Flexing Physical and Mental Muscles

If you have never exercised earlier and are a beginner to aerobics, your fitness diary may read:

Monday: Jogged for 10 minutes. Whew!

Tuesday: Body aches all over, Didn't jog today.

Wednesday: Still stiff. No jogging.

And so on.

Let us help you to flex your mental muscles on this physical condition. These minor aches and stiffness may persist for a few days. They are not to be moaned over, but to be celebrated. They are the heralders of good news trumpeted by your body.

They are telling you that your muscle groups, dormant all these years and rusty' due to disuse, are moving, are expanding contracting, 'are coming alive.

If you listen to your body, you will know that it is not telling you to stop exercising. Rather, it is urging you on to continue so that those formerly unused muscles can adapt, become more pliable. So that you stimulate the release of the synovial fluid - the body's lubricant which when drawn out, flows into your joints making them more flexible, more supple.

Your body is excited and asking you to go on so that it can regain the natural grace you were born with, It wants to become more flexible, more supple, so that your movements become brisk, more graceful. It wants you to rid it off any excess fat that may be depriving it of its natural birthright.

Your body's message comes loud and clear - exercise even if you are sore. So, what should you do? Swallow a painkiller? Rub balm on the sore points? No, if you do, your aches will be numbed or temporarily disappear. And in that span if you exercise too ,vigorously, you could injure your muscles since you cannot judge how sore they are.

Use those aches to measure how gingerly or slowly you should proceed. In fact, whether you have muscle soreness or not, start slowly, For example, if you choose walking as your aerobic activity, don't step out over-briskly.

For the first few minutes, walk at your normal pace. This stimulates blood to flow slowly into the muscles and warm them up until they are ready for a little more intensity. Then, increase your speed, if you are sore, proceed slowly. Your pulse rate may not reach its aerobic target zone on that day. It doesn't matter. Regard these first few days purely as conditioners.

If you experience a dull ache in the lower back, it could be due to poor posture. Improve your posture by following the tips in the next chapter ­How to flatten your stomach. The ache will disappear after a few days.

If any of your joints; are sore - your knees, your ankles, your hip joints, ­treat them tenderly. Walk slowly, never jog on a sore joint. These aches will disappear too as more synovial fluid is released and your muscles get conditioned.

But, don't let a little ache or stiffness stop you. You can rub balm at night before going to bed.

You may think that once you've finished your walk or jog you can fling yourself on the nearest bench and relax. Don't. Your muscles need cooling down as much as they need to warm-up. While you were walking briskly, your muscles were demanding more oxygen and receiving it. They were pumping blood vigorously, But they do not halt with your sudden halt. They continue to work at the same high level, If you stop abruptly the blood rushes on and could pool in your extremities.

This could make you feel light-headed or faint. To avoid this discomfort, lessen your pace, stroll around for a few minutes. This gives your muscles time to adjust to the slower pace and cool down. Now, you can sink into that seat.

People who experience light-headedness attribute it to ''weakness due to over-exertion." And to avoid this "weakness", they walk slower, or not at all the next day. It's not weakness they are experiencing, but a faintness brought about by over-warmed muscles still working at a swift pace. A cool-down as we have suggested leaves you fresh, not fatigued after your workout.

Though we have taken walking as an examples, the slow-start and slow­ finish principle should be followed for all aerobic workouts.

Fitness - Hungry For What

Hunger pangs are difficult to resist, You have changed your lifestyle, you are into the new reality, you know you have undertaken the fitness journey to health. Yet, those hunger pangs, that craving, that feeling of emptiness does return occasionally. There is nothing wrong in giving in to them once in a while. Some fitness books even give you a splurge list where you can eat anything you want on a weekend and count your calories the rest of the week. We are not sure how effective this program is.

In actual fact, it is your mental dynamo going back into time and making yet another connection.

Since childhood, you have always associated hunger with food. Your howling in infancy magically made a bottle full of milk appear at your lips. Later, you were always called for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner. with a well­ meant remark like, "You must be hungry." At a picnic, you were often asked, "Hungry?

Mental dynamics play an important role in the hunger syndrome. The mind is a teeming mass of senses. A certain situation triggers off a sense and identifies it with an object. For example, you will always identify fear with a ghost, beauty with a rose, heat with fire and so on. Once the identification is made, the mind sticks to it. It narrows itself not leaving room for choices. Yet, choices are, ever present. If you have a minor cut on your finger, it will throb as long as you pay attention to it. But if at that moment, your neighbour rings your doorbell and exclaims, "There is a fire in the next building!" you will forget your pain. That is because your mind has got distracted and seized another point of interest.

Thus, sights, sounds, touch, are the media of the mind to make the abstract into concrete. Which is why most people turn away from an abstract painting saying, "I can't make sense of it." Only when there is an identification does the mind acknowledge it as real.

The mind also has the ability to be in two time zones at the same -time due to the memory-bank in the brain. You will find couples identifying a musical composition as their 'special song' since they had danced to it years ago in their courting days. In those few moments, they are twenty ­year-olds again gazing into each others eyes.

It is the all-powerful mind that decides your reflexes. Which is why you identify an abstract feeling of hunger with items like food. The mind has made the association and sticks to it grimly through the years.

Your mental dynamics can play a key role here. Suppose you could give. your mind something else to chew upon, suppose you could widen your mind's horizon, suppose you could now set a new trend in the process of identification, of association. You can do all these by asking, "Hungry for what?' The choices are limitless. Hungry for company. Hungry for work. Hungry for exercise. Bullseye! You've got something going for you there! Most often, hunger is only an abstract state. Eliminate food from your mind's concrete list. And you've got a whole new fitness philosophy working for you!

Try it. The next time you feel "hungry" tell yourself it is your body hungering for exercise. After 20 minutes of working out, your appetite will have disappeared. Practise it until it becomes a part of your mental dynamics. You will be surprised how easy it is once you make a habit of it.

There is much more to this process than banishing your appetite. Once you are able to change the process of identification, you will be flooded with an awareness of your mental powers. You will be able to guide your thinking, your reflexes into new channels. You will be freeing yourself from set old patterns that don't work for you. You will create newer vistas.

It is fascinating because the possibilities are endless. It is fulfilling because with your new realities you can be the eternal explorer - stretching your boundaries, going beyond existing limits. You will be able to set your talent in a new direction.

You will discover a whole new world. New paths. New maps. New destinations. The best part is that it will be all inside you, starting from you. And for that reason, they will work for you. In short, your mental dynamics are always at your service - they can be tuned for you. To help you grow. And, as we said at the outset, isn't that your mission?

To grow as an individual. And never having to stop?

Fitness - Your Mind And You

Your mental dynamo has assimilated several facts and whirled out two simple messages - aerobic exercising and fatless food are vital for healthy living. The sleeper in you is awakening and your - ears can now catch that soft inner voice calling out insistently -urging you to act.

Now, you know how much you should exercise to keep your body vibrantly fit.

Now, you know how to reduce fat and sugar intake to tune your body into health.

Let us presume that you are striding along the fitness path. It is possible that you have not yet begun to feel its positive effects. You could be into fitness but your mind has still not wholly adjusted to a life without butter, ghee or chocolates. You may explain it with, "I feel full but not satisfied."

In reality, your body and brain are awakening. The fresh breeze of fitness is breathing life into the long-dormant muscles, blowing away the cobwebs of lethargy. But you are not able to see these changes, you are not able to experience these transformations. Why? Your mind still has a little cloud in it, obscuring your view. It is a cloud called memory Due to its power, it is still holding on to old habits, old tastes. It is your memory that is feeding your mental dynamo, Your memory has no analytical powers. It is merely a reservoir of your experiences. And it does its duty by pouring its contents into your mental dynamo.

Now, it is up to your mental dynamo to collect, to sift, to analyse. For no more are the shining jewels of fitness buried inside you. They stand revealed. And if it rises to the occasion and informs you that you need not always drink an artificially sweetened cola that rushes through you causing as much damage as dirty, polluted water; if it informs you that you are free to drink unlimited fresh coconut water from the eternal fountain of fitness, and if you can listen to this pure, health-giving message and let it deluge your insides, you will have entered the wonderful world of health and fitness.

Your mental dynamo can make you see this world that is yours as a birthright a land of happiness, laughter, love, humour. Then you would begin to understand that it is not a complex labyrinth of do's and don'ts but a natural state that is so simple, so straight-forward that you are now astonished that you had not glimpsed it earlier.

But there is a reason why you had not seen it earlier. It starts from your childhood. When you were born, you were content to drink milk. But as you grew up, 'kindly' visitors handed you slabs of chocolate. Your larder was stocked with fried crunches. Your refrigerator showed rows of gleaming soft drink bottles. You learned to love these goodies. Your taste­ buds were weaned on them, Your memory bank stored all these experiences. And nobody told you that time that all these 'goodies' were actually not good for you.

But had those 'kindly' visitors presented you with baskets of fresh fruit, had your refrigerator contained coconut water and fresh sliced vegetables, your taste buds would have cultivated such preferences. Your memory bank would have stored such experiences. And to day you would not have had any excess fat or disease, Today, you would not be bewildered at being told not to eat fried foods or sweets.

On the exercising front - as a child it was natural that you played, ran, hopped, skipped, pedalled on your tricycle and bicycle. But as you grew up, your habits changed. You travelled by car, bus, train, airplane. Meanwhile, you - continued to eat your fattening food. Due to your lifestyle - unnatural though it was - your mental dynamo too whirled in this orbit. And you accepted everything as part of life - the overeating, the non ­exercising, the consequent illnesses. But it is never too late to unlearn the old and learn the new.

However, before we go on, let us be practical, Let us see things in perspective. We are all citizens of today's world. We are going to use all the modern conveniences. We don't intend going back to the Stone Age or even the Bullock Cart Age. Our social infrastructure, our lives are such that they don't really encourage the natural lifestyle that our ancestors had. Yet, in these changed circumstances, we want to be healthy, to be fit. We want to savor all the joys of modern civilisation. So, what should we do?

All action begins with thought. As we said earlier, open your mind. Only this way, will you see the glorious possibilities that a healthy life holds out for you. Feed your mental dynamo with new information, new thought ­processes, new tastes. Let those old memories remain in your-subconscious - tingling pleasantly. You've had more than your share of sweets of ghee, and laziness. Now you are ready for a higher plane.

There is limitless energy within you, limitless vitality that needs to be tapped. And mental dynamics, dear friend, is your path to health and happiness, to reduce your obsession with food and trigger off a vast appetite for life.

Ladder of Fitness

Of course, your ideal weight depends on your individual build. If you refer to it ,you have an approximate idea of what you should aim for.

The four rungs to fitness

The + 5 kg rung: If you are overweight by 5 kg or more, you are within finger-touching distance of the fitness rung. Obviously, your food intake is not excessive. All you need to do is exercise. Use those legs to burn away the excess fat and grasp the top rung.

The +6-12 kg rung: If you are overweight by 6 to 12 kg, work out more, eat less fat. Modify your 'mighty' meals. You could cut off red meat and chomp on lean, mean cuts. Simultaneously, get your legs going. It figures that with less fat entering your body, your muscles will work at fueling the remaining fat for energy. So, switch on the fat-burners and watch them cleave into the fat zones!

The +13-23 kg rung: If you are 13 to 23 kg overweight cut out all red meats, fries and sweets. Do not splurge on weekends. And whip up your leg muscles into fat-burning activity, These vital immediate steps will help you climb up to the higher + 6-12 kg rung... +5 kg rung and finally... victory!

The + 24 kg or more rung: If you are overweight by 24 kg or more, it would be wise to consult your doctor. No, do not panic. The good doctor is sure to prescribe a daily brisk walk and a fatless, sugar-free diet. Follow his prescribed path - you can't go wrong. Start walking. Or swimming. Or stationary cycling. Score your required run-rate per week.

Do not got caught in that vicious spiral- where you want to exercise but do not feel energetic enough to start. Where you find it easier to overeat and add on more kg. that saps you even more. This way you will feel utterly hopeless both physically and mentally. And hate yourself. Harsh self­condemnation is itself like an overdose of fatty food - pretty near impossible to digest which is why it takes up all your mental energy and leaves none for positive physical action.

Take a vital decision right away - decide to be your own best friend, give yourself a daily dose of unconditional love. Gift yourself with a swim or a walk -every day. Don't stop after the first or second day. Don't deprive yourself of that gift - it is yours for a lifetime.

You see, your body houses the brain and its five senses - its raw data that can be easily triggered into positive channels. You channelise it by moving your legs. Don't expect immediate results but be content to know that those miraculous changes are materialising in your body. Initially, your muscles will strengthen themselves, then they will start their work- burning the fat.

It is important you don't give up at this point. Forget your weighing scales. Give your muscles time. And, one day, that great feeling will strike you. You may not have reached anywhere close to your 'ideal' weight, but your kick-hormone and happy- feetings hormone would have begun rising inside you. You won't feel their positive effects if you are mentally tuned into your old negative feelings. Negative thoughts block positive ones. Stop thinking about yourself. Then, it can happen any time while "bathing, walking, watching TV, listening to music. reading, anything... Suddenly, you will feel tranquil. A sense of peace win descend upon you. You will be literally able to feel your inner self, your inner mind smiling. It is those hormones at work. Hold on to that tranquility - its your body telling you that the fitness path has opened and you are walking on it.

These are not exaggerations to coax you into exercising. We have been on that path ourselves. And those calm feelings have suddenly swept through us at the most unexpected of times. Share them with your spouse, sibling or friend. They are an important part of you. They are you. For Nature meant you to be fit and tranquil. And to think, that all these great, indescribably delightful feelings begin with your legs! In fact, you will reach a point where you won't feel your day is complete without your walk. Your brain is now used to living on that, 'high', it will silently propel you to seek out that level. Yes, fitness is addictive, but the best addiction to be afflicted by! You can be sure of one thing.

The reward of fitness is yours'. You've got a lifetime to get fit. All you require is persistence. Don't pause to think. Get out of yourself. Just keep on at it and your patience will be rewarded, For as you gradually climb up the fitness ladder and progress from one rung to the next, you will discover the magic in you of being fit and forever free.