Simple secrets that can help you regain your health

Many of us feel as though we don’t have time to exercise or can’t afford to eat right.  But the truth is we can’t afford NOT to!  When we are in good health our brains work better.  We can think faster, have better insights, pay closer attention, notice more things, and remember better.  All of this will help us get much more accomplished in our lives.

Sometimes our lives get unbalanced and we spend too much time working and stressing while trying to find comfort in the wrong kind of food and too much inactivity.  This can take a serious toll on our health and can spiral into a vicious cycle (less accomplished, longer hours, more food, more fatigue).  Most health problems don’t occur overnight but take many years to develop. Fortunately, our bodies are very resilient and well-designed.  Good changes in our diet, exercise, and life-style can often turn around the consequences of years of bad health habits in just a matter of months!

Many of us don’t realize that diet, exercise, and lifestyle are truly some of the most powerful things we can do for our health.  You see, changing our health habits can often change the CAUSES of our symptoms while drugs usually just treat the SYMPTOMS.  Diet and exercise can often correct high blood pressure, diabetes, and many other problems more effectively than drugs can. Too often physicians treat the consequences of poor habits with drugs rather than teaching their patients how to change their habits.

Bad health habits can lead to heart attacks, strokes, bone and joint problems.  None of these will help you get more done in a day.  You will accomplish more by taking the small amount of time it takes to help your body.

It’s a brand new year.  This is a great time to make some changes.  Try some of these recommendations for just one month and see for yourself whether you get more out of life.

Let’s start with diet.

• Eat
  • lots of vegetables and fruits (frozen are convenient)
  • rice (rice cooker) and potatoes – instead of bread, cereal, and baked goods made from refined flour (like crackers and pizza)
  • unsaturated fats like flax oil, olive oil, and fish oil instead of saturated fats like butter, cream, ice cream
  • nuts and seeds
  • fish
  • organically grown food as much as possible (less pesticides), your grocery bill might actually go down if you’re buying more vegetables and less meat.
• Avoid
  • deep-fried foods (french fries, fried chicken)
  • sugar, soft drinks
  • red meat, dairy
• If you do eat meat, consider eating more poultry with fat removed (like chicken breasts)
• You can cook rice and lentils together in a rice cooker at the same time.  Rice and beans are a major part of the diets of many people around the world that are not as rich or as sick as the people of the U.S.
• Yes, it’s perfectly fine to have a spinach salad for breakfast with thawed blueberries on top sprinkled with raw oatmeal flakes and sprinkled with flax or olive oil.  It might not sound very good, but you might be amazed that these foods taste better than the milk and cereal or eggs you’re used to eating…and you might be amazed by how quickly you start feeling better
• You can find recipes on foodnetwork.com
• We are so rich in the U.S. that we can afford to poison ourselves with expensive food
• Changing your diet might turn your atherosclerosis and puffiness around significantly in just 6 months!
• You might lose weight!

Now for some exercise.

• Exercise around one hour a day, 4 days a week
• Spend about 1/3 of your exercise hour in resistance training (push ups, weights, curls, bench press, squats, lunges)
• Spend about 2/3 of your exercise hour in aerobic exercise (jogging, cycling, spinning, swimming)
• Even if you can’t do a whole hour, do what you can.  Anything is better than nothing.
• Don’t overdo it at first, build into your exercise habit gradually.
• Do your exercise in the morning when you wake up, if you can.
• Drink a glass of water before you start, but just water (no juice or milk).  Having no calories in your system will help your body burn glycogen and signal it to make beneficial compounds.
• Do your resistance training first, then your aerobic.
• With your aerobic exercise, do interval training.  Alternate strenuous activity with periods of rest.  For example, start your strenuous activity gradually and keep building up going faster and faster until you’re going as fast as you can and can’t go any farther, then rest.  You can rest for 3 times longer than you exerted yourself.  If you strain yourself for 1 minute, you can rest 3.  If you strain yourself for 2 minutes, you can rest 6.  Keep doing this until you have made it through 5 or 6 sets of intervals.

These are some great tips that can help you get started (there are many more, such as growing sprouts and juicing).  After a few weeks you’ll probably start to realize that you can actually save time and money by taking the time to exercise and eat right (getting more done and spending less money on groceries, doctors, and drugs).  Happy New Year!