9 minute read
Health And Fitness
Health and Fitness Building A Sustainable Lifestyle – Part 1
by Nick Thomas, owner of Prime Performance Training, and Certified Sports Nutritionist
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I believe in creating a life which you don’t need to escape from in order feel your best. A sustainable life allows you to make daily, habitual choices in your nutrition and activity, creating a level of health which not only gives you confidence but keeps your body function ing at its peak. Such a level that consistent happiness and ener gy is achieved week after week without stressful extra effort. This is a life of peace and order which we all desire. True healthy lifestyle is a pas sionate topic for me, some might even call it my soapbox. I want to take time to break down my beliefs and methods in order to give full explana tion to what a sustainable lifestyle truly looks like. It is much more than having a salad every other meal or spending hours at the gym, and it most definitely does NOT include a laundry list of daily supplements or products to make your world go round. Making results a re ality is about knowing how to properly fuel your body, move and challenge your body regu larly, and surround yourself with positive influences daily. This is the first installment of a series outlining and explain ing what I not only believe but KNOW to be the components of a sustainable lifestyle. I have followed and constantly im proved and educated myself on these theories all my adult life. Moreover, I have numerous cli ents I have advised through my 20 plus years in the health and fitness industry who are living, breathing testaments of contin ued success with this mindset and lifestyle. Now to be totally clear, this sus tainable lifestyle does not come without sacrifice or hard work, especially in the beginning. Creating new habits is difficult at best, but once achieved, be comes second nature. Research shows that it takes roughly 20 to 25 days to form new habits and, in my opinion, at least another 30 to 40 to create true lasting change. First things first! Lasting change in the health habits of your life means that you are willing to put the crash diets completely in the trash where they belong…I’m talking for ever! You have to shift your mindset to longevity not just looking good on your beach vacation at the end of the month or fitting into that favor ite dress for a party next week. The quick 10 and 15 pounds of loss on the scale achieved by whatever Pinterest craze you found or the latest and most popular drink or supplement you find scrolling Facebook will do you no good ultimately. This approach will only do you the favor of returning as a 20- to-30 pound gain in just a few weeks as you get back to real life. When you constantly partici pate in this yo-yo diet world, your body is not technically losing much if any fat, you are actually losing muscle and maybe some water weight. The body has to have certain nutrients to function at a basic level daily, and because you are depriving your body of the nutrients it needs, it will seek it out. In order to keep you mov ing while you are crash dieting, it will go to the muscles to get what it needs to survive, giv ing you the minimal amount of energy it takes to get through your day. This is why you feel so weak and worn out while fad dieting. The rapid decline in your muscle and loss of “weight” also contributes to undesirable loose skin. When weight loss is done correctly, this is far less likely to happen or be as dramatic. The kicker is that these choices not only affect your body, they have mental and emotional re percussions as well, such as depression and extreme irrita bility during and/or after the diet. This crazy rollercoaster
of wacky eating is ultimately not only destroying your body but also your mental state. Cut ting out whole food groups or replacing them with a pill or shake will NEVER give the body what it needs and will eventually come to very a dis appointing end. By “filling” the body with a shake – even one with “good” ingredients – or altering/fooling the receptors in the body with a pill, you are still not providing the nutri ents in the form NEEDED by the body to sustain high-level functioning. In other words, a healthy life has to focus on REAL ingredients and REAL change. Therefore, as soon as you stop these things, the body will go into a “recovery mode” – same as after the crash diet. This means it will hold onto every single thing you give it in fear of being deprived again, which ultimately causes ex treme weight gain and subsequently depression as well. The mental and physical are always connected. YES, it will take discipline to eat appropriate amounts of REAL all-natural whole food spaced correctly throughout your day along with cutting out the sugar, alcohol, and drivethru foods. It will take time to get your winning combination and balance, and it may change periodically depending on what stage of life you are in or what goals you have. But I can promise one thing, IF you take the time to correctly manage your food intake and make it a habit, you will feel better and live a more fulfilled life. This is the foundation of the Prime approach to a sustainable healthy lifestyle. I am anxious to expand upon it in future editions. However, if you don’t want to wait and are ready to start your personal journey down this path now, simply shoot an email to primeperformancetraining105@gmail.com
Cover Story Complete Construction & Excavation, LLC: Getting The Dirty Job Done For Nearly 40 Years
by Ali Elizabeth Turner
continued from page 1
dirt: digging it, clearing it, moving it, smoothing it, getting it ready for construction, and then ma king a way to get to that construction. Twenty-se ven years of that time have been spent in the mini-sto rage and RV/boat storage business as well, but it is excavation that brings its own source of job satis faction. Complete Construction & Excavation does residen tial as well as commercial jobs, small to large. They have track hoes, bulldozers, dump trucks, and bush hogs. They have trailers which can be used to move the equipment of others. They knock down trees, pour pads, dig ponds, and lay pipe. They make a driveway where there isn’t one and then pour the gravel to make it navigable. They haul away every earth-related thing that is no longer conside red useful, and if a good use can be found for it, they’ll find it. I spoke with Lynn Hoe fler, the office manager for Complete Construction & Excavation, LLC, which is located at one of the Beas ley mini-storage sites. The address is 23578 Hwy 72 E in Athens, just down from Isom’s. Lynn has ex tensive experience in the construction industry and manages projects and the crews that work them. She also does some of the bid ding, and then Marc signs off on it. I could tell whi le I was there at the office that she enjoys her work, and that it is important to all involved that the job be done right. One of the ways Lynn is able to help her crew and supervise what is going on is through security technology, which shows what’s going on at all the worksites on a tablet screen. The guys can show her what they are doing and what they may need in or der to complete the work on time and under budget. As is the case with most people involved in all aspe cts of the construction business in our area, Complete is continually busy and “gettin’ after it” except when we have a lot of rain. “We don’t mind working in the rain up to a point, but when all there is is mud, we can’t move it. It’s stic ky and heavy, and we just have to wait. Then we have to work even harder to get caught up,” Lynn said. They are grateful for having plenty of work to do in our area and throughout the sta
te. Here are some examples of projects that are either in the works or have recently been completed: Piney Creek - This is a brand new job of clearing land.
Dozier Road near Hwy
251 - They just cleared 30 acres for an individual residential project. The client wanted open space in the interior part of the build where the home and other buildings will be lo cated, and wanted to keep a greenbelt around the pe rimeter. It is crucial to customer satisfaction to have the trees that are to stay be
clearly marked, and custo mer satisfaction is something that is highly important to Mark Beasley. Gurley, Alabama - A new mobile home was being put
on property that needed to be prepared. Harvest, Alabama - A cus tom pond project was just finished. Complete Construction & Excavation built the new Dealer Auto Auction buil ding and parking lot on Hwy 72 E in East Limes tone, and they prepared the parking lots for franchise locations in Mobile and Jackson. Recently, Marc also created the driveway for his own home near Mc Culley Mill Road, also in East Limestone. Complete Construction & Excavation believes in being a good neighbor and has been known to have their crew facilitate the moving of other people’s equipment. Most local pro jects are completed within a 20-mile radius of Athens-Limestone County, with some exceptions. They haul away topsoil and will also deliver soil as well as gravel as needed. The Beasley name is well known in Athens-Limestone, and goes back several generations. As such, one of the things that is important to Marc is to do well by the family name. “I am not out to gouge, and we take pride in our work. We will beat anybody’s prices, and we give great custo mer service,” Marc said. They have an ‘A’ rating with the Better Business Bureau, and if you are in need of an excavation project, large or small, give Complete Construction & Excavation a call today for a no-obligation quote. Complete satisfaction with the job is waiting for you!
