World Education

  How important is nutrition and fitness? I’ve written previous articles on sugar, nutrition, and fitness, so what are the benefits? A lot of people, including even those in my own family, misunderstand the concept. I’ll hear people say things such as “we’re all going to die anyhow”, or “it’s always the health nut ya hear about that collapses of a heart attack on the side of the road while jogging”. While they might be right to some degree, that’s not really the point of nutrition and exercise. In my own personal opinion, nutrition and exercise can help maximize your life expectancy, but probably not your life span. I thought about this the other day. Yes, there are plenty of people out there that have eaten crap their entire lives and lived well into their 80’s or even 90’s without so much as ever getting any more exercise than walking to the bathroom or going to the grocery store. So what’s the point then of nutrition and exercise? There are quite a few of us that are susceptable to certain things such as heart disease for example. I believe doing the right things throughout one’s life can minimize the chances of acquiring a debilitating condition, thus ensuring that one lives out their full life expectancy.

The number one benefit of course is looking fit and looking younger. Years of proper nutrition and exercise can do this. I think it can also help one to be more physically active in their later years. For example, there are people that are in their 60’s that can barely get around any longer, while there are others that are still going out running or biking at that age. The ironic thing is that the people that can barely get around sometimes can end up living longer than the person that is more active. But this typically isn’t the case and the quality of life isn’t so great anyhow if all you can do is watch TV all day long for the rest of your life.

As you noticed, I use the word “nutrition” instead of “dieting”. I do not believe in “dieting” at all. Dieting to me is another word for “deprivation”. And of course, nothing last forever. When one is deprived, they eventually will go back. So any benefits gained through deprivation will always be lost. If you lost weight because you starved yourself all day long for weeks or months, then you will eventually put weight back on once you start adding more calories. I like the term “nutrition” much better. Nutrition is about getting the body the right things at the right time. Feeding your body the proper amount of calories from the right foods at the correct ratios of nutrients and at the correct frequency will maximize your body’s ability to metabolize fat and operate at it’s optimum level. Combine exercise with this, and your body will make it’s way towards its lean weight. A person’s body is most attractive at its lean weight. Lean weight is carrying the lowest amount of body fat that your body is capable of, while carrying the most amount of muscle mass that your body is naturally capable of. This is simply referred to as being “fit”, and in my opinion people are most attractive at this level. Being extremely skinny or anorexic looking is not attractive at all. With proper nutrition you will feel much better and you will lose strong cravings for sugary foods if you keep your blood sugar up by eating at the correct frequency throughout the day. Eating at the correct frequency would be eating 5-6 mini-meals a day, rather than just 3 meals. Try this for a while and see if you crave a bowl of ice cream at any time throughout the day. While it might sound good, you won’t feel the strong addiction that you use to. You’ll then be able to pass it up because your goal of having a more attractive body will become more important to you rather than going nuts and stuffing chocolate chip cookies into your mouth.

It’s all about adopting the right lifestyle, executing it, and being persistent. A lot of us know what the right things are to do. It’s just that we never actually do them or stick to it long enough. Let’s say a person that is very overweight wants to lose 50 lbs. And let’s say they want to do it the healthy way rather than depriving themselves. Doing it the healthy way will yield about 1 or maybe even 2 lbs of fat loss per week. Well, after several weeks, which is quite a while of executing a plan, only several pounds might have been lost. So that person of course is going to feel as if they just aren’t making any progress and will give up. The fact of the matter is, as long as they are persistent and keep at it, within a year, that 50 lbs will be lost. At 1 lb a week, 52 lbs can be lost in one year. So doing the right things without depriving yourself takes time to achieve goals. And this can be applied to a lot of things. Adopting the correct habits and lifestyle isn’t always going to yield wonderful results in a week or a month. A lot of the time it takes many months, or over a year or longer. During that time, you want to look for small changes or improvements rather than large improvements. It all adds up over time. You also need to acknowledge what is good for you as well. We all come in different shapes and sizes. Not all of us can look perfect or achieve perfect things because we just don’t have the genetic framework that other’s might have. So knowing what is improvement for yourself and being aware of what to expect will help you work towards realistic goals. As for myself, I’ll never have a huge muscular body because my frame just isn’t built that way. But I can still build a good physique with what I have. And once again, this applies to everything. Someone that makes an hourly wage is never going to become an overnight millionaire working as an employee, but with persistence of investing and making wise financial decisions, they can still build a good portfolio for themselves. Their portfolio might be considered a loser one if it were Donald Trump’s, but it won’t be for someone that has lived their life in the working class. And that is something to be proud of.  Don’t ever compare yourself to someone else.  Personal development is personal development.  It’s developing yourself to be the best that you can be and not trying to be better than what someone else can be. Because there is always someone else, (even if you have never met them), around the corner that is better than you.

Categories: Fitness