Fitness - Discover Yourself

Be number one with yourself

Today, television screens dish up sports bacon sizzling hot. Speed merchants zip across on winged feet. Tennis tycoons serve aces with pungent power. Swimmers splice and explode through water like turbo­powered fish at an Olympic meet. It's not just sport, but life out there, as superhumans battle for records and recognition. Medels hang around athletic necks trumpeting the triumphant Number One note.

The message in those medals is for every one of us. Fitness is round the corner, just a few calories away. Fitness echoes its muscular melody from the pulse of our wrists. It's time to grab at the medals of health and stand firm and strong on the pedestal of life. There is as much satisfaction in being Number One with oneself.

We are all born with our quota of fat cells. They are the constant factor that keep us from being honed down to our skeletal skin-and-bone selves. In times of famine, they provide energy. But, on the other hand, we needn't act like famine is eternally dogging our heels. There's no need for that surplus fat to be stored.

if you're into a sedentary lifestyle, change it. Here's what happens when you don't exercise. Since you are not burning off enough calories, those ever accommodating cells spread and store the excess fat. But unlike a tanked-up ship that sails the sea to use its fuel, you don't. On the other hand, a grounded ship would rust and if you continue to fill its tank with fuel, it will overflow. That's exactly what happens to an overeating, non ­exercising human. The overflow is the unseemly bulge. The rust is seen in different ways - tiredness, not looking forward to the day, low spirits, poor health.

But then, aren't fat people jolly folk always laughing at everything including themselves? Except for a few, most get into the ha-ha sphere because that's the only way they can cope.

Group therapies have shown that almost all fat people admit to putting on a facade. What they are doing, in essence, is switching on a self-defence mechanism. By laughing at themselves, they pre-empt the jokes against them by others. Their laughter is their fortress.

Psychologists have discovered that many overweight people are so due to various insecurities plaguing them. They eat to satisfy a certain gnawing emptiness inside.

The feeling of emptiness could be due to some vaguely perceived, but not entirely understood, unfulfilled desires. It could be for larger things - like identity, or creative satisfaction, power, for a meaningful role in society, or for recognition.

In Attitudes, a television programme, two fat women admitted that they deliberately put on weight to get attention. One said, "Every time I overeat and gain inches, my husband buys me a new dress."

In short, the hunger is not for food. It may sound like a peculiar reason to remain fat, but insecurity is the biggest plague of modern times. Sometimes such people go in for crash diets, with, predictably, no or very little effect. They find themselves getting increasingly snappish and moody. They feel deprived and let down. They even feel that they were happier when they were fat. So it's back to food and more food to put the laughter back in their lives. Or so they feel.

What fat people need is fire in their minds. A strong, powerful self-image that grips them and makes them lay less emphasis on food and appearance. It's when the self-image takes over insecurity that they will find the motivation to get into fitness.

The best way to break this vicious cycle is to start exercising. This feeds the fire in the mind and makes them eat less, starting a more fulfilling cycle. As they burn more calories than what they take in, witness what happens in the body: The nervous, endocrine and circulatory systems function smoothly together as a team and release fat for energy. The nervous system jets out fat from the cells, the circulatory system picks it up and carries it to the liver. The liver converts it into energy which in turn is used by the muscles. The result: loss of weight. Simultaneously, muscles get strengthened and the person feels tauter and healthier.

This way, the self-image gets a boost. And as the Number One feeling grows, the world seems a brighter, more secure place. The message is complete. For, a healthy life itself is a medal.

How You Can Grow Physically, Mentally and Spiritually - Daily

Morning:

What do you want to be first thing in the morning? Energetic Fresh. Vibrantly alive. You can be all these and more - because the key to them lies, in your hands! What you need to do is start your body's energy cycle that lasts for the entire day. And how do you rev up this energy cycle which means, you create- use-up-create energy constantly? By two simple ways - exercise, and eat (when you must) the right food.

The best breakfast you can treat yourself to is exercising. Walking or jogging or cycling or swimming or inchstepping, for 20 to 42 minutes awakens you like nothing else does. It stimulates your insides by working on your muscle tissues, relaxes your digestive tract, rids your body of wastes, gives you more punch than the caffeine you get from your morning cuppa.

Eating in the morning does not really help your energy cycle. You will know why later in this chapter. But, if you must eat, go for fresh fruits and sugar-free fruit juices. Your body can digest them with ease. Thus, the energy cycle generated by exercising does not get used up for digestion and you are free to use it for more important jobs.

Aha! you might say, these guys promised us that we have to make little changes to make big differences. Do they call these little changes? Why, I've never exercised in the morning! And as for drinking fruit juice instead of coffee... forget it! Wait! Don't tune off. We are talking of an ideal situation here. If you can switch to this state without feeling any pangs, you'd be into your energy cycle almost with a snap of your fingers!

But what if you are used to eating a hearty breakfast? What if the thought of eating fruit in the morning makes you squirm? What if you don't feel ready to face the day without your morning cuppa? Here is where that tiny change waltzes in, Have your morning cuppa without sugar. If you cannot cultivate a taste for your unsweetened beverage, use a sugar-free sweetener, but try to wean yourself out of this habit gradually.

If you feel unfinished without sinking your teeth into your toast, continue to do so. Just substitute the butter with a delicious herbal spread, You can pile onions, coriander leaves, ginger, garlic, salt, lemon juice into your mixer and churn out this mouth-watering chutney. Spread it over your slice and crunch away! If you are into dosas or parathas prepare them without oil or ghee. And you can use the same fat-free chutney as an accompaniment. Coconut as a base for your herbal spread is avoidable since it increases your cholestrol. It is far healthier to use onions.

Afternoon: If you haven't had time for exercising, here is your opportunity to do so. Your lunch hour is your own. You could go for a 42-minute walk. Or swim if you have a pool handy. If your office has a gym, use the walker or stationary cycle. If you have your own cabin, you can inchstep. Keep jogging shoes, socks and a mat permanently in your cabin.

Once again, the ideal lunch would be a soup and a nice luscious salad or a medley of vegetables with a fat-free masala - eaten with oil-less rotis or bread. Wash it down with fresh buttermilk or chaas.

If you cannot do without your thali, have hot steamed rice (without ghee) and a fat free sambhar or dal with your sabzi cooked in an oil-less masala. A void pickles and papads.

Most of them have excess oil and salt. For dessert, sink your sweet tooth into a nice juicy fruit.

If you eat out regularly, try and inculcate these hints into the chief's menu. We are sure a good restauranteur would want to please his regular customer.

Tea-time: Your tea should be sugar-free, and if you enjoy a snack with your evening cuppa have idlis or cream crackers. The humble idli is an ideal health food. You can even put sprouts into its mix before steaming. And, of course, the accompaniment should be the oil-less sambhar or the herbal chutney we've already mentioned.

TV-time: In the evening, while watching television, you can inchstep or pedal on your stationary cycle. If you like snacking, crunch on cucumber fingers. Instead of eating fried farsan or peanuts (they contain high cholestrol), you could make your own TV snack. For example, mix vegetables with sprouts and a few roasted channas, sprinkle them with chaat masala and squeeze a fresh lemon. Or spread chutney on a cream cracker, place a sliced tomato over it, sprinkle with sprouts and chaat masala, and place a tiny sprig of coriander or mint leaves as a garnish. Salted biscuits are not recommended for obvious reasons.

Dinner. Your night thali can be similar to your afternoon one - steamed rice, fat-free dal, a sabzi cooked in an oil-less masala, a chutney and fruit. If you enjoy onion bhajiyas, dip them in their batter and grill or bake them, Don't fry them.

Pre-dinner appetiser. Perhaps you are used to imbibing alcohol before dinner. The healthiest way would be to give it up. Relax with a glass of buttermilk. Or fresh fruit juice. If that is not possible, don't exceed two small pegs of your favourite. Beyond that, it's just not worth risking your health.

Initially, preparing such meals may appear an onerous task. But that is only because you are not used to it. In time to come, you will realise that oil-less cooking is far simpler and quicker than the oily way. It involves churning out the masala in your mixer and cooking your vegetables in it, or boiling the dal with the seasoning such as mustard seeds, curry pata, etc. By following such a fatless and sugar-free lifestyle daily, you can splurge once in a way when you are out at a friend's place or at a restaurant.

On such occasions, you will be surprised how full you feel on food cooked in oil-for by then, your system will be tuned to healthy eating.

By adopting the simple principles mentioned above, you will be aiding your body's energy cycle. You will enjoy your meals even as you continue to lose weight.

Your exercising ensures excess fat-burning, while you are not putting fat or sugar into your body. You can compare this fitness lifestyle of exercising and healthy eating to blinking. Blinking comes naturally to you. Only by putting weight on your eyelid, will you make it difficult for yourself to blink. Similarly, by not exercising and overeating, or eating the wrong food, you put pressure on your body system. By getting into the fitness lifestyle, you are leaving your body free to 'blink' away in its natural energy cycle.

Fitness - Rewrite Your Stars

And you can give your body - and yourself - the opportunity by believing in yourself. Believe that you are special. Help yourself and this belief by allowing fitness to sing through you. How many times have your eyes been drawn to the words: Know yourself through your stars?

Ah, how such a headline tickles your curiosity, beckons and seduces you' in its wily clutches! It is irresistible. It is a treasure chest divided into 12 neat compartments to pigeonhole people according to the star signs they were born under. Packaged by cosmic psychologists, they help us poor, miserable human beings to 'know' what we are.

So, an aquarian believes he has a far-sighted understanding of human behaviour and relations. A piscean sees himself as a poet with a musical ear. An arian: creative and spiritual. A taurean: energetic and business ­minded. A geminian: practical and realistic. A cancerian: independent and painstaking. A leon: self assured, a born leader. A virgo: understanding and sympathetic. A scorpion: dignified and reserved. A sagittarian: bold and optimistic. A libran: highly imaginative, avoids arguments.

It's fascinating, isn't it? To delve into oneself and see the image that's been so conveniently built up. But it's self defeating too - in this format. It's isolationist. You pick up all the stray strands and tie yourselves into knots. What you may fail to realise is that if, for example, a capricornian keeps behaving like a capricornian, he will continue to encounter the same problems.

The fact remains that each of us possess all these qualities, and more. It's just that we have allowed only a stream to trickle through instead of that vast waterfall of powerful energy locked into our personality. It's been confirmed by a scientist who reports that the average man uses only twenty percent of his brain power.

But, it's human weakness to underestimate oneself - the result of self ­ignorance which, in this case, is not bliss, but distress. Non-belief in oneself is like slamming a door.

It isn't difficult to sort yourself out. Just sit down for a few minutes and ask yourself: why on earth should I not believe in myself? You will find that there is no reason. It's only you. Your perspective of yourself. Even the most timid, most self-effacing person has gone through one glorious moment when he has experienced a sudden, sharp feeling of happiness, of knowing that he has everything, that he can do anything. Then, it's gone. Why? Because just for that instant, the veil of non-belief lifted and a chink of sunshine peeped through before timidity took over and dropped the veil once again.

The trick is to hold on to this chink of sunshine and allow it to widen, until you are flooded with light. Down the ages, sages have seen 'the light of self-realisation'. But because it doesn't happen to every one of us, it's been packaged as a cosmic experience, a visit from god, etc.

But you need not become a rishi to unlock the sunshine within you. Being fit will automatically do it for you. Exercising and eating right picks up all the loose untidy strands within you and meshes them together to serve you at an optimum level. This sharpens your sense of appreciation of not only the outside world but the limitless potential within you.

Remember, nobody can appreciate you the way you can.

Others only mirror what you project. So, if you are awed by this Goliath world, see yourself as a David. Unconquerable. Standing at the epicentre of the universe, as Dostoievski puts it: "a citizen of eternity". Listen to the words of Dr. Alexis Carrel, a Nobel prize-winning scientist: "Man is made on the scale of the terrestrial mountains, oceans and rivers." It is you he is referring to.

We know of a highly placed executive. Once, he was on drugs - a defeated, hollow shell of a man. But while at a meeting where the discussion ranged from the eternal man, god, life, he suddenly came alive. He told us. "I don't know what it was, but I felt light, as though if i flapped my arms like wings, I would be able to fly!" The veil of non-belief in himself, had indeed, lifted. He has not let it fall back.

It's like a professor of psychology put it: "The average man fails because he does not learn to find and consolidate his powers. For example, the rays of the sun falling upon a piece of paper have little effect. But if they are drawn by the magnifying glass to focus on the paper, they create an intense heat to burn a hole in the paper."

Fitness is the magnifying glass that allows the rays of the sun to pass through it and into you. This way you will recreate you own world. Be in control of yourself, your actions, and in doing so, you'd have rewritten what is in the stars.

Fitness - Your Body Can Sprout With Energy

For years you have been eating pulses such as moong, chowli, channa, masur, etc. You probably soak them overnight in water before cooking them the next day. It is a good practice because soaking them in water makes them less gaseous. Interestingly, we Indians have always followed such healthy practices without really knowing why except that we learnt them from our parents. The west has discovered these means only recently!

Soaking is only the beginning. You can take it one step farther once you realise what the mighty pulse contains. It is literally pulsing with energy! It is Nature's energy treasure chest packed with proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. And the best way to free this healthy treasury is to sprout the pulse. You are already aware that your body needs glucose to make it energetic. When you sprout a pulse, you help it to break down all the treasures it contains into easier-to-digest components. Thus, starch turns into glucose, proteins into amino acids, And since you have already done half the work of breaking it down for your body, it sings with instant energy when fed with this digestible fuel. It's like the process of refining crude oil into petrol to be used as fuel­energy for your car.

Sprouting enhances the pulsing-with-life-quality of the moong, for example. It destroys or neutralises potentially hazardous acids-e.g. phytic acid - that may otherwise retard the release of vital minerals for your body; it breaks down saturated fats into free-flowing fatty acids; it converts proteins into amino acids that generate hormones and build up your muscle tissues; and facilitate easy bowel movements. Sprouting is a pre­digestive process. By giving your body pre-digested, food, you help it to use its energy in absorbing all the nutrients, including vitamins instead of using that same energy in breaking down the 'crude' pulse and refining it.

When you eat sprouts, you are easing your body's functions, just as a busy cook may find it quicker to use pre-cooked food.

What can you sprount? Almost any pulse, grain or seed.

Pulses: moong, channa, peas, soyabeans, chowli, masur, matki, etc.

Grains: wheat, maize, ragi, bajra, barley, etc.

Seeds: methi, coriander, pumpkin, mustard, til, etc.

Easy sprouting: If you need a measure of how much you should sprout, calculate approximately one-fourth cup of pulses per person. Wash thoroughly to remove any chemicals, and then soak them overnight in water in a large vessel so that they have ample scope to expand. The next morning, drain the water and rinse them in a large strainer - the kind you use for your tea. Keep them moist in the vessel. Rinse them this way every day. They will begin sprouting on the third day. Now, you can even store them in the refrigerator, but continue rinsing them daily in the strainer. Some pulses like channa may take longer to sprout than say, moong. So as to ensure that you always have them handy, you can turn a comer of your kitchen into a mini-sprout farm. The best way to eat them is in their raw sprouted form. You can have them in salads, as garnish over soups and sabzis, with parathas. Or you can make your own special bhel by adding to them, boiled potatoes, raw onions, tomatoes, coriander leaves and herbal chutney.

By now, you must be enchantingly bewildered! Here you were thinking that we would finally lead you to a diet. When, going by what we've written before, we seem to be encouraging you to eat more often! You are dam right, we are! It is healthier to eat more meals of the right kind than to leave long gaps. This way you are encouraging your body to become more energetic and ensuring that it has plenty of the right fuel to help you exercise and bum excess fat. You are also ensuring that fat never creeps back - because where all along you had helped fat to reach victorious heights, now you are stopping it from invading your muscle-tissue country! Now, you are an ally of your body's smart cells and, believe us, they are great friends!

Feed Your Body's Smart Cells

Call us romantics. But do you know what we like to think? That every time a warrior in the Mahabharat shot an arrow from his bow, it was not to kill. Rather, it was a metaphorical act - to trigger off a quiverful of new ideas and let them cleave through the air thick with outdated notions. It was to allow clean, invigorating thoughts to shaft through the excess 'fat' and generate fresh, positive energy into the field of life. To restore, to rejuvenate, to bring back a balance, a rationality, to make new patterns of peace with a surging vibrancy into an almost-forgotten art called living.

So, when we write about how carbohydrates give you energy, proteins build your muscle tissue, about why fats are stored for life-survival situations, it is not to drive you into an eating laboratory where you measure out in test tubes the required quantities to be swallowed like medicine. It is to allow the arrows of health-filled facts to sink into your mind, to give you new perceptions, to show you how your body treats the food you eat and how it extracts the maximum nourishment for itself. To tune you into your inner receptors and awaken your mind and spirit, so that with this awareness you gather all these strands of information and insights and shape them to suit your individuality and taste.

So that you are entranced enough to bring little changes into your eating habits. Little changes that neither annoy nor disrupt your daily life. Little changes that make big differences. Little changes that ultimately reap immeasurable benefits over a lifetime.

You can do it by appealing to the smart cells in your body. For, these smart cells generate a continuous cycle of complex actions and reactions. They act as a think tank in your body and bless it with a natural ability to crave for food that maxi mises its efficiency and reject that which minimizes its capabilities. These smart cells are the genius that keep you alive.

These cells are not difficult to please. They do not expect you to peer at labels and calculate the mgs or mls that are good for you.

All they expect you to do is to eat a wide variety of natural, wholesome food. And to simultaneously synchronize it with the taste that is mapped on your tongue.

You can start your great exploration into, the wonderland of food by forgetting such terms as 'carbohydrates, proteins, etc. They are only alphabets of a language called Nutrition. You don't need to recite your alphabets daily to read a book. Besides, in this life-sustaining book of nutrition, there are only a few words that are easy to understand, to remember and inculcate into your daily vocabulary of living.

They are:

Fresh vegetables
Cereals
Pulses
Fresh fruits

They are the sinews of your fitness philosophy.

They activate and nurture your body's smart cells. They are found in great abundance in the supermarket of Nature and all you have to do is to select a wide range and store them in your larder and refrigerator. You don't need butter or ghee or sugar - they only retard your smart cells by smothering them. Thus limiting or arresting your growth potential. Instead, if you eat nourishing foods and exercise, you can reach heights ­physically, mentally spiritually - that you had never dreamt were possible earlier. Not only because you increase your efficiency, but because, this way, you maintain it. And as you develop a greater under- standing, you will find a shift in your thoughtscape. For, you will want to eat to live, to derive the best from life. You will realise that all along, you were living to eat and erecting barriers to your growth.

Bodyweight Training Is Best Way To Burn Fat & Build Muscle

Bodyweight training is one of the best ways to burn fat and build muscle. Unfortunately, most people think (or are led to believe) they should have a room full of equipment or an exclusive gym membership in order to better their physique. They completely overlook the fat burning and muscle building ability of bodyweight training. I trust this article opens your eyes to the possibilities of using the gym you were born with!

Heads up: at the end of the article I'm going to explain to you one exercise that simultaneously builds muscle and burns fat.

It's happened to all of us at one situation or another (even me). We look in the mirror one day and we observe we are softer and fatter. While we weren't looking in the mirror, our muscle tone and power has decreased, and our waistline has enlarged. This is when most would say, "It's time to hit the gym".

Now, just a moment. I concur, it is time to do something about your build. But signing up for a membership at a gym does not have to be the answer. As a matter of fact, you can begin burning fat and increasing muscle mass right away to improve your physique.

As we take a closer look, keep in mind all of the useful and important information that we have learned so far.

Let me show you how bodyweight training can improve your physique in as little 15 minutes a day...

Instead of going to the gym, you may or may not end up going to, begin by adding a bodyweight workout program to your daily schedule. Come on, it is painless to find 15 minutes to workout. And 15 minutes is all you need to do to begin increasing your general confidence and looking better. Clearly, I'd like to see you workout even more, but let's keep it easy at 15 minutes for now.

So, you get up in the morning and do 15 minutes of bodyweight calisthenics. By the way, you'll find this more invigorating than swilling down a dozen donuts cup of coffee. Do this every day. Yes, every day, and you will see improvements in your appearance within a few weeks.

Now, I can hear some of you say, "I thought you were only to workout every other day, or 3 times a week!"

This is correct, if you are trying to increase your body weight and muscle rapidly, such as a professional bodybuilders that wants increase his weight for competition. Bodybuilders need that extra day to mend from the vast amount of training they achieve. But you are only doing 15 minutes of bodyweight exercise. This allows you 1,440 minutess to mend between bodyweight training sessions. This is more than enough.

Now, if you do this every day for a week, you do 1 hour and 45 minutes of working out. Do you think 1 hour and 45 minutes will begin to increase your muscles and burn off mega fat? You bet it does!

Now, for the skeptics that think bodyweight exercising is too "painless", or that you can't get a great muscle building, fat burning workout in 15 mintues, remember, I promised to show you a exercise that you can start doing right away.

Here is how you do it...

Stand under a chin up bar with your feet shoulders width apart and arms at your sides. Bend your knees and squat down, place your hands on the floor in front of you. Kick your feet back so you are in the up right position of the push up. Execute a push up. Jump your feet forward under your body... then explode up and grab the bar with palms facing you. Execute a chin up. Drop down and repeat.

Do this for a few minutes and your entire body will feel it, from your muscles to your hearrt and lungs, and you burn a lot of fat. Try to do as many as you can for a full 15 minutes, and I promise you'll have a new appreciation for bodyweight exercise.

I hope this article has opened you eyes to the fantastic possibilities of bodyweight training. If you need to strenghten, tone your muscles and burn fat, begin altering your physique right away with your own bodyweight. Make a consistent effort every day and you'll meet your goals.