A healthy lifestyle is an intelligent combination of exercise, nutrition, and
a positive mindset. A Complete Guide to Exercise for Beginners being healthy and fit is often a matter of our own choice.
If you are smart, you will take an elevator to reach the 10th you
are smarter, you will take the stairs. The choice is yours! Your choice of a
lifestyle mainly depends on how you perceive your body.
Exercise for Beginners
Do
you identify yourself with your body? Or, treat it as a sacred tool to achieve
something worthwhile in your life? As ancient Sanskrit poet Kalidasa wrote,
shariramadyam khalu dharmasadhanam (Our body is the tool to perform our dharma
(duty).
If you treat your body as a sacred tool, you will not abuse it. Rather,
you will train it hard and feed it on the nutrition.
On the other hand, if
you identify yourself with your body, you will tend to be comfort-loving; you
will detest hard work and indulge in immediate sensual gratification e.g.,
sitting in front of the TV for hours and binging on pizza! The choice is always
yours!
10 Mantras Always Remember
Before
you undertake an exercise program, remember these ten Mantras --
(i) The human body is a complex machine. Two individuals would not respond alike to the
same exercise or nutrition. Because of their peculiarities of genetics, age,
sex, medical history, body composition, Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)1,
emotional well-being, etc.
Therefore, you have to experiment with your body and
find the best exercise and nutrition solutions that suit you.
(ii)
Look around to find ‘real people who are healthy and fit. Study their pattern of exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle and see if something can work for you
also.
You may get many small but useful tips from them, e.g. wearing underwear
one size smaller or shoes one size larger than your regular size can make your
long runs more comfortable. Or, a banana before or during your exercise may
provide wonderful fuel throughout your exercise session.
Read more: How to choose the perfect shoes for running
(iii)
The subject of health and fitness is quite vast. Therefore, other aspects
should also be taken care of.
For example, you may never realize that chronic sleep debt or mental stress might be restraining you from reaching your peak
performance despite having an excellent exercise regimen and a balanced diet.
(iv)
Know the basics of exercise and nutrition, but be bold enough to experiment
with what you see around – without any prejudice.
Many of the top world sports
persons are vegetarian and practice Yoga, Tai chi, meditation to enhance their
performance.
Read more: Know the benefits of Yoga
(v)
Mind and body influence each other. Without the focus of mind, you cannot reach your
peak training potential. ‘My mind is everything. My muscles are pieces of
rubber’ – Paavo Nurmi (all-time great distance runner, holder of 22 world
records).
Similarly, the state of your body also affects your state of mind.
Try this next time – when you are depressed – put on your running shoes, run
slowly for 40-60 minutes and your depression would vanish!
(vi)
Give your body its proper place in your overall scheme of things. Don’t extol
your body beyond what it deserves.
A body-centric approach may lead you to
a disgusting obsession with your body and you may end up taking power performance
drugs like steroids. A healthy body with a healthy mind should be our
objective.
(vii)
Don’t expect miracles overnight. Beware of all those books, machines, and
miracle foods claiming to give you a muscular body with six-pack abs within a
week or month without any workout.
Fortunately, there is no alternative to
intelligent and hard (and harder) work (outs)! Keep patience. Take no shortcuts.
Generally, one reaches one’s peak potentiality after 40-42 weeks of persistent
and scientific training, though benefits of exercise start to appear from the first week itself.
(viii)
Be an intelligent investor. Invest more time and money for your health and
fitness. Take out daily at least half an hour for vigorous exercise. This is
the best Life Insurance Policy ever invented!
(ix)
Never compete with others. Compete against yourself. By competing against
others you may get into too much too soon trap and end up injuring yourself –
physically, mentally and emotionally!
Read: How to prevent injuries
(x)
Aim for fitness with health. You must understand that health and fitness are
two different things. Physical health can be described as the smooth functioning of
all our systems including nervous, energy, skeletal, endocrine, cardiovascular systems;
it is not merely the absence of any disease.
Mental and emotional well-being is the
other important aspect of health. Fitness, on the other hand, is one’s ability
to meet certain measurable physical standards for a particular job, e.g.,
fitness for the army, college football team, etc.
You may be an impressive bodybuilder but in the process, if you have overburdened your kidneys with
a high-protein diet, that is not fitness with health. An intelligent person will
never pursue fitness at the cost of his health.
Draw a bigger line
Once
you have realized the importance of a healthy lifestyle, the next challenge is to
keep yourself constantly on track. For this, you require a positive approach to exercise.
Sometimes exercise and nutrition are ‘prescribed’ as complementary preventive, regulatory, or curative medicine for certain diseases.
Many persons start exercise only after they are detected with some disease,
e.g., diabetes or heart disease. They take exercise as a bitter pill.
This is
not the right approach to start the exercise and like most of the New Year resolutions,
this also will not take you very far.
I laugh at the ways suggested sometimes
by health magazines and articles in newspapers for fat loss e.g., how to
control your cravings for ‘good food. Even Gastric Bypass surgery is
suggested!
Don’t
take up exercise ‘just to be fit. Adopt a healthy lifestyle as a celebration of
life. Aim BIG. For example, aim to
run a half marathon next year.
Once you start training for the half marathon,
automatically junk foods, late-night parties or late morning sleeps will fast
lose their attraction for you. Nutritious food and regular training sessions
will replace your lethargic routine. Remember, aiming big is the only way to
steer clear of small temptations in life.
It’s for everyone, everywhere
The
scope of this book has been deliberately keeping limited to free hands
exercises that can be performed anywhere.
You may like to do them with your
partner. Once you have mastered the basics of exercise, you may also like to
invest in a few sets of free weights. Buy dumbbells, bench, chin-up bar.
That’s all. Do exercise with whatever is available.
But do start. Use stairs of
hotels, do skipping in the room, do circuit training in your room. A space of
6' x 6' is big enough for exercise.
Knowledge is for action
Learn
the basics of exercise and nutrition. Learn more than the basics. And,
apply the knowledge. “Knowing is not enough; we must apply.” - Goethe. Maintain
a logbook to keep a record of your daily exercise regimen, nutrition, and monitor
your progress in fitness and well-being. Experiment with yourself. And see for
yourself what really works for you.
For example, you may observe after some time that your body requires a little
longer recovery period. Or, your body system is not comfortable with dairy
products. Finally, set your focus right.
Focus
on fitness and health, not on the shape or weight of your body. As long as you
have steady progress in health and fitness, you should not worry about your
shape or weight. Genetically very few persons have been endowed with the
potentiality of building a model’s physique. However, this should not
disappoint you.
Look
at the top sportspersons in any field of sports to realize this truth. You will
find that very few of them have a model’s physique, though all of them are
supremely fit!
If
you are constantly worried about your weight, I must tell you that ironically, The weighing machine is the most used though most useless equipment in a gym. If want to know more about weight management then click here and read it.
In Bottom Line:
I hope you enjoy this article
To summarise this article you got some important points. First, remember the 10 golden rules of exercise.
Look around to find ‘real people who are healthy and fit. Study their pattern of exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle and see if something can work for you also.
Be an intelligent investor. Invest more time and money for your health and fitness. Take out daily at least half an hour for vigorous exercise. This is the best Life Insurance Policy ever invented!
Draw a bigger line, realize the importance of a healthy lifestyle, the next challenge is to keep yourself constantly on track. For this, you require a positive approach to exercise.
And knowledge is for action. Learn the basics of exercise and nutrition. Learn more than the basics. And, apply the knowledge.
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