Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Mission: To ReSYNC Your Body, Brain, and Spirit for a Longer, Healthier Life
Certainly there have been many programs created by trainers who want to make you fit, diets developed by nutritionists to help you eat healthier, studies by scientists on how to boost your brainpower, and guidance from spiritual leaders on how to be more fulfilled and content. What makes the ReSYNC Method different from all of these is that each of its four components — physical fitness, nutritional health, mental sharpness, and spiritual balance — work in synergy so that every aspect of your life begins to improve immediately and ensures that you will not only live longer but also better. You will experience more harmony and peace within yourself and with the world around you.
What Makes the ReSYNC Exercise Program Unique
You can do the ReSYNC exercise program anywhere — in a small space, even in a hotel room when you're traveling — and you don't need any equipment because the exercises I've developed use gravity and your own body weight to create resistance. When you squat, for example, gravity is pulling you down, and with each repetition, holding the squat and returning to a standing position becomes increasingly difficult.
The entry-level workout, which is where most people begin, takes just ten minutes. I know that doesn't sound like much, but that's the beauty of the program. Because you never stop, it's dynamic, combining strength training with mobility with flexibility, and it gets all your muscles working together at one time. That's why you are able to accomplish so much in so little time. And you also save the time it would take you to get to the gym, change your clothes, shower at the end of your workout, change clothes again, and get to the day's next activity.
Who do you think are the fittest athletes in the world? I'll tell you: elite tennis players. When you play tennis on the elite level, you're working every part of your body at the same time. If you've ever seen a five-set match between two of the world's best players, you probably got tired just watching. They move forward and backward, from side to side, running, jumping, squatting, and swinging their arms for three hours or more with little rest. Players change sides after every two games and have just ninety seconds from the end of one point to get to the other end of the court and begin the next point. At the end of each set, they get two minutes before starting the next set.
While the ReSYNC exercise program may not lead to your becoming an elite tennis player, it will work your muscles in much the same way that the sport at a high-performance level does. Most exercises work one muscle or one muscle group at a time, but that's not how muscles work in daily life. To do everyday things, such as moving the sofa to vacuum behind it, our muscles need to move in synchrony with one another. If they don't, we're more likely to injure ourselves. The ReSYNC Method prepares you to accomplish such practical activities as efficiently and painlessly as possible.
But what about going to the gym and working out on all those machines? Wouldn't that get you fitter faster? The answer is no. As a former fitness director for Bally Total Fitness, I was in charge of buying the machines for the facilities. I taught more than a thousand trainers how to use them, and I can tell you that machines are not the most effective way to go. When you're working out on a machine, you are using only a limited range of motion; your body actually becomes very static. When you use the ReSYNC Method, however, your body becomes more flexible, and you are moving more naturally, which means that you are also about 200 percent less likely to injure yourself than you are when using a machine.
A variation of the ReSYNC exercise program is partner training. I'll show you how to adapt the exercises so that they're easily done with a training partner, such as a sibling, spouse, or friend. When you train with a partner, you form a connection with that person, not only through the shared experience, but also through touch. Touch is a basic need we have as humans. In that sense, doing the exercises with a partner is also helping you to ReSYNC your brain.
For those who have trouble standing or who have a limited range of motion, I also include five exercises that work multiple muscle groups while you are seated.
With the ReSYNC Method, your muscle mass becomes lean and long. You will look more like an athlete than a body builder, and you will be preparing your body to become the best possible athlete you can be.
Reboot Your Nutritional Health with the ReSYNC Diet Plan
The word diet actually has two meanings. Most people think of a diet as a strict weight-loss plan. But the true meaning of the word is the totality of everything you eat. I don't believe in rigid weight-loss diets. I believe in a lifelong, healthy food plan. That said, if your nutrition is less than optimal — if, for example, you've been eating too much saturated fat or starchy carbohydrates, too little lean protein, or simply too much food — you're going to feel like what you've been eating: fat, stodgy, and heavy. You won't have the energy or the motivation to complete the exercise program or even to implement the mental and spiritual aspects of the ReSYNC plan.
Think of the ReSYNC diet as a twenty-eight-day plan to get rid of all the unhealthy stuff you may have been storing in your body and replace it with fresh and health-promoting nutrients that will get you feeling energized, clearheaded, and better about yourself virtually from day one.
I give you plenty of choices, but every option is carefully selected and researched. I'll be giving you lists of specific foods to choose from at every meal every day. Yes, the first week will be the most restrictive, because that's when you need to cleanse your system the most. But even during the first week, there will be choices you'll enjoy that will become part of your "diet" for the rest of your life. Each week the list gets longer and you get healthier as you get with the program. At the end of the twenty-eight days, you'll have a long list of foods that will allow you to maintain everything you've accomplished using the ReSYNC Method for the rest of your life.
ReSYNC Your Brain Power
As I keep saying, the ReSYNC Method is a total synergistic approach to health and well-being. I believe that brain fitness is as important to your overall fitness as diet and exercise. As your body becomes fitter, so will your brain. Physical fitness won't necessarily change your IQ, but it will allow your brain to function at its highest level. You will be more effective mentally and more focused on achieving whatever you want in life.
We've come to accept that brain function declines as we age, but exercising the brain has been shown to reduce, and possibly prevent, the decline of cognitive abilities in older people. The old adage "Use it or lose it" certainly applies here, so part of the ReSYNC Method includes daily brain boosters that will keep your mind as fit as your body.
The other side of that coin is that eating well and staying fit will also help your brain function better and increase your feelings of calmness and contentment. One explanation for these results is that your brain recognizes the start of exercise as a moment of stress. Your heart rate increases and your brain goes into fight-or-flight mode, as if you were being chased by a wild animal. To protect your brain from stress, you release a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which facilitates the growth of new neurons (cells that carry messages from the brain to other parts of the body), which in turn contribute to better learning, improved memory, and higher thinking.
At the same time, endorphins, which are stress-fighting chemicals, are released in your brain and help minimize whatever discomfort you might feel while you're exercising, creating that feeling often described as the runner's high. In this way exercise not only improves brain function but also elevates your mood. When you're feeling good, you tend to think more clearly, and thus the beneficial cycle continues.
Researchers at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom found that people reported an improvement in mood and therefore in work performance on days when they exercised as opposed to days when they did not.
Exercise, however, isn't the only component of the ReSYNC Method that boosts your brain and mood. Foods can also help. In chapter 4 you'll find a list of nine foods that will keep your brain working to the max. And, of course, if you also stop eating the foods that make you feel lethargic, overloaded, and lazy, your brain and your body will be working at top speed and efficiency.
ReSYNC Your Spirituality
Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, where I developed a fitness program for members and others who were interested, believes that by being a healthier version of yourself, you can become all that God has created you to be.
In fact, the great biblical leaders, including Moses and Jesus, encouraged their followers by word and deed to eat well, be fit, and lead a healthy life.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19, for example, the apostle Paul wrote, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" To me, this means that your body is a precious treasure, and you need to treat it as such.
Many of the teachings in the Bible, including love, forgiveness, kindness, peace, generosity, and mindfulness, to name a few, have a profound impact on our overall health. Also, when we take the time to nourish our minds and bodies, we not only take care of our own health but also impact those around us. If you stop to think about it, you will realize that great religious leaders lead by example — they walk the walk. You'll see many examples of this in chapter 5.
Modern scholars have also noted this relationship between the spiritual and the physical. In the journal International Scholarly Research Notices: Psychiatry, Harold G. Koenig of Duke University reviewed the research done between 1872 and 2010 on the ways that religion and spirituality relate to mental and physical health. He wrote that "there is both qualitative and quantitative research suggesting that [religion and spirituality] helps people to deal better with adversity, either external adversity (difficult environmental circumstances) or internal adversity (genetic predisposition or vulnerability to mental disorders)."
Koenig says there are many different ways in which religion and spirituality influence mental health, but the most predominant is probably that "religion provides resources for coping with stress that may increase the frequency of positive emotions and reduce the likelihood that stress will result in emotional disorders such as depression, anxiety disorder, suicide, and substance abuse. ... While [religion and spirituality] is not a panacea, on the balance, it is generally associated with greater well-being, improved coping with stress, and better mental health." And, he says, there is a great deal of evidence that better mental health also relates to better physical health. He concludes, "[Religion and spirituality] involvement should have a favorable impact on a host of physical diseases and the response of those diseases to treatment."
Additionally, in a 2016 study of 74,534 women by Shanshan Li at the Chan School of Public Health in Boston, those who reported "frequent attendance at religious services" had a "significantly lower risk of all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality" than those who did not attend religious services. Based on these findings, the authors concluded, "Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that physicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate."
Not only has research shown that spirituality increases overall health, but amazingly, spiritual practice also can change the brain itself. In a relatively small study of 103 adults by Lisa Miller and her colleagues at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University, brain MRIs showed thicker cortices in those who placed a high importance on religion or spirituality than those who did not, and Miller stated that "a relatively thicker cortex in these regions could potentially account for the protection against depression that religion or spirituality seem to afford." Increasing spirituality may create physical changes in the brain that guard against depression and lead to a more peaceful and fulfilling life.
As with every other aspect of the ReSYNC Method, increasing spirituality works two ways. The more you nurture your spiritual self, the fitter you will be both mentally and physically. And the more physically fit and mentally healthy you are, the more your spirit will flourish. Many people experience a closer relationship with God. As you will see, this has, in fact, been my own experience working with the members of Lakewood Church.
Get Ready to ReSYNC Your Life
By the time you reach the end of this book, you will have all the tools you need to live better, longer, smarter, and healthier and to influence those around you to do the same. If there's one thing I've learned from working with religious and spiritual groups, it's that effort and enthusiasm are contagious. Each person's success, no matter how great or small, helps lift and inspire another to try harder and do the same. That is why, by adopting and implementing the components of the ReSYNC Method, each one of you will be helping me to fulfill my mission.
Now, it's time to get started.
CHAPTER 2
ReSYNC Your Body: Twenty-Eight Days to Strong
Back in the days when our primitive ancestors were hunters and gatherers, their survival was based on being strong and having the ability to run, jump, climb, squat, lift, carry, throw, and catch. Since the dawn of civilization, however, our lives have been improving while our fitness, as a whole, has been declining. The more our appliances, machines, and convenience products do our work for us, the more we have to make a conscious effort to maintain or increase the strength and flexibility we once developed naturally as we went about our lives. Fitness has become an industry rather than a necessity for survival.
Fitness as a multimillion-dollar industry may be largely an invention of the twentieth century, but the importance of being physically fit as a component of overall health has been recognized for centuries. In 1553 a Spanish doctor named Cristobal Mendez wrote El Libro del Ejercicio Corporal y de Sus Provechos (The Book of Exercise and Its Advantages), the first book to specifically address the benefits of physical exercise. Not long after that, in 1569, the Italian physician Girolamo Mercuriale published De Arte Gymnastica (The Art of Gymnastics), which was based on the ancient Greek and Roman approaches to diet and exercise and the principles of physical therapy, and is considered to be the first book on sports medicine. Since that time, hundreds if not thousands of books have been written, and schools have opened to educate people about the importance of physical fitness.
In fact, several recent studies have shown that being fit is more important for overall health than being lean. That said, of course, if you exercise regularly, you are also much less likely to be overweight. By following the ReSYNC Method's plans for a healthy body through exercise and food plans, you will become both stronger and leaner quickly and for the rest of your life. The more physically fit you are as you age, the more likely you will be to retain mental acuity; and the fitter you are at midlife, the less likely you will be to develop chronic diseases later on.
There's no time like the present to get started.
The ReSYNC Exercise Plan Explained
The plan that I developed and that has proved successful for thousands of people is based on a combination of calisthenics and isometric strength training, using gravity and your own body's resistance to create muscle tension.
You may not have heard the term calisthenics in a while, and you may associate it with jumping up and down and clapping your hands over your head (which is actually a pretty good form of exercise). Calisthenics, however, is a form of exercise that involves simple movements using the weight of your own body to create resistance and build muscle while also increasing your heart rate to improve cardiovascular fitness. My program will allow you to build muscle while at the same time increasing your strength, flexibility, and endurance. Instead of isolating specific muscles or muscle groups the way working out on an exercise machine does, these exercises use multiple muscle groups simultaneously, as do most tasks of daily life.
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Excerpted from "Resync Your Life"
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Copyright © 2017 Samir Becic.
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