'' THEE QUEST "

My guests today hold a special place in our hearts. We at Thee Quest have a goal that is very special. We are constantly working to achieve this goal with all our hearts: Body, Mind and Spirit.

Here is a couple living their vision everyday. They are living proof that having such a vision brings the best out of people and makes you strong.

I am reminded of a saying by a very famous writer Norman Vincent Peale:

“Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop this picture. Never think of yourself as failing: never doubt the reality of the mental image. That is most dangerous, for the mind always tries to complete what it pictures. So always picture ’success’ no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”

Ric and Nanditta have an incredible story of having a ‘Picture’. Their tenacity will overwhelm many of you and that’s OK. The purpose of this 28 day challenge is to challenge you to become the best perfectly healthy person you can. Body, Mind and Spirit is the story of Nanditta and Ric.

Enjoy their story!

Nanditta and Ric Colbear

A few taps on the keyboard one winter night in the year 2002 led to a dramatic change in our lives. Ric,my husband and I were typical downtown city dwellers. We lived to work, we ate fast, walked fast, and we dreamt of slowing down. We joined expensive health clubs in the hope of being physically active to try and balance our very hectic office work schedule. Since we had our own business, we never saw an downtime or vacation time. For a few years we had been looking for a second home (maybe a cottage) anything to force us to leave our office behind for a weekend. We figured if we committed to buying a place away from Toronto, guilt would make us go there to rest.

We even had a real estate agent helping us. I wanted a place on the water, Ric wanted lots of land and we had a small budget. We discovered what we could afford we did not like. I took too checking Internet listings – constantly searching for a place within our budget. To make a long story short, we stumbled upon this little piece of paradise in Northern Ontario.

It was neglected, the house old and small – the land overgrown with weeds. But for us it was love at first sight – 13 beautiful acres of rural living on the river. As one would with an unruly child, we patiently began clearing underbrush and rebuilding the existing house. Both of us loved the peace that would descend on us when we were at “Kashmir Acres.” Ric named it after my birthplace in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. Eventually we sold our 20th floor condo in Toronto, downsized our business a bit and hired part-time staff in our community and set up office in our basement.

One day we realized we were no longer showing up at the office with a coffee mug in hand. Nor were we running out for a quick coffee-muffin break. Ric always enjoyed green tea – but in the usual morning rush, he never had enough time to sit and enjoy a pot of it. Our slower pace has allowed him that luxury.

We had dreamt about growing vegetables and in 2004, our first summer free of Toronto, we started
digging up sod and weed to start a garden patch. Any free time from office work was spent outside, tending to the land. We also enjoyed canoeing and kayaking.

Our diet changed subtly. In Toronto, once a week or more we would grab a quick lunch at one of the many restaurants around our office. In the summer at Kashmir Acres, more often than not lunch includes tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, radish and other delicious vegetables. We both love cooking, and having our own grown vegetables makes the event even more pleasurable. Our diet now includes
far more vegetables and some meals exclude any meat or fish.

Every year since then our vegetable garden has grown in size and is chemical free. We freeze many vegetables for winter consumption and have a cold cellar that today has potatoes, acorn squash, onions and garlic. In the fall, when we have fresh zucchini, carrots, celery, peas, cauliflower, beans and herbs we make different soups and can them for the winter.

On a busy workday, it is a joy to open a mason jar of homemade soup, heat it up and enjoy it for lunch.

Our Toronto business kept us tied to a desk seven days a week. As mentioned, one year we joined a neighbourhood health club. Our goal was to lose weight and build muscle. Ric made some progress, but I did not see too much of a change. Often, when people say to us that gardening is such hard work, I always say, ‘it is our health club.’ We have never been as strong as we are today. In the last six years Ric has lost over 40 pounds and I close to twenty.

In writing this article I truly understood the benefits of making even the smallest change. For example, in Toronto our office was on the 8th floor of the same building that we lived in. We’d walk out our front door to the elevator, get to the ground floor of the residential section, walk 20 steps to another set of elevators and we were at the office. At Kashmir Acres, we have 12 stairs down into the basement and then a 20 foot walk to the office. The bathroom and kitchen are upstairs on the main floor. Just the daily commute to work has changed enough to incorporate more walking.

In the winter, we love being outside shoveling snow. Creating snow shoe trails around the property, keeps us outdoors 2-3 hours at a time. The cold brisk wind on a clear sunny day is invigorating. Firewood has to be brought into the house from a shed 60 feet away. The mail is not delivered to a lock box by the elevator, but is in our roadside mail box 200 feet from the house. The weekly grocery shopping trip by taxi or car is now a daily walk to the garden in the summer or to the basement cellar or the freezers 90 feet away in the garage. Such small changes and such big rewards!

Recently, in keeping with our ever-changing lifestyle, we decided to share our joys, adventures and food with others by opening one room ‘Serenity’ to guests. Our latest venture ‘Kashmir Acres Bed and Breakfast’ offers a dinner menu, introducing people to local ingredients. We share our passion for cooking by offering tasty vegetarian options. For meat lovers, Ric prepares tender morsels on his ceramic barbecue ‘The Big Green Egg.

’Human beings have such an amazing ability to embrace change, if we wish. Our inherent inner strength helps identify opportunities which can translate to such big rewards. We both believe that as long as we are alive we will never give up!

If you want to read more of  Ric and Nanditta click here

If you would like to see more of Ric and Nanditta here is their information:

Nanditta Colbear
Kashmir Acres Bed & Breakfast www.bbcanada.com/12040.html
Kashmir Acres Organic Farm
Compu-Skren Communications Inc.
Tel: 705-758-6363 // 705-748-1406
Fax: 705-758-1661

Task of the Day:

1. Do you have a vision(picture) of your goals.Body, Mind, Spirit? Are they written down and do you have pictures of your perfect health. If not that is your only task from today’s article. Take your time and share your ideas with those around you. Dare to Dream big and don’t forget thoughts become things. Do you see what Nanditta and Ric did?

Pierre & Pierrette

For the Thee Quest Team.

Medical Disclaimer

The information contained herein reflects only the opinion of the authors, trainers, affiliates, or associates.In no way is it to be considered medical advice.

Specific medical advice should be obtained from a licensed health care practitioner.Consult with your doctor before you begin any fitness, exercise, nutrition, diet, weight loss, heart attack or stroke risk reduction program or other change in lifestyle.

This information is in no way meant to treat, cure or prevent any disease or illness from happening.

Achieving perfect health without exercising is the most over-rated argument of all. In our research, we at  Thee Quest found that the excuse of not exercising is the one that stops most people from achieving their body weight goals.

We believe that all people involved in the fitness industry completely miss the point of good health and fail to understand the problems overweight and obese people have in regards to exercising. If you have not been obese, you do not know what it is like. Their are people in the world that have tried to understand but, I am not sure the purpose was to achieve prefect health.

Maintaining perfect health and achieving it are two separate identities that need to be connected. How do you do that? This is where fitness people come in.

It is mid-February and most New Years resolutions about weight goals have now come and gone. The biggest reason gym’s are slowly emptying is because they do not live up to their promise. Most people that come to them do so in order to lose weight, not to get on a tread mill. If you weight 30, 40 or even 50 lbs and more over your ideal body weight you need much more then a couple of routines on gym equipment to lose those pounds.You need a really good friend.

If you have taken the time to read DR Victor Ong’s article about changing eating habits yesterday, you now understand that lifestyles have changed over the last 40 years and we need to adjust to new realities about eating habits. Well, the same applies when we start looking at exercising. Have your read Taylor Lebaron’s new book?

We believe that when people come to a gym they need to be enrolled in a “Gym 101″ class and that in order to attain their certificate, and move on to “Gym 102″, they need to have lost most of their excess weight before touching any piece of equipment. Every time they leave and come back to you overweight, they need to go through “Gym 101″ until they get it right. Being in a gym environment is the best place for them, we all agree, but people need to learn how to eat for energy, learn how to cook and use foods properly before they can use anything else in the gym. They should also be reading positive books to get their minds ready for life ahead. The gym and fitness people all know what I am talking about here.You are the quality people most are trying to be like.

Using the equipment must be something they want to do, not “need” to do. This is just like a diet. Most diets never acheive long term success not because they have no value, but because people do them for the wrong reasons. They diet “Until?” They diet “Until” they can start eating again, that is wrong.

The goal is to attain perfect health perfectly, all the time and forever more. Body, Mind and Spirit are a unit and must be linked together to form perfect health. You cannot lose weight without using your mind and spirit. You cannot feed your mind if your body is negative and hurting all the time. How can your spirit be goal oriented if your body and mind are polluted?

Thee Quest is ready to challenge people to stand up and help turn this tide of obesity into a tide of Perfect Health.

“The 28 Days to Perfect Health Challenge” is an approach that covers all aspects of your health. We challenge you to look and listen to all our guests.They all have “uniquely” attained perfect health by understanding that there is more to good health than training in a gym or just eating right and or having dreams and goals. They understand that “Life” is precious and that the Body, Mind and Spirit need to be One, to achieve Perfect Health.

Task of the Day:

1. Write down your goals. Do they include all aspects of perfect health?
2. Type “Perfect health” into google and read what it says.
3. Revisit the past 8 days of this challenge and read the messages again.

Pierre & Pierrette

For the Thee Quest Team.

Medical Disclaimer

The information contained herein reflects only the opinion of the authors, trainers, affiliates, or associates.In no way is it to be considered medical advice.

Specific medical advice should be obtained from a licensed health care practitioner.Consult with your doctor before you begin any fitness, exercise, nutrition, diet, weight loss, heart attack or stroke risk reduction program or other change in lifestyle.

This information is in no way meant to treat, cure or prevent any disease or illness from happening.