Setting Your Mind Towards a Healthy Lifestyle

07/04/2022 Leave a comment

Good health begins in our mind.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy asserts that our actions and behaviors are a product of our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, if we want to change our actions and behavior, we must change our thoughts and feelings. 

Does that make sense?  

Indeed, it does, especially in the health and fitness field — for the road to health, fitness, and well-being begins in the mind.

It starts as a feeling.

We often feel dissatisfied by our body shape – especially when we reach a certain age when what used to be lean and mean becomes rounded and saggy. 

We often feel dissatisfied with our energy level or the decreasing amount of work we can do before we feel tired. We begin to ask ourselves what happened and why.

Sometimes, we don’t notice the subtle yet dangerous changes in our body and our physiological responses to stimuli until we end up in the emergency room or the doctor’s office. Then, when the blood chemistry or scan reveals what is wrong, we get scared and anxious.

People try to ignore these feelings of discontent, frustration, fear, and anxiety about the state of their health. Some deny that they have these feelings.  

But, these feelings are essential.  

They can bog us down with self-pity and paralyze us in hopelessness, or they can be the stimuli for positive action. These can be feelings we don’t want to feel ever again. So, we do all that is in our power to get back into shape and live a healthier lifestyle to prolong the days of our enjoyment of life and all it offers.

If you are concerned about your health and lifespan, are thinking about chronic illnesses, and are at risk for such, you are not alone.

Maybe you have been diagnosed with a lifestyle-related medical condition or know someone who has, causing you to re-examine your health status.

At some point, all of us begin to consider such issues seriously, and good for you! It can motivate you to take action. Once you’re on the edge of action, go further and set your mind and behaviors to a healthy lifestyle.

Step 1: Let your fingers do the walking! 

Get on your smartphone or tablet PC and start browsing the internet for information. Be careful, though; many sites out there can scare you with disinformation and leave your pockets bleeding.  

Go to trusted sites and get relevant and accurate information about healthy diet and fitness. Read all you can to find out what that looks like, and then take action. 

Step 2: Make a choice! 

Armed with your education from step one, you can now examine all unhealthy aspects of your life and make a list of goals with specific action steps to reach them. 

Step 3: Get moving! 

Join a gym, follow a healthy eating plan, hire a personal trainer, or attend an aerobics class at a nearby community center. Ask your doctor for advice. 

Make small changes that will result in significant changes in time.  

Want to lose 100 pounds? Begin with losing 100 ounces. Begin by shaving off 100 calories from your diet by skipping your usual glass of soda, candy bar, or bag of chips.  

If you drink 3 cups of coffee daily, try cutting it to two. If you take sugar and cream with your coffee, cut the cream and sugar in half or strive for black.  

Skip the cake, choose an apple or an orange for dessert three times a week, and build up from there.

The power of visualization.

If and when you are trying to lose weight, it helps if you visualize your goals. By visualizing yourself reaching a goal, you’re actually training your brain to interpret that imagery as reality—and creates new neural pathways to support that reality.

  • Create an image of what healthy looks and feels like in your mind. Find short phrases, written words, or find a picture.
  • Visualize yourself succeeding at your goal. You might picture yourself crossing the finish line of your first 5k, or stepping on the scale 20 lbs lighter.
  • Create a vision board of images of your goal body, and put it somewhere so you can see it daily.
  • What is your favorite thing to do in the world?  Is it carrying your kids? Is it playing basketball or football with them? Is it driving your car? Is it going camping or traveling? Imagine how you are going to do those things (if you can still do those things) if you’ve lost the use of half of your body because you’ve had a stroke.  Sobering visions, aren’t they? And they work. They stop your cravings! They distract your mind from unhealthy desires and sway you towards a healthy mindset.

The battle is in the mind.

The mind is a powerful thing. It can make you do certain things that you would otherwise not do. A man diagnosed to be in the initial stages of coronary artery disease – his arteries were narrowing because of arterial plaque, which motivated him to go on a diet and exercise.  

He took pictures of his kids and put them in front of him every time he ate. Each mouthful of vegetable and fruit meant that much more time that he would be around to watch them grow.   

Whenever he felt like skipping his morning walk, he would imagine his kids living without his support and love. Immediately, he’d get up and walk like his life depended upon it – and it did. Happily, he was able to reverse the coronary artery disease through small lifestyle changes – his kids are now in college.

Use your mind to be informed. Use your mind to choose what is good for your health. Use your mind’s eye to motivate you toward your health and fitness goals. It all begins in the mind.

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5 Simple Ways to Smarter, Healthier Eating

11/04/2020 Leave a comment

Photo credit: Jeff Krugh, CC BY-SA 4.0

The last few centuries have seen a lot of technological advances for us as a species. One of those significant advances was to change the way we farm and produce food. It used to be a deeply personal experience. We grew our own food, preserved it, hunted, and bartered with our community for the items we could not provide for ourselves. These days the majority get their food from huge factory farms. These farms are so massive in scale and the contamination factor so great that they often sterilize our food to make it safe for consumption. We have effectively removed ourselves from the process and become reliant on corporations to make our food choices for us. The rise of obesity, diabetes, and numerous other health problems indicates that we need to regain control of our food choices. Here are some simple ways to immediately improve what you eat:

1. Eat grass-fed and pastured meat and eggs. Factory farms mistreat their animals and feed them substandard food. When you consume an unhealthy animal, you’re not providing adequate nutrition to your own body. Animals allowed to graze and eat a diet natural to them are leaner than their “fattened” counterparts, they have more omega-3 fatty acids, and they’re more nutrient-dense.

2. Ferment your food. The fermentation process inactivates most of the anti-nutrients in certain foods so that they are easier to digest, and our body can make better use of their nutrients. Fermentation also creates healthy live bacteria and yeast. Our digestive system needs these beneficial bacteria to form a balance and to do its job effectively. You can ferment many foods in your own home for little money. Try starting with a simple vegetable ferment by soaking vegetables in a salt brine. You can ferment almost any vegetable like peppers, cauliflower, beets, cucumbers, carrots, or asparagus – the list goes on.  

If you choose not to ferment your food at home, visit your local grocery store and purchase fermented veggies, snacks, or drinks. Be sure to check the ingredients list for “Live and Active Cultures” or “Live Active Cultures.” The healthiest products will be those that list the different strains of live probiotics by name, such as Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium, and should mention how many millions of cultures are within.

3. Consume raw, pastured dairy. If you can get raw dairy in your location, it’s well worth the investment in your health. Raw dairy has healthy bacteria and numerous vitamins and nutrients that are destroyed during the pasteurization process associated with conventional milk. Many people with milk allergies find that they can’t drink regular milk, but they can consume raw. Use raw milk to make healthier versions of yogurt, butter, and kefir.

4. Shop the farmer’s market for local foods. Supermarket foods often travel weeks to get to you, and they’re less than fresh by the time they reach your plate. The nutrient loss associated with these foods is significant. Farmer’s markets usually have fruits and veggies picked that same day, and you would do better to shop there. For more fresh local produce, look into CSAs or visit your local farms yourself.

5. Grow your own or pick your own. Many people are reluctant or unsure of how to grow their own food, but they don’t have to be. Start by selecting one or two items you eat a lot of and planting those in pots or raised beds. Use seed or even buy starter plants from a local nursery. Growing your own tomatoes or strawberries, for instance, is a great start to being more self-sufficient. If you don’t have the resources or the time to grow your own food, you can still harvest fresh produce at local pick-your-own farms. These farms allow you to walk the rows of their crops and pick your own food. Raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, pumpkins, apples, sweet corn, squash, and beans are examples of popular pick your crops.

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Eat a Balanced Diet for a Healthy Lifestyle

10/22/2015 Leave a comment

Photo credit: Peretz Partensky from San Francisco, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0]

A balanced diet refers to a combination of food aimed at giving the body with all the vital nutriments and amino acids necessary for healthy existence, which can be achieved from several plant and animal products. What matters is not the food that is consumed, but the nutritional value of the food consumed. In an average adult human body, the basic requirements of food can be broken up into various constituents. These components are known as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, amino acids and other minerals. A diet is not uniform for every human being and varies according to nutritional needs.

The nutritional needs of a human being depend on the kind of work they do and the general lifestyle they lead. Thus, the term “balanced diet” should ideally refer to a combination of nutriments required by an individual to live in their own healthy way. For example, for a person whose work involves a lot of physical labor, the appropriate diet should include more carbohydrates than would be recommended for a person who devotes their time to cerebral pursuits. Healthy eating is the key to healthy living and it can be attained only through a well-rounded diet.

Eat Wisely

The World Health Organization has a set of guidelines that help in understanding a well-rounded diet a little bit more. The WHO has five basic recommendations for healthy living:

  1. One should consume calories to replenish it. That is to say, one must only consume as many calories as we burn off every day through physical exercise.
  2. One should avoid the consumption of food rich in saturated fat or trans-fat.
  3. It is advisable to consume more plant-based food than animal-based food. There are options of fruits, vegetables and legumes that can be chosen to replace an animal- based diet.
  4. According to a 2003 health report, the consumption of simple sugar should be brought down to less than 10%.
  5. Salt and sodium intake ought to be limited. Any salt that can be consumed should be iodized.

Live Well

Additionally, according to the National Institutes of Health, there are other recommendations for healthy eating that endorse a limited consumption of certain vitamins and minerals. The human body also needs protein in very small amounts; however, it is one of the most important components of a balanced diet. No diet can be called balanced if it does not include a sufficient intake of water. Water is the best source of liquid and should be consumed in adequate quantities on a regular basis. There is no substitute for water, as the body needs water to function properly; therefore, it is imperative to include watery fruits and vegetables to get a balanced diet for better health and a stronger immune system.

 

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