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.