultimate goal at this stage.

I'm so sick of everything we buy at the store having something in it that is not meant to be there. Even our meat is washed in citric acid which can be a form of MSG..and the citric acid isn't even from fruit!!!

Anyway, I'm not going to start a whole rant, but the fact is we never know what we are buying and what has been put on or in our food. Even here in Australia. When is the last time you were able to go to the farm where your food is grown or fed? Hmmmm? What would you really see? I want to either grow it or be able to shake hands and talk to the person who grew it or raised it.

That's it from here! Have a great weekend!