Shemane

You might find it hard to believe that I have arthritis - actually, a specific kind with with a fancy name: Ankylosing spondylitis. I can do cartwheels, teach a high-intensity Zumba class, and do back flips on a trampoline, but If I DON’T stretch and do some sort of exercise every day, I can barely walk. Crazy, huh? That’s why I’m so passionate about health & physical fitness. I have to work at it every day too. Stretching helps relieve muscle soreness, anxiety, stress and helps prevent injury.  So, let’s all stretch! Today & every day!  

#stretch

#yoga

#anxiety

#healthyliivng

#fitnessover50

#fitness

#zumba

#ankylosingspondylitissucks

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! I’m posting this as a reminder to myself to… Drink more water! Ultimately, we should be drinking half our body weight in ounces of water per day. Drinking water helps to remove toxins from your body, helps relieve headaches, and gives you energy! So, why is it so hard to do if we know it’s good for us? Some days are better than others for me. Today, I missed the mark. How many ounces do you drink each day?

#healthylifestyle

#healthyliving

#health

#fitnesslife

I believe our purpose in life is to find our gifts and give them away. Maybe you haven’t discovered what your gifts and talents are, yet. Maybe you lack confidence or you’ve been beaten down emotionally: overwhelmed with jobs, taking care of kids and spouses and pets. You give and give and give, and you’re tired. You feel like something is missing in your life. I felt all those things: stuck, exhausted, and frozen - unable to make any changes at all. I was betrayed in my relationship and then, believe it or not, things got worse; I got sick from toxic mold exposure and had to demolish my home.

Luckily, nothing lasts forever.

I spent decades researching the most effective healing treatments and confidence-building techniques and I want to share them with YOU! Watch for info coming next week about my EMPOWERMENT program for WOMEN only! It’s all online so you can take the course in the pockets of your time, when it’s convenient for you. 6 am, 3pm or 2 am. That’s what’s great! *Gain Confidence

*Get EMPOWERED!

*Discover Your Purpose

*Get Happier & Healthier

*Learn Expert Make-Up Tricks *Have a closer relationship with God

*Learn How to Lose Weight & Keep it Off!

Are you interested in transforming your life? Leave your comments below. Or Subscribe to www.shemane Nugent.rocks to get notified when then program launches. Or stay tuned here. Space is limited. This is a beta test program, open to a select few.

#empowered

#women

#fitness

#inspiration

#christianwomen

#faith

I wasn’t going to write anything about the passing of Ted’s brother, John. It didn’t feel like my story to tell. It belonged to Ted, his sister Kathy, brother Jeff, to John’s children Melanie, Hannah and Jonathan, and mostly to John’s wife Mary Jo. But something beautiful happened at John’s memorial yesterday amidst the sadness and void in the room.

John Nugent had a strong, angular jawline (as all the Nugents do), gentle eyes and a captivating presence that always made you smile. Maya Angelo was right when she said “People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget the way you made them feel.” John was the funny guy in the room who made you feel welcomed.

We gathered at the home of John and Mary Jo, cried, told stories about how John touched our lives and even laughed a bit. Mary Jo said, “John would have wanted to be here.” John had a best friend, a black labrador named Gonzo, who never stopped barking all day. Truly. Never. Stopped. Gonzo walked around the room and barked at the strangers in his house. He didn’t seem angry. It was almost like he was talking to us. Even when Gonzo was put in another room or outside we all heard his incessant barking like Muzak in the elevator.

At the end of the day, Ted gathered everyone in the living room. We knew we had to say goodbye to each other and begin the process of carrying on with our lives, knowing that there was a huge, gaping void. We all held hands and I said a prayer thanking God for bringing us together to celebrate John’s life, and asking for His peace and grace during the difficult days ahead. Still, Gonzo yelped relentlessly.

I have a confession to make: I didn’t always eat healthy. There were times when I was thirty pounds heavier than I am today. Though we had fancy dinners with crystal and china every Sunday after church, we were often served Hamburger Helper, chicken pot pies, and frozen dinners. During junior high and high school, I would frequently have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of chips, and two Hostess cupcakes. I was involved in many sports and sometimes called “healthy” or “big-boned.” Growing up, my nickname was Shelly. Occasionally, kids called me “Shelly with the big, fat belly.” I prayed I would be as skinny as the models on magazine covers.

It wasn’t until I reached voting age and my high school sports were well past that I understood the affect food has on our bodies. Exercise and healthy eating are responsible for overall health and wellness. Yes, genetics plays a role. I’ll never be five eleven and a hundred and ten. For one thing, I like to eat. But I’ve figured out how to maintain my body weight and size for thirty years. Except for last year.

After having a hysterectomy to remove a four-inch tumor, I was feeling tired and had gained ten pounds. I knew all the tricks about how to lose weight but still didn’t know what to eat to fuel my body properly. I had become an international Zumba fitness presenter who had taught thousands of instructors from Australia to London and all over the United States, but I was worried my stamina had gotten up and run away.

So I tried something new: for one week, I ate mostly vegetables, and those were mostly raw. I had a palm-sized portion of fish, chicken, or venison every day, some healthy fats such as avocados and olive oil, nuts, and a small portion of complex carbs such as quinoa. My energy shot through the roof! I was back in the game. Unstoppable! I felt better than I had in years. My cravings for sweets diminished too.

If only for today, plan your meals around vegetables. We seldom eat enough of ’em, and yet the green stuff is the most nutrient-rich food with which we can fuel our bodies.

A strong body makes the mind strong. —Thomas Jefferson

When I was in high school, I was twenty pounds heavier than I am now. Then in college I became part of the “Freshman Fifteen Club” – that’s not a club you want to join. At a time in my life when I should have been at peak physical condition, I was overweight. If I add it all up, I’ve gained and lost over 100 pounds in my life.

As a smart college girl, I knew many tricks to lose weight. Two of the all-time worst weight loss gimmicks were: wrapping my body in plastic wrap, donning a sweat suit, and sitting in the sauna, or simply starving myself. Neither, as you probably know, worked. Only when I started to teach group fitness classes regularly did I start to shed pounds. Another important change was that I stopped thinking about what I was going to have for lunch while eating breakfast. I kept busy.  Finding something you love to do prevents you from eating out of boredom, too. Have you ever been so involved in a project that you forgot to eat?  Compare that with inhaling a bag of chips while watching television.

Exercise is the key to life-long health. It lowers your blood pressure; helps you sleep better; prevents inflammation, which can cause diseases like cancer, and is wonderful at reducing stress! There are days you may want to run a marathon or swim a mile, and some days you may just want to go for a walk or stretch.  Quite often, people ask me which class I like to teach or what my favorite workout is.  After having taught thousands of classes to thousands of people for decades, I can honestly say my favorite workout is Zumba®!

Having been trained in dozens of different fitness programs, from step to Spinning to kick-boxing, I can appreciate the value of each curriculum and enjoy most of them.  Since I love to dance and don’t have hours every day to get my heart pumping and do weight-training, I know I can get a full body workout in sixty minutes and have a blast through Zumba® in the Circuit.  Am I biased? You better believe it!  When you spend hundreds of hours of training, testing and trying different fitness modalities, I know that an interval training fitness program is what works best for me.   We dance for one song, then do exercises targeted to a specific area, such as squats and lunges for legs, for one song, and repeat the process until we’ve worked every major muscle group – all under an hour!  The result is an exciting variety of movements reaching cardiovascular intensity and prime muscular conditioning.  But here’s why it works for me:  I love it!  

You’ll be more interested in exercising if you like what you’re doing.  Some people prefer weight training, running, swimming, biking or yoga.   I like to do all those and vary my workouts often.  It’s best to utilize the muscles in a different way in order to achieve a well-rounded fitness program and a balanced body.  

Today’s lesson is quite basic: do something, anything, every day!  Make sure to include these three areas when considering an exercise program:

strength training (using weights, tubes or your own body) cardiovascular exercise (walking, running, swimming, dancing) stretching  (yoga) (Consult a physician before starting any exercise program)

Here are some simple ways you can incorporate more exercise into your life:

“Before aligning the mind, body and soul … first one has to straighten their mind out.”

― Stephen Richards

Part of being healthy and happy is not only based upon what we eat and how we exercise, but how we think and feel. Scientists are discovering and admitting to the links between how our emotions affect our health. We’ve all heard stories about couples that have been together for a long time and when one of them dies the other soon follows although they had no terminal health problems. Grief can have an astonishing effect on the human body and can cause heart attacks and even stroke.

Meditation, relaxation and finding things to distract you from overwhelmingly negative thoughts have been proven to relieve stress and even pain during difficult times. When my husband, Ted, had both of his knees replaced he was in an incredible amount of agony, even with anesthesia. I tried something with him that I knew that has helped me with debilitating migraines. Don’t expect it to completely take away the pain of a critical injury, like a broken arm, but try this when you’re feeling stressed. It worked for Ted.

Close your eyes. Picture what that pain looks like in your mind’s eye. Give it a shape, a color (something dark) and even a name. What does it look like?

Now, take several long, deep breaths. With your eyes still closed, picture the air coming into your lungs as a bright color. Watch it spread throughout your body. Soon, your body becomes a brighter, healthier more vivacious color that now takes over the pain. Watch as the dark color and shape of the thing you called pain is exhaled. Repeat this exercise throughout your day today. Record your thoughts and feeling about this exercise.