Glow Living

Category: Healthy Living

  • Chandra Lynn Appears on The Dave Pamah Show Podcast

    Chandra Lynn Appears on The Dave Pamah Show Podcast

    Dave Pamah was a delightful host and I had so much fun on this podcast with him. If you’ve got a free 40 minutes, I’d love for you to check it out. We share tips and stories that I hope you enjoy!

    Dave Pamah Show Podcast with Chandra Lynn
    CLICK TO LISTEN NOW

    About Dave Pamah

    Dave Pamah is an author, podcaster, and personal coach who helps people overcome resiliency. As an ex-athlete and retired firefighter, he faced many challenges with racism, bullying, and dyslexia. His experience has led him to a career in helping others through personal coaching and with his book: Firefighting From Within. Dave hosts the podcast ‘The Dave Pamah Show’ where he highlights ways people can make improvements in their lives and other mental health topics. He says that people need to build resiliency by using mindfulness to gain some calmness in your life. Having more positivity can help you live your best life.

    The Dave Pamah Show

    Are you caught up in life’s troubles and don’t want to take any more of it? Do you desire an accomplished life? Do you want to develop the right mindset that drives your passion? Are you concerned about life’s deepest challenges? Or does the world look too bleak from your perspective?

    The Dave Pamah show seeks to revive, restore, awaken, and reform your innermost capabilities. Dave connects you to a whole new view of the world, through the pockets of experiences from great minds who have thrived and toiled and have been able to see the world’s true beauty.

    Life is so much more, beneath the surface. And Dave is passionate about helping you see life in its grand form. From life’s little problems to business success tips, politics, and the world’s biggest challenges, Dave wishes to awaken in you the drive to succeed.

    Dave Pamah’s show brings to you, explosive insights, fascinating tips, captivating interviews, mind-blowing discussions, unusual conversations, and just about everything that focused on you.

    The Dave Pamah Show connects you to the world through his interviews with International Athletes, High-profile brands, Celebrity Hollywood Stars, Entertainers, Entrepreneurs, Life Coaches, Leading Leadership Professionals, Pioneers, Political Experts, and just about anyone who is passionate about sharing with the world.

    Listen to Dave Pamah as he brings to your ear’s delightful experiences. Come away from every episode, transformed, invigorated, and energized to live life to the fullest.

    www.davepamah.com

  • Consistency is Everything When Training

    Consistency is Everything When Training

    Consistency Is Everything When Training
    By Chandra Lynn 

    IMG_3457A couple years ago I started tracking my workout using the bodybuilding.com body face app and recently I realized I only had tracked 300 workouts! Of course it doesn’t count all the times taking walks or attending yoga classes but it does show me that I’ve been fairly consistent with my routine and, as a result, I feel like my body has really changed. Because we’re with ourselves every day it’s often hard to know how much our body is changing. That’s why it’s important to create benchmark and track your progress. Some people take photos, measurements for see how their clothes are fitting and what size they’re wearing. Another measurement is just to check in with yourself and see how you feel.

    Are you giving yourself credit for all the work that you done?
    Are you proud of yourself for the effort in the consistency?
    Or do negative thoughts come up about how much more you should be doing?

    Regardless of whether you worked out once in a week or seven times a week, consistency in working out is what’s important. It’s a commitment to fitness for health and longevity. Of course there’s motivating factors in terms of how we look at our genes and how other people see us, or even how we see ourselves we look in a mere. But when it really comes down to it health is the number one priority because without it we don’t have anything to give out.

    IMG_4698Have you ever felt really unmotivated to go work out and then you push yourself through it and realize how great it’s out afterwards? Remembering how great it out can often be a motivator to go back in and push past the feelings of the motive a fan or anticipation of pain. Of course working out should never actually bring you real physical pain, it’s just that sometimes to really get full benefits of exercise you have to push yourself to your limit in a safe way. And doing that can feel uncomfortable.

    For me I have to push myself through H.I.I.T. training. Some people absolutely love to push themselves to their peak heart rate but for me its highly uncomfortable, and I don’t look forward to it. Of course, afterwards, I feel fantastic and super proud of myself for doing it, and I know that it’s the key to my results. So there are times that we have to push past our fear of discomfort and inadequacies in order to be consistent and align with our commitment to our fitness goals.

    IMG_3505Have you ever taken a weekend off are gone on vacation and found it really hard to get active again even after a successful run? The key is to just get right back to it and after a couple days you’ll feel like you’re back in swing of things. Don’t put it off anymore because it’ll just make it harder to get back to where you were and move beyond any plateaus. If you put it off, you may find that your thoughts turn negative and you start feeling bad about yourself and feel discouraged. I find that it’s best for me not to go more than two days without an working out but everybody’s different so you have to find the limit for yourself.

    I’m going to leave you with a meme that is one of the biggest motivators that I have ever seen. Which old person would you rather be? Now get to work! ; )

    IMG_3511

  • Handling Digital Stress and Distractions

    Handling Digital Stress and Distractions

    “Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.” Jim Rohn

    Here are 10 habits that help me to keep my attention on what truly matters – both at work and in my private life – and at the same time minimize stress and overwhelm.
    1. Shut off notifications. To find focus the first simple thing to do is to shut off notifications in:
    • Your email client.
    • Messaging programs.
    • Social media and gaming apps.

    Then get back to what truly matters without those pings hanging over you and distracting you.

    2. Keep your smartphone far away for quality time/work. The simplest way to not be distracted all the time by your smartphone is to put up small obstacles so you don’t have that easy and tempting access. Here’s, for instance, what I do when I work:

    • I put the phone in silent mode.
    • I put it in another room at the other end of our home.
    • Then I check it a few times a day for calls and text messages.

    We often do the same thing during the evenings and weekends to make sure that the time we spend together is quality time and not time spent being distracted.

    3. Unplug or use an app to keep your focus on what matters. When I write a new article or work on a course then I usually do that disconnected from the internet. If that’s not possible for you then try a browser addon like for example StayFcusd to temporarily block the sites where you know you tend to procrastinate and waste too much time.
    4. Check email, social media etc. only once a day. Make a conscious choice about when you will handle email, social media, and other such checking and replying. Instead of just doing it anytime when you feel bored, overwhelmed, or stressed. Or simply because you are stuck in a habit of doing it 10-20 times a day. I go through all such things one after the other at around four in the afternoon. Then I’m close to the end of my workday and I have spent several hours doing what matters the most for me and requires the most focus and energy.
    5. If you feel an urge to check something before your set time then just pause. Sit or stand still for a minute. The impulse will pass and you can get back to what you were doing. Instead of getting off track and end up being distracted for 15-30 minutes.
    6. Stop comparing your life to someone’s highlight reel. When you start comparing yourself and your life to what old classmates, friends, and celebrities share on Instagram or Facebook and you each day see how perfect and wonderful their homes, kids, work, and lives are then that can create a lot of stress and erode your self-esteem. So what can you do if you get stuck in this habit?
    • Remember that what they share is usually just the highlight reel of their lives, the most positive moments. The other stuff that is a part of life happens too, you just don’t see it.
    • Focus on comparing yourself to yourself instead. See how far you have come, what you have learned, and what you have overcome.

    7. Disconnect over the weekend. Stay away from work and offline over the weekend. Leave your work phone at your job. If that’s not possible keep things to a minimum:

    • Leave that work phone in silent mode and check it just every 24 hours over the weekend.
    • Do a quick 2 min check of email once a weekend (that’s what I do).
    • Reply only to the calls, texts, and emails that are very important. Otherwise, let them wait until Monday.

    8. Keep a very simple workspace. The computer may have access to almost unlimited information and many, many tasks and emails. To not get dragged into the possible stress of that zoom out to the next level. To your workspace that the computer is sitting in. Make it a simple and calming workspace to make your mind more centered too and less susceptible to overwhelm, confusion, and stress. Mine is for example just a black desk, my laptop, a few flowers, a glass of water, and a piece of paper where I write down my next task.

    9. Focus your information inflow. Ask yourself:
    • What email newsletters in my inbox have I actually read and gotten something good out of in the past 30 days?
    • What podcasts I have listened to that have given me value in the past month?

    You can ask yourself the same for magazines, blogs and forums, and so on. Then take 5-15 minutes to unsubscribe to the ones that just clutter up your inbox, smartphone, bookmark list, and shelves. Time is limited. So is your attention. So use both of them in a way that enriches your life and that focuses on only the best information sources. This very simple exercise can be surprisingly effective to get rid of mental clutter too and think more clearly again.

    10. Remember the 5 little words for sanity: One thing at a time. When you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the tabs open in your browser or missed messages when you’re distracted by something while trying to have quality time with your loved ones, and when the stress and overwhelm are starting to build up remember those 5 little words. Breathe and let them help you to connect with this moment again and with simplifying things. Use them to slow down, to find clarity in what you need to do and to resharpen your focus and attention once again.

    By Henrik Edberg from Postitivity Blog

  • Transformations Take Serious Commitment to Yourself

    Transformations Take Serious Commitment to Yourself

    Transformations Take Serious Commitment…And Are Worth It!
    By Chandra Lynn

    I was raised by a very petite mom and, although I’m small too, I always felt bigger as in thicker or, dare I say, fatter. Although I’ve never been grossly overweight, I carried around the belief that made me refer to myself as the “10 pound overweight girl.” Being the perfect weight and size always seemed just out of reach despite going to the gym and trying different diets that seemed to work for my friends. After having a baby, negative self-talk increased and turned into serious frustration with my body, as if it was separate from me and working against me.

    I felt doughy and full, a quality that a macrobiotic counselor said was from eating dairy. Legitimately, I had eaten a lot of dairy in my life because I was raised vegetarian and it became the substitute for meat. When served vegetarian food, it was always a combination of carbs and dairy (i.e. cheese lasagna, cheese enchiladas, cheese sandwich, etc.). So I cut out all dairy for eight years, got rid of my microwave, and learned how to cook with whole foods and no dairy.

    In truth, I saw some improvement and the puffy quality died down. But, I still felt like I had a higher percentage of body fat than I wanted so I decided to get even more serious and turned to weight training. In the past, I would do yoga and force myself to do cardio, but it just seemed like enough to maintain, not transform. I decided in myself that it was no longer acceptable to despise my body and turn against myself by allowing a negative inner critic to let loose. It just wasn’t working and would trigger depressive episodes of self-loathing. Honestly, I couldn’t understand what was going on with me because it didn’t seem right to do this to myself when I knew men were attracted to me and I was beautiful…not like a model but pretty in my own unique way.

    Enough was enough and I decided to open myself up to working out much more vigorously. I made the scary trek over to the free weights area of the gym and started talking to people that were all much nicer and more helpful than I could have imagined.

    I realized that I really needed a program to follow and didn’t want to spend more money on a trainer because my gym membership is fairly pricey. So I turned to bodybuilding.com and signed up for a free account on their social platform Bodyspace (find me: GlowChandra) which gave me access to some amazing programs put together by fitness models, athletes, champion bodybuilders, and expert trainers.

    On Bodyspace, I saw a lot of average people achieving amazing results. If they could do, so can I. jamie-eason-live-fitI started with Jamie Eason’s Livefit Trainer, a 12-week program which is great for beginners. Jamie is a petite fitness model who is the same height as me so it seemed like a good match. And it was. After completing that successfully, I realized that consistency is the key and that I will spend the rest of my life on a program of one kind or another.

    I went on to do Dr. Jim Stoppani’s Shortcut to Shred a few times and now I’m doing Dymatize Transformed. In addition to these programs, I have continued doing yoga and they are perfectly complementary. I’ve also added H.I.I.T. (High-Intensity Interval) Training. I’ve also added back some dairy for protein, so I eat eggs, whey, Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. I eat some cheeses on occasion but try to stick with low-fat ones like parmesan and manchego.

    jim-stoppani-six-week-shortcut-to-shredThere are endless topics to explore related to health, fitness and nutrition so you can read more about this in future posts. For guidance on what to eat while training, read my post to help you figure out your calorie intake and macros. You can also read about how transformative my yoga practice has been for me.

    What I will leave you with is a general understanding of what all this effort has done for me. I have changed my body a lot. I’ve sculpted it to have more muscle definition and less body fat. And through this emotional process that involves mental and physical exercises, I have come away with a strengthened self-esteem and diminished self-talk. I look more youthful and rarely get sick. I catch a glimpse in the mirror and still wish I had less cellulite, a higher, rounder booty, and longer limbs, but I am really proud of myself and think I look the best I have in my entire life. I am no longer the 10-pound overweight girl. I’m a workout warrior that is motivated to keep transforming myself to glow inside and out.

    BEFORE:

    CL 38 weeks sm copy

    AFTER:

    More resources:

    Bodybuilding.com

    Jim Stoppani’s Official Page

    Jim Stoppani’s 6 Week Shortcut To Shred Review by CheckMeOwt

  • What do you “deserve”?

    What do you “deserve”?

    Today’s topic is something that holds a lot of people back, especially creatives, and its about the need to raise our standards for what we think we “deserve”. If you have thoughts or reactions that keep you from the things you aspire to, its likely because you don’t think you deserve the outcome deep down.

    Our brains manufacture reasons why we don’t deserve to attract the things we want. They tell us we need more training, we need to lose weight, we aren’t attractive enough, there are people better than us, etc. 

    We can always find people who are seemingly better looking, more successful, more credentialed, and the like. Does that mean we are less worthy to attract the things we want? I don’t think so.

    What it does mean is that we’ve given ourselves justification for not deserving it…and, subsequently, not going for it. Like last week’s theme about not feeling good enough, our brain serves up these road blocks to keep us right where we are, safe and sound.

    Additionally, parents, partners, bosses and other people can reinforce these beliefs because of their own insecurities, whether they knowingly do it or not. Regardless, as adults now, its time to decide on the standards to enforce in our lives. I invite you to raise them from wherever they are right now.

    It’s NEVER a bad thing to RAISE YOUR STANDARDS. Quote me on that! 

    I believe we deserve to attract the things we want simply because we exist and want them. We can help ourselves manifest our desires when we uphold high standards with ourselves and others; take proactive steps towards meeting our goals; and strive to be the best versions of ourselves. 

    In what areas do you think you can raise your standards? What would it take to commit to it and start upholding them? How will it help you meet your goals? What are the costs if you don’t do it?