A healthy life is essential to leading a long, fruitful experience. Our health is like a canvas pre-requisite to draw a picture. We are the architect of our health. Fitness is a relative term; however, it is vital to our well-being. A sprinter should have a different degree of fitness as compared to a music teacher. There are many more dimensions one can bring to define fitness. Depending upon the required level of fitness, one should take appropriate steps.
More than five billion people live in this world. The body constitution of each one of us is different. The calories needed for every individual is additional. There is no one standard prescription for everyone in this world. Let us take a few examples. The energy level required for a professional designer is different from a taxi driver. To prescribe a laborer to grab a cereal bar for breakfast is ridiculous. My dad’s friend, a chain smoker, died at the age of 83! I observed him leading a healthy life. I am not recommending you to smoke to live a healthy life. My point being that just because someone has a bad habit and lives a long life doesn’t mean it’s ok to follow their bad habits. That is dangerous to a healthy life.
While we cannot have five billion suggestions for physical fitness and healthy life, we can identify everyday needs for all of us. Whether you are an Olympic champion or an office clerk, a celebrity, or a hairdresser, only three appropriate steps have to be taken by you. Look at your eating habit, physical fitness exercise, and your mental conditioning. You can build further with many added healthy habits to achieve laurels in life.
We can use our common sense to lead a healthy life. It does not require excellent knowledge about science or medicine or physical exercise. Leave that to the specialists. We are all aware that food is essential for sustenance. Our body is a marvelous workshop containing various machines. Food is its input. The machine processes the food and provides energy to the body to do our daily life activities. If the information to the engine is more than its capacity to process, the machine will break down and store the extra as fat.
If the quality of input to the machine is not conducive to the construction of the device, again, the engine will collapse. Apart from the quality and quantity of intake, we should pay attention to timing. There is a saying. I am sure all of us know this. We should eat breakfast like a prince. In the afternoon, we should eat lunch like a king. In the evening, we should eat a meal like a beggar. Our digestive power is athe night is very poor. Also, there is no physical activity involved at night when we sleep.
So allow the stomach to be half-filled. Have your dinner a couple of hours before going to bed. When we wake up in the morning, if we drink a glass of water, it helps the body to hydrate to prepare for the day’s task. How we cannot start our car with the 4th gear, the same way we should consider our body. After 10 hrs of an empty stomach when we break our fast, we should start with a simple and easily digestible breakfast. We should begin with the first gear and move on. In my view, to have physical fitness, three times of intake – morning, afternoon, and evening is sufficient. Perhaps refreshment between lunch and dinner can also be incorporated. The key driver is to develop and follow the routine timing of intake. This is a good recipe for a healthy life.
Our stomach is the origin of all our ailments. Even the main reason for bad breath originates from the stomach. You must take care of your stomach, brush your teeth, floss, and gargle with mouth wash daily to maintain a healthy gut, heart, and month. We should keep our stomach clean by eating the appropriate quantity, quality of healthy foods at routine timings. It is easier said than done but not impossible. It’s always best to eat in moderation. We should eat to live and not live to eat.
Many of us believe that being slim leads to a healthy life. One of my friends is thin, but it has cholesterol. It’s best to stay within a healthy weight or size based on your body composition; we all have different body structures. An elephant should not try to become a horse. Nature has created that way. What is essential is to prevent becoming overweight, obese, or underweight.
Consult a physical fitness and nutrition expert for proper guidance when developing a healthy fitness program. You may be the expert in knowing your own body, but you need to consult the experts when it comes to science and education of planning a healthy diet. The first day I started learning Tai Chi, the Chinese version of Yoga, the master told me to rotate my neck clockwise and anticlockwise as a warm-up exercise. However, I was told by my orthopedic surgeon not to turn my neck to recover from the type of spondylitis I had. Sometimes you will find that there is a difference in approach between traditional and non-traditional healthcare providers. In such situations, please do your research, listen to your body, and use our wisdom.
Life is a series of experiences. If our experiences are reasonable, we say life is good. Otherwise, we say life is ok. The mind determines whether an incident is good or bad. A healthy life is achieved by the combination of a healthy body and a healthy mind. The food we eat is the fuel for our body and is determinate that reflects our health. While healthy food supports a healthy mind, nevertheless exercise to the mind is also very important to have a healthy life. Yoga is considered to be one of the best forms of giving exercise to the body and mind. A branch of Yoga has physical fitness exercises also. Meditation is another form of providing healthy movement to the mind. These have to be practiced with the help of specialists. This is the body-mind-intellect complex. A simple but effective understanding and application of the above will go a long way to attain a healthy life.
Source by Jonathan R
