Essentials for Healthy Living

Date:

Nutrition, Regular Exercise, Sleep and Nutritional Supplementation.

Many people are in search for healthy Living. But what are really the essentials for health and Fitness and how do you achieve good health and overall well being? When you have a closer look at the concept, it all boils down to the following four components, which are crucial for healthy living. They are: Good Nutrition, Regular Exercise, A Good Night Sleep and High Quality Nutritional Supplementation. If we choose to make good nutrition – including supplementation – and an active lifestyle a daily habit, we can add 5 to 15 healthy years to our lives.

Healthy living is keeping a balanced and healthy diet. Avoiding smoking, excessive use of alcohol and toxic chemicals. Taking regular exercise, a good night sleep and supplementing our diet with high quality nutritional supplements.

Good Nutrition

The key to fitness is nutrition. We are mainly what we eat. It is better to say, “You are what you can get out of your food.” It is true that exercise, restful sleep, peace of mind, regular habits of elimination, bathing, etc., are all factors in keeping fit, but these will avail nothing if our nutrition is not complete. It is now recognized that most common illnesses are closely associated with nutrition and arise from lack of vitamins and minerals. Scurvy, rickets, anaemia, beri-beri, pellagra and nerve troubles are equally deficiency ailments and respond to appropriate vitamin therapy. Periodically, new and successful uses of vitamins in diseased conditions are reported in the world’s medical journals and more and more physicians are prescribing vitamins, where some 50 years ago they prescribed drugs.

Many people wonder why the terrible epidemics which formerly ravaged the earth – typhus, yellow fever, typhoid, cholera, malaria, bubonic plague, etc – have largely been brought under control, yet the degenerative diseases, such as heart ailments, high blood-pressure, hardening of the arteries, stomach ulcers, nervous breakdowns, colitis, cataract, and kidney and liver ailments are all on the increase. The reason is that the plague or ‘dirt’ diseases, spread by vermin, mosquitoes and human contact are disappearing owing to improved methods of hygiene and sanitation. The degenerative diseases arise primarily from man’s continual tampering with natural foods, thereby depriving them of vital nutrients that Nature, in her wisdom, incorporates in our foodstuffs to ensure good health.

It is a tragic fact that most people these days only begin to take an intelligent interest in their health, after they have lost it. Nature requires that we co-operate with her, and we cannot escape the consequences of our refusal to do so. Good nutrition is fundamental for good health. The human body is a complex system that requires a full spectrum of nutrients for optimal health. What do we mean by “good nutrition”? Good nutrition means: eating the right food that contains all the right carbohydrates, protein, fat, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements, based on your body type.

A second factor that determines good nutrition is our body’s ability to absorb the nutrients from the food that we eat. The nutrients have to be in a form that the cells can accept them, and the cells have to be in optimum condition to be able to absorb the nutrients. This is called bio-availability. These are the keys to successful nutrition and two often overlooked facts. That is one of the reasons most nutritional supplements miss the mark. They don’t address the cellular condition of the body. You may think that regular exercise, a positive mental attitude, while applying the golden rule: ‘everything in moderation’ the key is to good health. However, if you understand the damage caused by processed foods, it will motivate you to change your diet. If you are aiming for a high level of health and freedom of degenerative diseases.

ACID-ALKALINE BALANCE We should consume acid- and alkaline-forming foods in the right ratios. This is not hard to realize, when we know that, generally speaking, fruits and vegetables are alkaline-forming and the rest is mostly acid-forming, with a few exceptions.

The Australian diet contains nearly one-and-a-half times more acid-forming food as it does alkaline-forming food. This ratio should be the other way around. The problem with eating too much acid-forming food is that it builds up toxic waste products, and is the cause of most of our health problems. A diet that contains insufficient fruit and vegetables is missing vital antioxidants ,beta-carotene, vitamins and minerals. They are most important to prevent oxidation, caused by free radicals, which are the main cause of heart disease, stroke, cancer and other diseases.

We also need a sufficient number of antioxidants, to counteract the formation of free radicals, caused by our stressful lifestyle, pollution in air and water and malnutrition.

Regular Exercise

It is not all about nutrition, neither is it all about exercise. A balanced lifestyle is the key. Exercise at least three times per week. Aerobics, jogging, swimming, cycling, also include weightlifting in your exercise routine, which is important for maintaining a healthy bone-structure. The key is to do the right exercise.

Aerobics are usually recommended in the weight loss industry, the more intense the better, which is all wrong!! The problem is that aerobics exercises that raise your heart rate above 120 beats per minute, which include running, rowing, swimming, cycling and many of those fancy aerobics classes in health clubs, all strip off muscle almost as much as they strip off fat. And as you know, muscle loss reduces your ability to burn fat and sets you up to become even fatter. Remember, muscle is the engine in which body fat is burned. You should do everything you can to maintain it for the rest of your life.

Walking is good for many health reasons, it also burns some fat and will not burn muscle. But the best exercise for fat control is wide-variety high repetition resistance training, using weights or machines. By exercising all the muscles of your body, you burn a lot of fat. Another advantage of resistance exercise is that it increases muscle and as a result provide more muscle cells to be able to burn fat. It’s a real health bargain. Another important factor is proper pace. Don’t overdo it.

You can’t force things to happen at once. The secret to good health is consistency and steadiness. The right amount of food and regular exercise. The simple technique of ‘deep breathing’ can make a powerful contribution to feeling good and being fit and well. Our bodies need an abundance of physical and mental energy to be able to function at their best.

The energy source is food. But food is useless without oxygen, which is the key to our power. The more oxygen we deliver to our cells, the more energy we will have. Breathing is the way we obtain oxygen and the benefits of periodic deep breathing are enormous. However, if our breathing is shallow, we cripple the functioning of our systems. When the oxygen supply to our lungs is not sufficient, it can contribute to illnesses, both physical and mental. Posture is important for proper breathing.

A Good Night Sleep

The third factor of health & fitness is a good night sleep. There is nothing more beneficial than a good night sleep and there is a great physiological need for it if the individual likes to feel refreshed and alert during the following day.

You can do many things to help you get a good night’s sleep. You have to make a regular sleep schedule and follow it. Go to sleep and get up at the same time each day, even on weekends or when you are traveling. Try not to watch television or use computer, laptop, mobile in the bedroom.

Sleep is also important for your memory and learning capacity and possibly for maintaining a good immune system. But there are still many unanswered questions regarding the function of sleep.

High Quality Nutritional Supplementation

People who are suffering from a chronic degenerative disease are under greater oxidative stress than normal. In this case, optimizers are important to use in order to support any existing nutritional program. It’s been scientifically proven that there are substantial health benefits in taking nutritional supplements. The benefits of nutritional supplements are scientifically verified. Hundreds of scientific studies have proved that nutritional supplements can significantly reduce the risk of degenerative diseases.

Dietary supplements are products that people use to add nutrients or other compounds to their bodies. There are numerous supplement products on the market that claim to provide specific health benefits.

It’s not always clear which supplements are high quality, nor which are a waste of your money or even potentially dangerous. Eating a variety of foods is the best way to ensure that you’re meeting your nutritional supplements.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related articles

These Supper Foods Can Brighten Your Eye Sight

With age or other external influences, eye sight gradually decreases. It is necessary to pay attention to home...

Indigestion is a big problem, can be cure

Many people suffer from indigestion. Sometimes the problem of indigestion does not go away even after taking many...

benefits of amla, avoid these diseases

Eating amla is as delicious as it is beneficial from the health point of view. Amla contains the...

Garlic is best for your kitchen

Garlic is easily available in our kitchen. It is especially used to enhance the taste of food. It...