Nutrition->Strength->Flexibility->Calories

Ok, so we finally reached the topic of discussion which has been quite hot in the past few years.

So hot a topic that information on this is abundantly available on numerous websites,books and magazines.



I therefore don't think, I have much to write about this.

But yes, one Mul Mantra ( main tip) that I would like to share is that

"Start following an exercise and dietary regime that you are confident you can stick to, atleast untill you are 50, if not till the end of your life"



Why so?

You must have heard the term 'metabolism'.



What is metabolism?

Biologically ,

Metabolism = Anabolism ( build up) + Catabolism (breakdown).

In simple english, metabolism defines the whole process involved in the breakdown of food for the generation of energy in our body.



The rate at which metabolism occurs is called metabolic rate. A person with high metabolic rate has less tendency of developing excess body fat than someone with low metabolic rate. This is obviously because, high metabolic rate ensures that most of the food consumed is immediately broken down to release energy whereas low metabolic rate does the same thing rather slowly and in turn assists the process of fat deposition in the body. Excess food, when not broken down to give energy, is stored in the body as future food reserve known as Body Fat.



For those having a low metabolic rate, it is important to put extra efforts to increase their metabolic rate. Different forms of exercise or physical activity increases the metabolic rate.

When we work hard, the body loses energy or it uses energy to work hard.

This creates a high demand for energy in the body to make up the energy deficit.In order to replenish the loss of energy as fast as possible, the body demands more and more energy in less and less time. This leads to a quick breakdown of the blood glucose to release energy which in turn reduces the glucose level in the blood. To maintain the normal glucose level,therefore, the consumed complex food is quickly broken down to the simplest form (blood glucose) This entire chain of activity ensures a high metabolic rate (rate of breakdown of consumed food to release energy).

So this is clear that to avoid fat deposition in the body, we need to do a lot of physical activity to maintain a high metabolic rate.

Secondly, eating less also helps in avoiding body fat accumulation.

How?

When we eat less, and the amount we eat is just enough to meet the energy demand of the body then the whole amount of food consumed is broken down in blood glucose and finally used up to release energy. There is no extra reserve for future use so no body fat. When we eat more, part of it is used up depending on body demand for energy and the rest is stored as body fat.

So if we want to maintain a natural balance, the we need to eat just as much as we know we can burn out by our physical activity. This will ensure that we do not put on extra weight.

But this is not enough to lose weight. For losing teh already accumulated body fat, we need to maintain a negative balance in the body.

How?

By losing more calories and consuming less calories. When we eat less and our bosy doesn't have enough energy to compenmsate what we are losing by working out hard, then the body uses the stored fats to provide us with the required energy. In the process we lose the stored body fat and hence the weight.

Body adapts

Now what is that? What does body adapt to?

Ok, so here is the reply. Read on...

Once we start eating less, the body adapts to this. It knows that it is going to get this much (less) amount of food only and therefore it tunes the process to survive with less energy so that it can store some for future use. Net result : The body starts accumulating fat even when you are eating less. But this rate of accumulation is very slow, as long as you are eating less. The day you return back to your original amount or even increase the diet marginally, its a feast for the body and it starts storing the entire extra amount because now it is used to burning that little amount of food only. It has lowered down its metabolic rate to adapt to the low food intake and now when the intake is increased , the metabolic rate is still low thereby increasing the chance of gaining weight.

Same is the case with exercise. As long as you continue, its fine but the day you stop or even reduce the vigour of the exercise you have done so far, you start gaining even more weight at a higher rate than the rate at which you were gaining weight before you started working out.

What does this mean?

Obviously, this doesn't mean that you should not work out at all or should never reduce your diet.

This only means that, once reduced, do not try to increase your diet or once exercise started , do not reduce the amount of exercise you do. That's why from the very beginning, start a regime that you can strictly follow.

Dont's

Do not become desperate for a weight loss and start doing exercise heavily unless you are sure you are going to continue doing so for the rest of your life. Working out hard for 3 months and stopping that or reducing that is worse than not working out at all , as far as weight loss is concerned.

Do not become desperate and start a severe diet control that you can not stick to for the rest of your life. Eating huge amounts regularly is not as bad as reducing your diet for 6 months and then increasing it again.

Do's

Always go for a normal exercise regime that you can follow for your life.

By normal exercise regime ,I mean 40 minutes of heavy (calorie burning , cardio types) exercise and 20 minutes of relaxation, stretching and breathing exercises at least 5 days a week for an otherwise sedentary worker.

Always have a balanced diet , with low fat content and more of fibre like oats. Start a routine that you can forever stick to.

Conclusion:

What that routine should be can be decided by every individual based on your body tendency, structure, level of determination, vision for yourself and body requirement. The various books and websites available on this topic will help you decide on your diet and exercise regime. Just stick to it once started or rather, start something that you can continue.

Nutrition -> Strength -> Flexibility

Having said about Nutrition and Strength, I would like to discuss about Flexibility.
What is Flexibility?
The ability to adjust with the situation.

Why is it important?
Have you ever seen a stick breaking? Yeah, many times perhaps.
Have you ever seen a rope breaking ? Not really, isn't it, unless you specially make some effort to get a scissor and cut the rope. Ropes don't break under pressure because they know how to bend and roll and adjust under pressue. So we say, ropes are flexible , a stick is not. For those who could not understad the analogy, read on and you will understand.

How many types of flexibility are there?
Broadly two types - Mental and physical.

Mental Flexibility :- The ability to bend your mind as per the the circumstantial demands.
This helps us to handle not just tough situations but tough people, tough work and almost everything. A simple example is tackling the generation gap or the aging process which all of us have to face.

A mentally rigid man finds it difficult to survive through the aging. He finds it difficult to understand that his youth is gone and he is slowly becoming dependent on someone for each and everything. His ego is hurt and his life becomes tough. So is the case with a mentally rigid father to see his daughter adapting to the demands of the new generation which he himself can't adapt to.

On the other hand, think of a person with a flexible mindset. He smoothly undergoes all ups and downs of life without getting himself hurt or tensed.

Physical Flexibility :- This is very similar to the mental flexibility. We can say, its the ability to bend your body as per the circumstantial demands. This helps us to handle tough physical conditions. When your body is under pressure ( it may be an accidental trauma, a physical fight with somebody, your bodystuck in a not so comfortable position, general body pain like shoulder or knee or waist due to excess work or sudden bending or any other motion), the flexibility of your body determines how well you can undergo the situation.
A not so flexible person will end up hurting himself more or developing a permanent body pain whereas a flexible person will tackle it without hurting himself or damaging any tissue.

How do we make our body flexible?

The ancient Indian Yogasanas are a very good way of making the body flexibility.
There are some exercises which help stretch your body muscles and in turn relax them.
Some of the easy asanas are Padmasan, matsasan, bhujangasan, dhanurasan, padahastasan etc.
There are various websites that would give details of these asanas but one important thing I would like to mention here is that Yogasan should be done under the vigilance of someone expert in Yoga. They are dangerous if done incorrectly.

There are some simple stretches as well which one can find in one of Jane Fonda's CDs or any physical trainer program. People generally workout hard to lose wait but forget the stretch part. This not only leaves your body more prone to injuries but also is harmful for the strained muscle tissues.

So next time you work out, make sure that the workout is followed by an extensive stretching program to maintain a natural balance of stress and relaxation in the body muscles.

Nutrition -> Strength

In my last post I discussed a few things about nutrition.
After nutrition, its strength that we need to seriously look into.

Ok, you might prefer staying a weak, delicate darling throughout your life but mind you, it’s not always feasible to get a helping hand whenever or wherever you need. All of us should try to be self-dependent. Self-dependence not only means economic or financial independence but also physical and emotional independence. Now that does not really mean becoming as strong as Tarzan, physically and as indifferent as the Himalayan sages, emotionally.

All I mean to say that one should be strong enough to sustain small injuries, reduce chances of serious injuries by having strong bones and muscles, be able to carry your own baggage to some extent so that you don't always have to depend on someone to do you a favour. Well, I don't really need to justify myself for stating the importance of being strong. Health and strength go hand in hand to some extent of course.

Let me share some of the tips that would help you to become strong.

Strength:
What is strength?
Now the answer to that question may vary from person to person and the way you want to gain strength depends very much on how you interprete the word 'strength'.

For me, strength is of various types:
Physical strength: The ability to protect the body from major injuries even when the body is exposed to traumatic experiences (strong bones). The ability to carry weights for longer duration (strong muscles). The ability to fight common diseases (Immunity). The ability to carry on with a tiring (physically) work for a longer duration (stamina).

Mental or spiritual strength: The ability to control reactions to emotions like shock, surprise, joy, sorrow, anger, fear, love, hatred etc. The ability to face and live through tough times with a smiling face. The ability to bear insults and criticism without any kind of emotional highs and being able to give it back to the right person at the right time without getting angry yourself or without that dangerous feeling of vengeance but with peace of mind and soul. Being able to forgive and forget bad times and bad memories and being happy and positive at all times irrespective of place, person, time, destiny, situation or any other thing.

Physical strength:
Strong Bones:
That comes from the kind of physical training and diet given to the defence guys.
For normal people like us, some preliminary exercises that involves all possible movements of joints, some jogging, some shoulder rolls etc with sufficient intake of calcium, phosphorous and vitamin D is good enough. So drink an lot of milk and let your skin produce some Vitamin D by exposing it to the morning sun.

Strong muscles:
Again the defence training and diet is the ideal one to be followed but a more customised approach would be to exercise the muscles with weights. Start with lighter weights and increase the weight only when you are comfortable with the lighter ones. Start with 5 minutes of weight exercises and you can increase upto 40 minutes depending upon the level of comfort and alternating the weights with some cardio (aerobics) intermittently. Protien intake is good for muscles, hair and nails. But be careful of taking too much protien especially at age beyond 30-35.
Young boys and girls need a lot of protein as their bosy is in the grwing stage but once the body is fully mature, the protien need of the body reduces except for expectant mothers for whom the unborn in the womb has high protein demands.

Immunity:
Now that comes mainly from diet and lifestyle. Sufficient intake of all kinds of vitamins and minerals help us fight diseases. Also exposing the body to oxygen rich air, greenery and the morning sun help us keep fit and immune to diseases. Regular swimming is a good way of keeping the common cold at bay. Some basic cleanliness in the house and outside is also very essential. For example, carrying a hankerchief to avoid breathing the contaminated air at polluted places or when someone sneezes near you helps to avoid breathing in the common cold virus, clean sanitation and eating habbits help us fight diseases like diarrhoea, amoebiasis, jaundice etc. Clean curroundings help fight malaria, dengue etc. So these are some basic things to be followed. Again being over-protective about the body at times makes it less immune to diseases. For example, if someone has always taken boiled water would instantly fall sick if he ever has to drink simply chlorinated and filtered water. But someone whose bosy is accustomed to that would not have any problems. So here judgement has to be made by each individual on what kind of habbits he wants to cultivate and stick to all his life.

Another good way of protecting the body from some of the very common diseases like common cold, high blood pressure, stress, insomnia etc is to do pranayams or breathing exercises. There are many books and websites available that describe some of the very effective pranayams. But one should make sure to practise them correctly. Just a quick tip : Deep and slow breathing in open and fresh air ( surrounded by greenery) help release stress and rejuvinates the mind.

Stamina:
This is the aspect of strength that determines how long you can sustain yourself in a not so comfortable (referring to physical comfort) environment. Stamina has to be built with regular practice over a period of time. And as your stamina builds up, you can feel the difference.
First day you walk for 20 minutes and you are tired. In a week's time (if you walk regularly), you would comfortable walking for 40 minutes. That's called stamina. Same applyies to jogging or skipping or swimming or aerobics or any other form of physical activity.

So that's roughly all about physical strength.

Mental or spiritual strength is 80% congenital and 20% self developed.
Most of those who have the traits I mentioned while describing spiritual strength are born with those divine traits. The rest like us need to inculcate them in our nature consciously by practising them. Easier said than done, but not impossible. Meditation and some forms of self denial helps, I have heard so. Self denial can be done, only when you learn to stop loving yourself. Or can I say, stop feeling proud about yourself. That's when you learn to kill your ego which is the prime cause of emotional or spiritual weakness. Now again, you need to be sure you are killing your ego and not your confidence. It is almost like an art that needs to be practised hard. I need to try the same, so let us try together and meanwhile whoever comes up first with some technique, if any, can post it here. Else good luck to all, including me.

That's all for this time. Shall continue with Flexibility in my next post.
Till then, be strong, be bold, and be beautiful.