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Virtual Personal Trainers

September 13, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Health Question -

How do I find a good online personal trainer?

Millions of people no longer have the time to adventure into an actual gym making it real hard to find a personal trainer that can help them lose weight and build an exercise routine perfectly. If you are one of these people, why not get some help from a virtual personal trainer.

This is not something many would of imagined possible a few years ago, but now it is possible. There are many resources to finding a virtual personal trainer. There are a few things you are going to want to determine first though before you settle on a decision. Let’s check out what these are now.

Do You Have the Drive?

It is very important to have personal drive to participate in an exercise each day. If you don’t have the drive to continue with something then you are never going to get the results that you want. Ensure that you are ready to take on an exercise routine and put in the effort before you develop a plan. When you are ready to do something, the results are going to be much better then before.

Do You Have the Time?

You should of course be able to answer yes to this question. Everyone has time to exercise each day if they make time. For your own health’s sake you should make the time to exercise at least 2-3 times a week. When you make the time to do something and stick to it, you are going to be much more satisfied with yourself overall. Setup a schedule just as you would with every other aspect of your life.

How Extensive of an Exercise Do You Want?

By knowing what you want out of an exercise program you are going to be able to determine exactly where you’d like to go with it. Determine whether you are going to utilize exercise to burn fat, gain muscle or just tone your body. By knowing this you can direct your exercise routine more thoroughly to your personal wants and needs, allowing your personal trainer to be able to assist you even more.

Finding a Virtual Personal Trainer

Now for actually finding a virtual personal trainer. There are numerous ways you can go about this. First step would be to look online via a search engine, such as Google. By searching for “Virtual Personal Trainers”, you are going to be presented with a list of people offering online training sessions. Go through this list and contact a few that offer what you need. Throughout this list you should have the ability to find someone that can work around your schedule, fulfill your needs and determine what would be best for you.

What you will actually get in the end will depend on each individual virtual personal trainer. Each will offer their own routines and promotions so ensure to weigh your options before settling. Some may offer it for free while others will offer their services at a price. Review all your options and you will soon enough have your very own virtual personal trainer.

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Personal Boundaries for Your Relationship

May 17, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Relationships can be a difficult thing between two people, whether it is a healthy relationship or not. Each individual will develop their own standards that they expect their partner to understand and abide by within the relationship to help it prosper. Each individual’s standards will be different, but in the end it will always come down to mutual respect.

When you think about every relationship you’ve been in, every single one is different. Relationships are not only those with an intimate partner though, it is relationships with colleagues, friends, family, acquaintances and just about every person that comes into your life. Each relationship will have their own expectations and standards that you will want to understand to continue a great relationship with the other people. Your tolerance levels will be different with everyone, especially when you think of the standards you have with a loved one compared to someone you may work with.

As you develop stronger relationships with others you will see that more standards are brought into play. You want to have personal boundaries with everyone, and the people in your life should agree to these personal boundaries just as you would to theirs. This will help develop a stronger relationship, imposing great trust and respect between everyone. When you don’t have your own personal boundaries people will be more likely to overstep your comfort zone and in the end a relationship could wither away.

Everyone has come across this kind of person, the one that does whatever others tell them to. They are the kind of people afraid to leverage themselves and put a stop to the breaking of personal boundaries. They often complain about others taking advantage of them, especially within romantic relationships. The fear to confront the other party about their own unhappiness leaves they stuck in an unhealthy relationship that is slowly becoming an issue. By enforcing your own personal boundaries you can avoid this from happening. People see your strength and know that you are not someone that is easily controlled. Personal boundaries are needed in every aspect of your life, especially in intimate relationships.

Have you ever felt like there is that one individual in your life that is constantly pushing your boundaries? Trust me we all have that one individual. These are the kind of people that limit their beliefs in respecting others and want everyone to focus on their life. You are guaranteed seeing more and more of these people the older you get. You can avoid these people ever having any unwanted affect on your life by simply letting them be aware that you are not breakable, your personal boundaries are strong and not budging. They’ll quickly back off and respect you.

A persons personal boundaries are generally visible by their actual self esteem. When you have a great self esteem people notice it. You aren’t someone that tolerates the belligerent doings of others and keeps your distance to those that are able to strengthen not only your self esteem but theirs as well. Even though everyone has their own personal boundaries those that get along are those that have a high understanding of their own and others. If someone understands your limits and you understand theirs a great relationship is bound to develop.

Don’t find yourself interchanging your personal boundaries to match others. Be yourself! No one is worth changing who you are to satisfy who they are. A great relationship doesn’t require you to change, it requires you to be you for the good and the bad. Your values and sense of self worth means much more then anybody else’s towards you.

Do you have a lot of dating questions? Don’t know where to get them answered? Get your dating questions answered right here at Rachael West Designs!

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A Very Personal Bridal Bouquet

May 11, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Every bride carries a beautiful bouquet of flowers as she proceeds down the aisle at her wedding ceremony. What if you could make your bouquet even more special by adding some sort of meaningful accent to it? Take a look at some of the ways that a bride can personalize her bridal bouquet.

Let your bouquet show off your personality and style! Are you a super girly-girl? Add a lace ruff around the flowers that you carry. Choose ruffly romantic blossoms in pastel hues, such as apricot sweet peas, yellow freesia, and pale pink garden roses for a complete package that will be the ultimate in old fashioned feminine charm. A ruffle can be used to make other types of statements. A dramatic layer of black ostrich feathers encircling a red rose nosegay would be passionate and dramatic; a piece of Lilly Pulitzer fabric fashioned into a bouquet collar around pink peonies, hot pink roses and green hydrangeas would be the cutest preppy bouquet of all time.

You can also use your bridal bouquet accents to show your allegiance to a cherished cause or in memory of someone special. Let’s say that the bride recently lost her favorite aunt to breast cancer. A pink ribbon pinned to the handle of her bouquet wrap would be a fitting tribute to her dear aunt, as well as a way to show support of the battle to beat cancer. If your brother is in the army and will miss your wedding due to a deployment, maybe you would like to pin a red, white, and blue bow to your bouquet to have a piece of him with you on your special day.

A very traditional way for a bride to honor a loved one is by pinning a piece of her jewelry to the bouquet wrap. It could be your grandmother’s cameo or your mom’s pearl circle pin from her sorority days. Although the ornament does not have to match the rest of your wedding jewelry, it would be very nice if you could select pieces which complement the jewelry on your bridal bouquet. In the case of the pearl circle pin, for instance, an elegant pair of pearl earrings would be perfect. Of course, if your bridal gown calls for crystal, rather than pearl, earrings, don’t worry too much about matching.

Bridal Bouquets can also be personalized with details which tie in with the wedding theme or motif. If you have chosen a butterfly design for your invitations, perch a beautiful silk butterfly on top of your flowers. Perhaps try nestleling real shells into the flowers for a beach wedding. A really cute idea is to tie a couple of silver or pewter charms to a ribbon which dangles from the bouquet handle. How about a pair of lovebirds or a charm to symbolize the city where you met (like a cable car for San Francisco)? Or dangle a couple of crystal snowflakes from the bouquet for a winter wedding. The options are only limited by your imagination.

Another wonderful way to customize your wedding flowers is by adding non-floral elements to it. For an autumn wedding, take real acorns and replace the caps with tiny velvet ones, then wire into a nosegay of russet colored blossoms. (I once saw a wreath made of those altered acorns in a Martha Stewart magazine, and it was spectacular!) You can also capitalize on something from your wedding location. Perhaps you are getting married along a riverbank which has lots of cattails; cut them down to size and blend them into your flowers for a great local detail. From fresh fruit to dried seedpods, there are countless special additions you can add to your bouquet to make it uniquely your own.

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Make it personal, keep it real

February 14, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Experts from EHarmony, Match.com and other online dating sites share advice on how to write a profile and which pictures of yourself to post to get the best response.

New to dating online? Or do you need some pointers on how to brush up your skill set? We asked the experts for some tips.

“Keep profiles brief and specific. Leave the novel at home. Long, drawn-out profiles and sob stories don’t belong on an online dating site. Use a catchy screen name. For instance, I use PianoBaby and PaperbackWriter. It makes it easy for a man to approach me because they have something to say. Don’t put pictures of you and your pets or children. Don’t post party photos — a picture of a man and his buddy might confuse the person looking at the profile [who would wonder] who the right person is in the photo.”

— Julie Spira, author of Cyber-DatingExpert.com and the book “The Perils of Cyber-Dating”

“It’s great when people put five or 10 pictures of themselves that depict things they love to do, pictures that communicate your personality. Writing a tome on your personality profile isn’t necessarily great. It’s about making it personal [with] adjectives, interests, descriptions and honesty.”

— Bob Holden, EHarmony’s vice president of North American singles

“You should always have one close-up to the face. I would recommend that people post three to five photographs on their profiles, but they could also run 50 or so through HotorNot.com [and let people vote] for which ones score the best.”

— Mark Brooks, editor at OnlinePersonalsWatch.com

“A lot of people fly through things really quickly. If you put a lot of general information in your profile, it’s hard to get a sense of who you are. Get a friend to help you write it because a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about themselves. Fundamentally, you should really be honest about who you are and what you’re looking for. That’s true anywhere you meet people.”

— Greg Liberman, president and chief operating officer, Spark Networks, which owns JDate.com, BlackSingles.com, Spark.com, Kizmeet.com and other sites.

“You want your picture to be real. You want to be you. If you start on a date with a picture from 10 years ago and you’ve gained 10 pounds or if you have a lot less hair now, you’re starting on false assumptions. Then you get there and you’ve just proved to the person that they’ve just wasted their time. Your profile should be three paragraphs with, like, five sentences in each paragraph. It’s enough to know that you’ve spent time on it, and one of the paragraphs should be about you, one what you’re looking for and the third is what you’re into right now. It should be a conversation piece that someone could pick out if they’re going to write an e-mail to you. You’ve also got to spell check it like a resume.” Also, don’t Facebook friend someone until you’re sure you both want a relationship because “you go out with a guy maybe twice and you friend him and the fourth date is a disaster and then you’re friends with him. The safest thing to do is a limited-access type of profile. Otherwise, you forget that you’re updating your friends but you’re also updating potential dates.”

— Whitney Casey, Match.com’s relationship expert and author of the book “The Man Plan.”

“The more someone knows about you, the less they want to date you. If you write a massive essay, they’re going to find something to dislike about that person. If you don’t know something, everyone assumes you’re the same as them. Let everything else come out during the dates.”

— Markus Frind, founder/CEO of PlentyofFish.com.

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