FITNESS CULTURE: CHAPTER 3
NATURAL WAYS OF LOSING WEIGHT
One of the key aspects of fitness is to lose any extra weight that the body has gained or to make sure that the body does not gain weight any more. The weight of the body should be in proportion to your height, and the Body Mass Index (BMI) shows whether this proportion is normal or otherwise. There are plenty of websites on the internet that can show you how to measure your Body Mass Index (BMI). You may refer to these websites, and check for yourself whether your BMI is within normal limits. However, this Fitness Culture series recognises that even if your BMI is within normal limits it is still necessary to follow the fitness regimen in an ongoing way (see Chapter 1: Why fitness is a must).
What should not be done (or the things to be restricted)
- Smoking: The first step in this direction is to quit smoking, if at all you are smoking. It is essential to quit smoking totally (see Chapter 2: How to get started with fitness).
- Excessive alcohol intake: The next step is to control alcoholic intake (totally quitting is the best – See Chapter 2: How to get started with fitness). These two steps may involve major re-adjustments to your current lifestyle and/or habits. Unfortunately, without following these two steps, it is not possible to follow the Fitness Culture.
- Overeating: If you are in the habit of eating until you feel too full, this habit must be changed. You should get into the habit of stopping to eat when you are reasonably full or nearly full, but not too full. Eat only when you are hungry. Whenever a doubt arises in your mind “should I eat or not?”, do NOT eat. Remember, if you want be fit, you must eat to live and NOT live to eat.
- Soft drinks and artificial fruit juices: These are usually high in calories in addition to having ingredients which can cause slow damage to your health. Preservatives used in fruit juices can be harmful for the human body. The best way to maintain your health is to take plenty of fresh water daily, and to avoid soft drinks and factory made fruit juices. You can have fresh fruits which usually have fluids. Another option is to make fruit juices at home yourself and have them.
- Junk foods: Many high calorie foods that hardly have other nutritional values are offered in the market as fast foods. In fact your food intake should be the other way round – rich in nutritional values and low in calories. Junk foods will certainly make you add weight, and cause other bodily harm.
- Sugar intake to be limited: Sugar is not harmful when taken in limited quantities, but excess of sugar intake can cause obesity and overweight in addition to exposing the body to problems such as diabetes, dental decay and heart illnesses. The American Hear Association has recommended a limit of 9 teaspoons of sugar a day for men and 6 teaspoons of sugar a day for women as an upper limit.
- Sleeping immediately after a meal should be avoided. Avoid afternoon naps, as they almost certainly contribute to adding up weight in your body.
What should be done
• Adequate fluid intake: You must ensure that you drink plenty of fluids every day. At least 2 to 3 litres of fresh water is to be taken – more water may be taken depending on the physical activity, the temperature and your body characteristics. This quantity is to be taken in parts during different times of the day. As a rule of the thumb, be aware of mouth and lip dryness. Whenever lip or mouth dryness occurs, take sufficient water to overcome the feeling of dryness. Try your best to stay away from soft drinks and artificial fruit juices. Such drinks and juices would either add to your calories or cause other health issues. Such soft drinks and juices usually have sugar, or sugar substitutes or preservatives and artificial flavours added to them.
• Keep your bowels clear: Whenever the doubt arises in your mind “Should I pass stools now or should I wait for some time more?”, go to the toilet immediately and clear your bowels – do not wait!
• Edible oils should be carefully chosen: Canola and vegetable oils can cause serious damage to health if taken over a period of time. The best edible oils are olive oil and virgin coconut oil. These oils can also be used on salads. They have more of the “good fats” and very less of the “bad fats”. For more details read the article “Which oil for my kitchen?’ in www.rajathifamilykitchen.com
• Foods should be chosen wisely: For getting fit and staying fit, calorie intake should be reduced, and fibre intake should be increased. Plenty of green leaf and vegetables should be taken, and fatty foods such as beef, pork, lamb meat and chicken should be reduced. Fish, on the other hand contains plenty of “good fats” including Omega 3. You can include fish twice a week. But fried fish may take away the health benefits, so be careful either to use only olive oil or coconut oil for frying, or avoid eating fried fish. Steamed and grilled fish are recommended. At the same time, we have to ensure that we include a lot of antioxidants in our food. Antioxidants are the “anti-rusting” agents for our internal organs. Antioxidants protect our body from the free radicals which cause damage to our body cells. Free radicals have been found to cause ageing and diseases such as cardio-vascular disease, Azheimers and cancer. For more information on the nutritional benefits of food items, read other topics in the Articles section of www.rajathifamilykitchen.com. By choosing our food wisely, we can achieve our goal of getting and staying fit in a smooth way. A future chapter is devoted to the topic of antioxidants.
• Exercising: Various forms of exercising help in reducing the body fats, and in keeping the body healthy and fit. Walking, jogging, skipping, swimming, cycling, aerobics, yoga and some freestyle exercises have all shown to be effective in reducing excess body weight and in maintaining overall fitness. However, every person cannot do all forms of exercising, so each person has to decide for themselves which one is the most feasible to be done on a regular basis. In this series, we will talk more about walking (Chapter 4), jogging (Chapter 5), yoga (Chapter 6), and freestyle exercises (Chapter 7), the best way to do them effectively, and the other health benefits they confer in addition to weight loss.
• Rest, relaxation and the right mind-set: It is an accepted fact that mental stress and worries result in either the body gaining weight or in other forms of physical damage or illnesses such as acidity, indigestion, heart ailments, paraplegia, and so on. For this reason, proper physical rest and the right frame of mind are absolutely essential to achieving and retaining fitness. The mental stress and worries that we get should be kept under control. In addition to 6 or 7 hours of sound sleep, some form of conscious relaxation or meditation would be very helpful. A form of physical relaxation known as Yoga Nidra (originated and propagated by Late Swami Satyananda Saraswati from India) is highly recommended for ongoing fitness and as a part of Fitness Culture. Yoga Nidra helps not only in achieving the right mind-set, but can be immensely helpful in keeping the various internal organs of the body healthy and disease-free.
WISHING YOU SUCCESS IN FOLLOWING THE “FITNESS CULTURE”!
Article written by: Saikumar Iyer
Dated: 29th September 2012
