DEP Book Project: Exercise/Healthy Eating Tips
God created humans with the most complex system ever, the human body! The body’s unique design allows it to self-heal and live through adverse weather conditions and extreme environments.
While He carefully chose to automate the body’s internal working, he willfully left the maintenance work to our common sense.
The rest of the article is about how we care for such fantastic bodies!
Eat
The best advice I ever received is “Eat well.” It is funny how I only learned it the hard way.
After falling for all the fad diets in my 20s, I lost much more than just my body weight. Although the lost pounds returned once I resumed eating normally; I had to work harder to build back the strength in my body.
I lost 15 lbs in 2 months, eating only salads and soups. The occasional sandwiches were my treat. I avoided carbs. I mainly ate fresh fruits, vegetables and pulses and believed it was enough for my body. I never cared to listen to it. I kept dismissing its signals.
I resisted hunger. I distracted myself to avoid eating, so I could look good. While my outward appearance looked great, my body suffered deep inside.
The worst part was no one else knew the truth but me.
I realized something was wrong when I lost my sleep to chronic knee pain. It bothered me so much every day that I reluctantly agreed to visit the doctor.
The doctor’s advice hit me harder than the pain in my knees. He asked me to avoid walking or standing for a long time and lifting any weights. I listened to him staring at his prescription for a bunch of pain killers, vitamins and minerals supplements.
His voice echoed in my ears long after he finished talking. This knee pain resulted from all the nutrients you had cut from your diet!
It was my wake-up call to eat healthy food for my body. I realised it is the only way to nourish the body and allow it to function optimally. There is no shortcut.
Our body needs a balanced diet. Cutting carbs/protein/fat or any other essential nutrients may eventually only lead to long-term health issues.
Choose a diet, you can live with for life. Because Food is Love. Food is Life -Rujuta Diwekar.
Exercise
My knees badly wanted those pain relievers at the doctor’s office, but I promised them something else.
I took a gym membership and started strength training with the help of a personal trainer. I never believed in love at first sight until I worked those weights during my training. At the end of every session, I was the one in charge, conquering my pain a bit more than yesterday.
One year later, I was in my best form, performing deadlifts, 1.5 times my body weight. The trainer calls me a natural, crediting the performance to my best asset: My Legs!
Three years later, my knees thanked me for keeping my words at the finish line of the half-marathon race when my daughter was a year old — a massive accomplishment for someone who was once susceptible to her body weight, let alone carrying a baby through the pregnancy!
Another baby later, I returned to running and trained for another half-marathon race. A few years later, I am now back to lifting weights in the gym, and I cannot thank my body enough for delivering the best! All I ever have to do is feed it nutritious food to help it recover!
I am glad I did not settle for the doctor’s prescription or the norms about women’s weightlifting or long-running. I could have never found the robust version of my body that had long yearned to outperform the thoughts in my mind!
I thank my body for going above and beyond! The bounds of confidence and positivity it brings into my daily life are priceless!
Surprising facts and the most infamous question
- In my best form of health, I was 10+ pounds heavier than my pre-pregnancy weight, even after all the hardcore training. I lost inches and gained a super-toned body with an excellent muscle mass percentage! So, the next time you dread the weighing scale, grab the measuring tape!
- I started running again after my second pregnancy and was surprised to find how easy it was to catch up and improve my mileage. Thanks to muscle memory. It works wonders! Mind you; Every workout counts!
- Being healthy looks different for everybody!! According to the BMI calculator, I am borderline overweight. But, my running and weight lifting performance have peaked at an all-time high!
Fitness is not about having a picture-perfect image. It is about feeling good, inside and out!
- My favourite part of my current lifestyle is that I don’t put on weight even when I have not worked out for more than a week or ten days. My body conveniently sticks with its current weight, allowing me to be comfortable in my skin!
- Only we know our bodies, the best! There are days I wake up feeling bloated because of sleepless nights or stressful work. And that is ok. Life happens, and judging my body is unfair because I slipped a few days!
- The only way I have found to measure my progress is by looking in the mirror and beating the damn performance of that person I see there!
- Some days, I want to rest, and sometimes, I must force-stop myself to avoid overuse injury! Rest and Recovery are as crucial as the workouts to achieve the best results!
Fitness is a lifelong commitment; I don’t believe in cheating my body to indulge in that sizzling brownie with ice cream.
- I bet I burned more calories answering the most overrated question: How much weight did you lose?! For starters, weight loss was never my goal. So, please ask me what I gained instead!
- Body weight says nothing about our underlying health condition. I have friends who look slim with high cholesterol levels and people who are on a diet with hormonal disorders. Next time you want to go on a crazy diet to lose weight, ask yourself: Is it worth your body?
- The game-changer of my fitness journey has been my beautiful body! Falling in love with it and accepting it has been the best decision ever.
Health is not just being disease-free. Health is when every cell in your body is bouncing with joy -Sadhguru.
© Tamil, 2022
Thank you to the amazing Dancing Elephant Press Editors Lady Dr. Gabriella Korosi, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, and Sharing Randomly for everything you do!
My submissions on the previous prompts for the DEP Book project
Positivity:
Health and Wellness:
Mindfulness:
mymagicbytes.com 