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Need To Lose Weight? Take The 21 Day Challenge To A Healthier And Fitter You. George Burns, the famous American entertainer, lived to be 100 years old and right up to the end of life he was active and alert - he also smoked 18 cigars a day! When he was asked what his doctors said about that he replied "They say nothing. They're all dead!" We all know of people like George. Great Aunt Ethel who smoked like a trooper, drank like a fish, never did any exercise, and lived until she was 110. It does happen - some people are born with such a strong genetic profile that, no matter what they do to themselves, they seem to go on for ever in relative health. People with this extraordinary constitutional strength are very much in the minority! For most of us the genetics we inherited mean that we have to be more careful with the choices we make about our health. Much like a car, our body is built for performance. It is always trying to work at its optimal best. Proper maintenance, fuel, and care are needed. It has always struck me that people who spend time, energy, and money looking after their car so often ignore the exact same needs for their body! We are facing an epidemic of obesity and other diet related illnesses. Our lives are increasingly becoming more sedentary and our food sources more questionable. The size of the portions on our plates has grown massively, and that is before we even consider the constant grazing that goes on throughout the day. Put simply, we are not taking sufficient care of what we are putting in our bodies! There's an old computer programmer phrase "GIGO" - Garbage In, Garbage Out. It would be madness to expect our car to run well on poor quality fuel and lack of maintenance, yet we wonder why we are tired, lethargic, overweight, and suffering from general poor health! Unless you have been living at the bottom of the sea for the last 100 years or so you will of course know that a sound diet and regular exercise are crucial to our health. But which diet and what exercise programme? Sometimes the sheer volume of information available in the public domain can numb us into inactivity! This information can often appear contradictory as various "experts" tell us that first one thing then another is good/bad for our health! The cynic in me believes that this state of confusion is created deliberately - it lubricates the market economy! Confused people are always looking for something to restore balance and take away their sense of bewilderment. So they jump from one product to another, each acting as a salve for a short period of time before the confusion drifts back and another solution is sought! How many times have you heard someone say that they have tried just about every diet going? This is of course great news for the people marketing the next "fad" diet programme! Sometimes just settling on a few basic principles can remove our confusion and reap massive results. About 95% of the population would benefit from simply moving more and eating less (the other 5% are made up of people with specific dietary or health needs). The diet and choices that we currently make are largely the result of habit and we know that habits can be tough to break! However, habits are learned behaviour and what we have learned we can unlearn. The magic figure for establishing a new habit over the top of an old one seems to be 21. If we can repeat something 21 times then the neural pathways in the brain for this new behaviour are starting to become motorways! It will take 21 days to develop a new, more empowering, habit of exercise and diet to replace your old approach. It may not be an easy 21 days - the temptation to slip back will be great - but it can be done. The benefits of a healthy well balanced diet and regular exercise are endless and should provide enough motivation to keep you at it. We really do need to look after our bodies by committing to a better diet and more exercise for overall better health. Our constitutional base line may be fixed, an accident of birth if you like, but we can all take personal responsibility for making these better choices! A healthy diet and life style will provide you with all of the energy, stamina, and endurance you need to easily meet the challenges of everyday life. So if you are trying to stay in shape, get in shape, or maintain good shape remember to handle your body like you handle the care of your car: Choose the right fuel to keep your engine running for a long time. Keep it well maintained with regular exercise. Don't shortchange yourself or your life by fueling your body with damaging food sources and other activities that will diminish your chances for a long, healthy, and happy life.
Article Source: http://www.bharatbhasha.net Article Url: http://www.bharatbhasha.net/health.php/132076 Article Added on Monday, May 4, 2009
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