10 reasons why you should increase your water intake each day.

So most of us realise our bodies need water, right? Your body uses water in all its cells, organs, and tissues. Water helps to regulate our bodies temperature and maintain a whole bunch of bodily functions. Because your body loses water through breathing, sweating, and digestion, it’s important to rehydrate by drinking fluids and eating foods that contain water. For many of us, eight glasses a day may not be enough.

One of the things I learnt while working with the team at the Diabetes Clinic was that most of the time we feel hungry we are actually thirsty. This is very common with nearly everyone and before you go chowing down on more food, have a glass of water first and wait about 30 minutes to see how you feel.

Here are the ten top reasons why we need to drink more water.

Without water, we die. Pretty simple. The body and brain can go without food for some time (the world record is over a year) but without water, we will start getting into serious trouble within a week.
Water can help prevent serious disease. Research on colon cancer in Taiwan confirms water along with physical exercise helps reduce the risk of colon cancer. Water is also linked to helping a number of major health issues including other cancers and conditions like Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes.
We perform better. Proper hydration contributes to increased physical performance. Water composes 75% of our muscle tissue. Dehydration can lead to weakness, fatigue, dizziness, and electrolyte imbalance.
Lose weight. As I have learned from the team at the Diabetes Clinic, sometimes, we think we are hungry, when actually we are thirsty. For those of you trying to drop some kilos staying hydrated can serve as an appetite suppressant and help with weight loss.
Prevent/fix headaches. Sometimes headaches are a result of dehydration so drinking water can prevent or help you get rid of that pain in your head. Next time your head hurts, try drinking water.
Help clean out your systems. Water helps us move our waste and unwanted bacteria. Our digestive system needs water to do its job properly. Waste is flushed out in the form of urine and sweat. If we don’t drink water, we don’t flush out waste and it collects in our body causing a myriad of problems. Increase your water if you are feeling constipated it is highly likely to help.
Be Happier. Research says dehydration can affect your mood and make you grumpy and confused. If you are feeling grumpy and annoyed try drinking water to lift your mood.
Nourish your body. Water is essential for circulation of nutrients around the body. Water is the body’s transportation system and when we are dehydrated things just don’t work as well.
Great for your skin. Our skin is the largest organ in our body. Regular and plentiful water consumption can improve the color and texture of your skin by keeping it building new cells properly. Drinking water assists the skin regulating the body’s temperature.
General Wellbeing. Water helps with just about everything in our bodies from our joints to our internal systems. Improve your general well-being by drinking more water every day.

Waiting till you feel thirsty is too late. It pays to drink water throughout the day and avoid getting thirsty. For me, eight glasses a day is the minimum.

Hope you find this helpful.
Be well.

Tony Cutting

Personal Coach.
M.+64 21 911 722
Web. tonycutting.com

Special Thanks to Kimba, Dr Matt Shelton and the rest of the team at the Diabetes Clinic for helping me to better understand why I need to take drinking water much more seriously.

November 22, 2018 0

Being Successful

For a moment lets think of what success really is. It is not about winning or losing or attaining objects that we think may or may not represent success. To first understand what success really is we need to take away what other people think success is and what they think success for you is.

It is totally about what you define as success for you. For me success is happiness. I know many people will disagree but I tell you now that the person who is happy every day of their life and is grateful for what they have is the most successful person in the room.

In its purest form success is the achievement of what you would love in your life. The road to success is simply making steps towards attaining these goals. In fact, the moment you get up in the morning and make progress towards your desired goals this action makes you a successful person.

Regardless of what you learn (mistakes included) the fact you are taking action is a very positive thing – in my mind, this is also Success, in fact maybe this is what success is really all about.

Yes, achievements that give you a great high like winning the trophy or being recognised with a reward at work by your peers is great, but true success is more constant than those moments others see us in.

The simple act of writing will help you achieve success, use this skill to set a course you can follow and strive to achieve (which includes wins and losses) enables your daily success. As you write you will start to notice more things about you, your relationships, and environment. The truly successful will not let these determine what success for them is, however they will use this understanding to learn and design the course they wish to follow. I use mindmaps and you may find these helpful too.

I use mindmaps to help set my personal course and you may find these helpful too.

Maslow’s theory I feel is a great indicator for what success for all of us might be.

Success Step 1 – Basic Needs (Physiological Needs – Food, Water, Warmth & Rest) along with (Safety – Security & Safety)

Success Step 2 – Psychological Needs (Belongingness and Love needs – intimate relationships and friends) along with (Esteem needs – prestige and feeling of accomplishment)

Success Step 3 – Self-Fulfillment needs (Self-actualisation – achieving one’s full potential including creative activities).

My only proviso is that for Success Step 3 achieving your full potential is the goal you will always have to chase, until your final day.

I would also hope that you look at what ‘Values’ are important to you and when you find values that you would like to strive to live by you use these to guide you through life. Without values, again written down and passionately followed you may never truly set the right course.

Finally – Become successful by building a great life, without hurting or affecting others whether it is in humble surroundings or something more, with a smile in your heart pursuing exactly what YOU want while loving what you have – and you my friend are among the most successful people on the planet.

September 28, 2017 0

Your biggest battle…

Are you winning the most important battle you need to win, the first stage is to start understanding you are already on the battlefield?

Most of you reading this possibly already know where I am going with this subject. However, it is one thing to realise our biggest battle will always be with ourselves, and another thing to do something about it. When we are young most of us have parents to guide us, and if we listen we start to learn good habits that help us get the most out of our lives.

As we grow older we now depend on our own judgement, for those of us who do not continue educating ourselves and understanding how to get the best out of the tools we have been blessed with we can start to struggle.

In terms of my personal life, I was very much a teenager up until I hit 27 years old. Single, and very independent I really lived life to the max and it took a serious health scare to jolt me into thinking more about the future and the responsibility I had to look after myself, and in my case, that meant spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. I was fortunate enough to take some good advice and visit a wonderful naturopath/osteopath Derek Pratt who really helped me start to understand what looking after your body and soul meant. At this time I was introduced to meditation and started to experience a difference in how to look after yourself.

Then throughout my thirties, life changed dramatically for me, now married and a father I battled with the change this meant and it took another serious intervention (in this case a broken ankle) for me to realise I had to change some of the old habits that were preventing me being a great father and husband. Six weeks at home I started to realise how much work being a parent was for my lovely wife. Plenty of challenges but loads of wonderful memories as we built our family and I started my journey into building a business.

Into my Forties and now with a full family (four beautiful children) and a flourishing business. I think, I really had responsibility nailed, in fact when my business hired the thirtieth staff member. Then my old foe arrived and hit me again … I started to worry “Feeling responsible for thirty families, making sure we continued to win more business and looked after everyone became a burden on me” I still had some growing to do.

In my early Fifties and I am finally realising how powerful our minds are. I am now starting to understand more how the mind works and realising that we can control our thoughts and focus positively. It really is our choice, you see the mind has a job to do but it tends to run riot if we let it. We can train our minds using tools like meditation, visualisation and will, while also understanding the truth is not in your head, be aware your mind is processing thousands of thoughts every day and it does not differentiate between good and bad thoughts, happy or sad, what’s right for you and what’s wrong with you – it just processes everything your senses take in i.e. Garbage in = garbage out.

If you want to find answers to what you should be doing, those live inside your heart. Eat well, exercise each day, meditate or take time for yourself alone, look after your body, soul and spirit and they will help you win the battle with your mind.

Live the life you would love to live. Be positive, be grateful and have fun and don’t let your mind run around your head like an untrained monkey (as the monks call it).

Have a great day

March 1, 2017 0

Dreaming – Goal Setting (Stage One)

What is Goal Setting?

Goal setting is a subject that alters people’s lives forever. Once you master the skill of goal setting you can achieve almost anything you want to. The following information and exercise/s will help you on the path to understanding what goal setting is and how to use it to successfully achieve your dreams.

After this exercise, you will have the basic skills to design your own future.

“A life best lived is a life by design” – Jim Rohn
“ Live a Life you would LOVE to live” – Mary Morrissey

We start the process by getting you to use your imagination. What is the life you dream to live?

Tapping this resource of imagination is focused on your future, thinking about the rest of your day, tomorrow and what your life will look like when the time comes for reflection on what you have achieved.

Dreams
Dreams are like magnets – they pull. The stronger your dreams are, the more purposeful they are, the bigger they are the stronger they pull.

They pull you to take the actions necessary to achieve these dreams.

Dreams written down are called “Goals”.

Powerful Goals
Powerful Goals have three main components;

1. They must be inspiring
2. They must be believable
3. They must be goals you can act on

NB: You do not have to know how you will get there. Part of the adventure of life is the journey, the discovery and learning. If you already know how to get there, then your dream maybe too small, dream big!

Getting Started -Your Future ‘Mindmap’

To get started I want you to paint the picture of what your life would look like when you come to your final days. You want no regrets and you want to live the life you designed. This is the starting point for your personal goal setting.

Below is an example of my very own mind map. Yours may look very different and that is cool with me.

This top level map describes what I want to achieve in my life. It starts with the centre of my universe – my family (whanau). For me, at age 53 this is my major driving force. However, it also includes the things I want to personally achieve.

At this level, it lacks detail but does provide the guide for me to follow as I dive deeper into each of these top level goals. It also is the starting point for me to consider the things I really want to achieve in life.

I find it very powerful to see my plan on one piece of paper like this it helps me focus while I work on the individual goals and action steps I need to take to achieve my dreams.

Exercise 1 – Build your own Mindmap

Step 1. It starts with you evaluating and reflecting on where you are right now and where you want to be in the future. In the case of this Mindmap we want you to take that future right to the end of your life. Spend some time (alone) reflecting on what you would like your friends and family to be saying about you during your first day on earth. What is it you achieved with your life? How satisfied will you be? What is it that made your life what you wanted it to be? What were you about?

Then start putting pen to paper or if you would rather find magazines or print images from google to create your own personal image board.

At this stage, we are working at a very high level not too worried about the how but definitely thinking about the WHY.

You are more likely going to need to set aside time on a regular basis the work on this top level map and over time it will become clearer on what you really want it to look like. All this means is the initial map may change as you further reflect and evaluate what you want. It is important to get started and let momentum help the process evolve.

Step 2. What are your dreams and goals (future only) What do you want to achieve? What values do you want to live by? What sort of person do you want to be known as? What do you want – not what someone else wants you to be. These should come from your heart and soul. They are unique to you and come from who you were created to be and gifted to become.

Exercise 2 – SMART GOALS

Once we have drafted our mind map we want to start applying the rules of goal setting to help us succeed. The next stage is to evaluate each goal using the SMART system. Take each goal and create a heading on a new piece of paper. You should have separate sheets for each goal.

We are now going to start working on defining each goal.

SMART means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time- Sensitive.

Specific – Don’t be vague. Exactly what do you want?

Measurable – Quantify your goal. How will you know if you’ve achieved it or not?

Attainable – Be honest with yourself about what you can reasonably accomplish at this point in your life while taking into consideration your current situation. This is the stage where you might set a task to learn more about how you are going to attain this goal e.g. “signup with a personal trainer, to learn more about getting fit” may lead to you setting new goals after you have learned from this trainer.

Realistic – It’s got to be achievable, real and practical.

Live a Healthy and Happy Life (TC Short Example)
I will retain my weight at 80kgs, each healthy food’s each day by planning out my meals and shopping on a regular basis to ensure I have healthy food to eat. I will weigh myself each week to ensure I maintain this weight or take necessary actions. (Weekly Action – plan out my meals and buy food for the week). (Weigh in Day – Friday)

I will walk a minimum of 30 minutes every day and during this time I will smile and be thankful for all I have in my life, including my wonderful family and friends. (Record distance and time in Journal).

I spend 20 minutes every day by myself meditating. I will go to sleep before 10 pm each night and get 6-8 hours’ sleep before I start the next day.

In the Summer of 2017/18, I will start to Surf again.

I will get regular health checks and continual learn new ways of being happy and healthy. (further Action – set appts in my diary).

I will subscribe to and read about how to improve my health and start to help others around me so we live a healthy life together. (Further Action, research books to read).

COMPLETE THIS EXERCISE FOR ALL OF YOUR GOALS.

NB: Part of your journey might be discovering the answers, so you may not be able to fill in all the blanks yet, you may create new blanks to fill in as you discover, learn and grow. Is this not what life is all about?

Once you have these Goals written down then you hold yourself accountable. You check them weekly, monthly, and annually. Each day you action your daily plan by writing down your goals for the day, starting the planning session by asking yourself this simple question.

“What am I doing today, to move me closer to my dream?”

December 15, 2016 1

Be happy, learn to say ‘NO’.

Now some people may be horrified when they read the title of this article but the reality is most of us struggle to say ‘No’ and the cost is usually our time or money and our ability to achieve what we want to in life. Let’s face it we were all given the gift of life and if there is a plan for us surely it is the one we should be designing for ourselves. Yet we compromise that plan because we struggle to say that little word.

It could be that we believe that saying no is uncaring, even selfish, and we may have a fear of letting other people down. On top of this may be a fear of being disliked, criticised, or risking a friendship. The reality is, it is impossible to please everyone, so we should prioritise and understand who are the most important people in our lives (and especially include ourselves in those plans).

Now here’s an completely normal example. We are all allowed to be happy every day and the only thing that stops us being happy is the choices we make. One of those choices is what we are going to be doing with our time. If we assume we are going to give eight hours to our career (whether that be your business or employer) in exchange for the cash we need to live our lives, and we should be using at least eight hours for rest, we put aside 30-60 minutes for exercise, an hour in the morning preparing ourselves for work (having breakfast), 30-60 minutes for lunch (where we make catch up with friends or squeeze our exercise in) that leaves us with around five of six hours a day doing the things we want to do. This means during the normal working week we have around five to six hours to concentrate on the activities for our own benefit. These maybe further education, entertainment or doing the activities that we enjoy.

If you have children (and I have four) most of this time will be spent with them, and it should be. There is nothing wrong with that. In the weekend, time can quickly be filled up with laundry, kid’s sports, house and garden maintenance and simply recharging the battery (sleeping in etc.) helping friends out or visiting relatives.

Suddenly when you look back at the week at all these “activities” you have only a few hours per week or less for yourself? Unless of course you start saying no.

Saying no actually starts with you deciding to design the life you would love and then ensuring you prioritise time for yourself. When it comes to designing, I mean making a real plan written down, with actions and everything a plan designed for a life you love to live that will make you happy every day. Now if it ends up looking like the life example described above and that truly makes you happy all well and good, however in most cases once we do this our plan looks very different.

Another reality is you are most likely going to get more respect when you say no.
No doubt, you will need to compromise but a rule I live by these days is every day I am doing something that helps me achieve the life I love to have. Every day my plan is to be happy and no one gets to take the time I have put aside for that. This may only be an hour per day but even then, it means I have had to learn to say no.

What would you achieve if you gave yourself seven hours’ personal time per week?

My goal over the next few years is to increase my personal time, increase my ‘no’s and to teach my children to do the same. Although funny enough they are pretty good at this already – maybe a lesson right there.

If I truly want them to be successful and have the life they would love to have is this not the right approach?

October 24, 2016 0