Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

My exercising has been sporadic lately. About three weeks ago I stopped my programed workouts because of a series of small injuries. My thumb was sprained, my back was seizing up and the issue that I had been working on to fix and realign my foot/ankle seemed to have transferred up into my knee, causing it to feel unstable, but thankfully, without pain. The ankle pain had finally stopped, but whatever misalignment that was causing it has obviously repositioned itself and has destabilized my knee.  So, I hobbled around for two weeks and spent another week fairly pain free, but still not prepared to get back into it. The knee, as I said, doesn't hurt, but the weird clicking and feeling of instability are off-putting.  I did go back to the studio and try out some of my movements to see how I’d feel the next day, but it wasn’t encouraging; I still had residual pain in my wrist and back and the weird misalignment in my knee. Now, three weeks since the last time I worked out, ...

I am just now making my coffee, which I get to do as a reward for doing my new morning ritual. Today I woke up very sore from yesterday’s workout.  Or at least, I think it was from yesterday’s workout. It could still be residual from two days ago.  Because usually it takes about 24 hours for delayed onset muscle soreness to show up after exercise, which won’t be until around three o'clock this afternoon.  I might be in for some serious soreness then; we’ll see. I was a bit demotivated this morning because I was so achy and sleepy, but I still went into the room at my scheduled time for my morning breathing, moving and meditating ritual.  Afterwards... Now...  I’m so glad I did it! I feel SO much better.  It actually felt better today than it has felt all week.  So this is an interesting paradox: “The less you feel like doing it, the better it will make you feel when you do.” Also, it feels good to keep the habit going. I know that habits take a w...

I was inspired by this video. So now, I’m committed to eating nine cups of fresh fruits and vegetables a day.  Its not that hard, but it is a lot of vegetables.  I’m noticing that although I’m not a vegetarian, I feel like eating meat takes up too much room in my stomach.  If I’m going to be able to fit in all the vegetables, its going to push other stuff out of my diet. Yesterday I started off with a mango.  But it wasn’t ripe. It was so sour, I only had two bites and threw it away.  Sad.  I had an apple instead. Then, for lunch, I heated up some leftover dinner, which was beef, cauliflower, kale, parsnips, potatoes and rutabagas.  I had about two cups of that heated up on top of four cups of chopped and steamed Swiss chard. After my afternoon workout, I was hungry again, so I had a cup each of roasted cauliflower, roasted beets, raw cucumber and raw spinach with a handful of almonds and topped with lemon juice and olive oil. About five hou...

This year, I’ve decided to blog about my adventures in getting my life back on the health and fitness track.  I have to admit, I’ve been coasting for the last few months of 2011. So, another New Year and another opportunity to assess how much my life has gotten away from me.  I often use this time of year to make new promises to myself.  And I’m almost always seeking self-improvement through these changes. I’ve written down some basic Resolutions for the New Year. Notice that the way I word these things are as if they’re already happening.  This is the most powerful way to phrase these affirmations.  Also, I can never affirm to NOT do something.  For example, it won’t work to say “I’m going to stop smoking” as well as it will work to say, “I love to breathe only fresh clean air and I love having healthy lungs.”  To me, the energy of the two statements are significantly different. I also like to give myself a built in reward whenever possible. So...

Refined sugar and chemical sugar substitutes are like narcotics; they are harmful and addictive.  Without getting into too much science, they cause a hormonal response that leaves the body feeling depleted in a way that can only be satisfied by having moresugar.  Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar and not only causes the same hormonal response as sugar, but both create a heavily distorted sense of what level of sweetness is appropriate for our healthy bodies. The taste of 'sweet' is very important to our palate. Without the taste of sweetness, it is hard to satisfy our appetite as humans. I recommend to my clients that they have a sweet taste in all of their meals and that they make a point to have that taste in the last bite they take of that meal.  The important thing to remember is that the degree of sweetness that we need is much lower than many people use on a daily basis.  Most people in our society are sweet abusers.  The sweetness from a meal coul...

As a culture, we eat too much.  WAY TOO MUCH!!! I’m not pointing any fingers.  Maybe you think you eat the perfect amount. Hey, I would have said the same thing about myself until about six months ago. I was recently inspired to begin experimenting with the concept of “LESS” throughout many aspects of my life. I have improved my mindset and increased my strength and agility by breathing less. (I wrote about that in a different blog post.)  I have also increased my sensitivity and my enjoyment of life by slowing down the rate at which I walk.  (I was living in New York City, among some of the fastest walkers in the world, so it wasn’t easy. But it was totally worth it.) And I've increased my energy level and improved the look and feel of my body by reducing the amount that I ate. I focused on eating smaller meals and on not just reacting immediately to the hunger feeling.  But I found that living with the feeling of hunger for just a couple of hours made a ...

We all know that heart disease is one of the leading killers of people around the world, particularly highest in countries such as the US and Australia. But you may be surprised at the REAL causes of heart disease -- and it's NOT saturated fat or cholesterol Did you know that there are several medical studies worldwide that clearly show that higher cholesterol levels in the body actually increases longevity instead of decreasing it? Yes, you heard that right! People with high cholesterol have been statistically shown to live longer and healthier than people with low cholesterol in several studies. There are multiple references for this phenomenon in Shane Ellison's controversial book, The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol Lowering Drugs, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's (MD, PhD) book entitled The Cholesterol Myths, as well as Sally Fallon and Mary Enig's book, Nourishing Traditions. So why in the world are the pharmaceutical and medical industry pushing for practically everyone on th...