Diet is major way #1 that you can improve your health, the things you eat and the things you drink. When it comes to drinking; just drink water! Water is the most readily available source of hydration for your body, making it almost always the best option. Exceptions can be made for athletes and those that are pushing their bodies to the limit for longer periods of time, for instance when engaged in some form of cardio for more than an hour at a time. If you fit within this category, you should look into electrolyte replenishing sports drinks designed for endurance activities. Reduce your alcohol intake, a few hard drinks a month is more than enough. Regular alcohol consumption, daily, bi-daily even weekly, is severely detrimental to your health and well being. It is taxing and dehydrating to your body, making many normal functions difficult to manage, and over time when your body is not allowed ample time to recover from such abuse, can cause exponential dysfunctions like a domino effect on your health.
Now let's talk about eating; fuel for your body - what you put in your mouth in the way of food; meat, grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy, essentials oils and fats. I am going to start by identifying the types of meat which when eaten sparingly to moderately are acceptable, and also that which should be avoided entirely. My recommendation is that a person should consume, in moderation - preferably sparingly; white lean options such as poultry and seafood (fish, shellfish). Stay away from all red meat and fatty salty pork (especially bacon and sausage). Meat in all forms is hard on our digestive systems, often causing irregularity and bloating. Think about what meat is; rotting flesh, flesh that has been built to endure - so it is naturally tough and difficult to break down. Other animals like tigers and lions and wolves were equipped with the right digestive tools to survive on a diet of raw flesh. We weren't. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a nice filet or New York strip once or twice a year, but I honestly keep it to an absolute minimum - and man do I feel it for days afterwards as my stomach gurgles and bubbles like a sputtering geyser. I know everyone talks about eating whatever you want in moderation, but when you think about that statement, it's just an excuse for the weak of will - and it sounds convincing. Think about it, everything in moderation; OK, how about you go right ahead and eat worms, dung, tree bark, dirt, and drink some motor oil while you're at it. It won't kill you the first time, and maybe someone can promote eating these things to make it sound like it is good for you. The bottom line, use your head and listen to your body; if what you eat causes constant bloating, stomach pain, irregularity, weight gain, cramps, foul excretion and so on and so forth, do you think you should continue to eat it on a regular daily or weekly basis? A great substitution for consuming protein is beans; black beans, pinto beans, lima beans...Oh, and what about iron? I hear this one all the time; someone is craving meat so they think that means that their body needs iron. Wrong, cravings usually never have anything at all to do with what you need, but everything to do with what you want. Iron is readily available in much easier to digest sources of food such as dark green leafy vegetables, yams, sweet potatoes, seeds, and some fruits. These sources of iron are classified as non-Heme sources. This means that in order to equate to the type of iron derived from eating meat, it needs to be paired with vitamin C. How convenient, most of these vegetarian sources of iron are also laden with vitamin C, and almost everything you drink and eat today is fortified with vitamin C, so that shouldn't be a problem.
As far as grains go, it depends on what your goal is. If you want to lose weight, then you should stick with 2 or less servings of grains. If you are not concerned with losing weight then 2 to 4 servings per day is fine. Stick to 100% whole grains, and stay away from enriched refined grains. Eat the grainiest stuff you can find and your body will love you more, the more you have to crunch and chew the better. Fruit, fruit, the magical fruit, eat a lot of it! 4 to 6 servings a day no matter who you are, make sure it is fresh fruit and not canned, frozen is your next best option, but if you only have the option of canned, go with the varieties in pear juice instead of heavy syrup! Also make your fruit choice organic if you are going to eat the skin, pesticides and harmful chemical residues are sometimes difficult to completely remove from fruit even with washing. When it comes to vegetables, try to get around 6 servings of these everyday and mix it up, eat all the colors available, the richer and deeper the color more flavonoids to offer. Treat vegetables as a main course in meals, and make everything else a smaller side dish. As I mentioned with the fruit, get fresh vegetables, if you are eating the outside of the vegetable, get organic to avoid those harmful chemical residues!
Dairy, dairy, dairy. This is a funny one, and a lot of people need to listen up on this one. Stay away from dairy, yes I said stay AWAY from DAIRY. Do you honestly think that you should eat or drink something that was meant to nourish an animal that is 4 times our size? Take a second and really ponder that. Anyway, most people lose lactase in their body as they age - naturally, and lactase breaks down lactose. Basically we were provided with a temporary enzyme to break down lactose during the period of time that we would need to nurse from our own mothers. After that - our bodies are designed to not need it, so we lose that ability to break down lactose as we age, and this happens at different times and rates depending on your genetic make-up - but it does happen. And as it does, the side effects of bloating, gas, cramping and nausea just get worse. So why would you eat something that your body does not efficiently process, makes you bloated and miserable, and in then stores as fat?! Dairy is the muffin top, cottage cheese effect, spare tire, super gas maker! Fun. So now you, or someone you know, want to argue about not getting enough calcium or vitamin D to keep bones strong and body healthy without feasting on dairy. And what about all of those commercials, paid for by the dairy association mind you, that tell you eating dairy helps you lose weight? The dairy industry and the meat-packing industry, are some of the largest money-scheming, mass-producing industries in the United States of America. Check out a book or two revealing some of the nasty truths about mass production of food and be prepared to vomit. Heck, you might not eat for days after you read a few chapters on the quality issues that have been found and the ways in which they are corrected. Profiting members of these organizations are woven very tight and numerously throughout our countries government and political personnel. Here's a shocker; there are other foods available that offer a more readily available and easier to digest source of calcium, and vitamin D. Vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes, seeds, nuts. And if you think you aren't getting enough from your diet, guess what, buy a vitamin and take it daily. And no matter how you get your vitamin D, make sure you get 15 minutes of sun daily! I think that you should eat eggs, especially organic brown eggs because they have really good nutrients that your body needs, free-roaming chickens tend to get more green food, and in turn their eggs tend to offer more Omega-3 fatty acids. As a matter of fact, eggs are incredible because they do provide a broad spectrum of necessary vitamins and nutrients. Oh and why not have a little bit of yogurt...Soy yogurt! Still has the "bifitoilet" (lol) bacteria in it for you to stay regular and smelly. Make sure you are not eating a lot of ice cream and milk, these dairy products are the toughest on your body because aside from the naturally occurring lactose present, manufacturers actually add more lactose into them as a sweetener (and addictive if you ask me).
P.S. Add more of the following into your diet: legumes, nuts, and seeds. These provide you with the essential fats and oils, fiber, and plenty of other vitamins and nutrients.
Cardio exercise is the #2 way to improve upon your health, and very important for your heart. Many people wonder what classifies as cardio, and what routine they should do when considering cardio exercise; so here are some basic guidelines; cardio can be running, jogging, biking, and swimming. As a beginner you should start with 2 to 3 days of cardio your first week and it should not be very hard. Intermediate to advanced exercisers can do cardiovascular exercise 3 to 7 days a week, although I recommend taking Sunday or one day off a week for recovery. Here is a sample cardiovascular workout that anyone can follow or modify. Let's do 4 days a week and you can add or subtract from there. I would have you doing cardio work on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
MONDAY-5 minute warm-up, and then you will do 2 minutes hard followed by 2 minutes to recover. Repeat this 2 minute interval 2 to 6 times and then follow that with a 10 to 15 minute warm down.
WEDNESDAY-35 minutes with your heart rate between 70 and 75% of your MHR (maximal heart rate). MHR=220-age, after you get your MHR, you would then multipy.7 and.75 with the MHR to get that heart rate range. You also have to listen to your body. A lot of reading that I have done shows that there are outliers to this formula. Example, you could run in your easy heart
rate zone and you could actually be in your medium or hard heart rate zone. This works the other way too, being in your hard heart rate zone, and actually being in the easy or medium zone. So you really have to listen to your body, and get a heart rate monitor.
FRIDAY-10 minute warm-up, 6 minutes with your heart rate around 65%, 3 minutes heart rate around 73%, 1.5 minutes heart rate around 80%, 45 seconds heart rate around 87%, and 25 seconds heart rate near 92%, end with a nice 15 to 20 minute warm down.
SATURDAY-60 plus minutes of easy going cardio, low heart rate zone, but make sure you are not sleeping. This heart rate zone is great for burning fat because of the energy system being use, make sure you are going easy, but again, not too easy you fall asleep.
Resistance training is the #3 way to better health and it can be done 2 to 6 days a week, most people will be 2 to 3 days on the weights. The best way to save time and also get a great workout in is to do a full body workout 2 to 3 days a week. Make sure you get a full day of rest between your workouts, in other words, do not train on the weights 2 days in a row. You need to make sure that you hit all major muscle groups, Quads, Hams, Glutes, Chest, and Back. Once you are done with these huge major muscles, you can add in other muscle groups at your discretion; shoulders, biceps, triceps, calves, neck, etc. Always finish with Abs and lower back for safety reasons! If you do your abs first and burn them out, and then try and squat with fatigued abs, you are likely to lose form and hurt yourself. Make sure that if you are doing this workout, you do not lift on your rest day. Your rest day is that day you do nothing on for the week. So this also means that you do not need to do your abs every day, they are still a muscle group...use your head! With this workout you want to the same exercises for 6 to 8 weeks so that you can progress through the workout. What do I mean by progress, I mean you are going to push yourself and add weight to your exercises so they get harder to do. If you are doing a squat and you have 50 pounds on each side and you get all your reps, next time try 55 pounds on each side. When you approach the end of 8 weeks, you will want to change the workout so that your body can adapt, and so that you do not get bored. Good luck with your resistance training!
Improving you mental state, this is the #4 way, and a good one, that finishes the process of better health. What do you think is going to happen if you are negative towards working out? Do you think that you will get to the gym and kick ass in your workout? Do you think that you will last and endure the test of time and get the body you have always wanted? NO Way, if your attitude is bad towards working out, you will never make it. You are what you think you are, just like you are what you eat! What you need to do is keep your mind positive towards working out, so you need to say things to yourself when you are feeling negative, and you need to say things to yourself every morning when you wake up and at night before you go to bed. Say things like, "I am healthy because I exercise right, I eat right, and my mind is right!" "I have the body of my dreams!" "I love to exercise and eat right!" "I exercise because I feel awesome and accomplished when I am done!" "Exercise gives me the energy I need to leave coffee and caffeine behind!" "Fruits and veggies are my favorite food of choice!" "Exercising makes me healthy!" The list could go on and on, adopt some of these or make some up for yourself that work for you. Remember to say them at least twice a day!
