Blog

How Physical Exercise Helps Us to Stick to a Healthy Diet

• You simply cannot exercise away a poor diet and expect to lose weight (if that is your goal). Humans are very good at conserving energy and will account for any calories burned through exercise by consuming more calories later in the day or by being less physically active throughout the rest of the day.
• That being said, you can — and should — use exercise to help you lose weight and maintain your weight loss. But remember that you cannot out-run a bad diet.
• If you are looking to lose weight, the only way to do it is by controlling your calorie intake. The best and most effective way of doing that is limiting the consumption of ultra-processed foods — typical “junk foods” and packaged foods. Even if you are not trying to lose weight, reducing ultra-processed food consumption is good for mental and physical health.
• Regular exercise makes it easier to do this by improving the brain and cognitive processes that help us regulate junk food consumption, and by reducing stress. And the best part is, as little as 20 minutes of brisk walking is all you need to get the beneficial effects.
• When people are stressed, the body releases a hormone called cortisol, which activates what is known as the fight-or-flight response. When cortisol levels are high, the brain thinks it needs more fuel, resulting in increased cravings for sugary or salty ultra-processed foods.
• Ultra-processed junk foods have been designed to be as tasty and rewarding as possible. When we are exposed to media advertisements, or actual food items (for example, chocolate bars in the checkout lane at grocery stores), brain activity in regions associated with reward processing increases. This reward-related brain activity results in increased food cravings and the drive to eat, even when we are not hungry.
• Research has shown that stress can result in decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex (rational, logical and decision making part of the brain) and increased activity in reward regions of the brain when looking at pictures of food. This makes it harder to resist the temptation of appealing junk foods.
• Exercise decreases stress and resets our logical part of the brain. Twenty minutes of brisk walking can help the prefrontal cortex recover from negative impact of stress and enables better decision making.
• Next time you are feeling stressed, try going for a brisk 20-minute walk. It could prevent you from stress-eating.
• At the end of the day, the best exercise is one you enjoy and can sustain over time.
• The key takeaway here is that regular exercise can reduce how much people want junk foods and improve their ability to resist the temptation of these appealing foods by improving brain function and cognition. This makes it easier to limit the consumption of these foods to achieve healthier eating and weight loss goals.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Reference:

https://scroll.in/field/1014443/fitness-watch-the-best-exercise-is-one-you-enjoy-and-can-sustain-over-time?fbclid=IwAR1572-2J1iy1IpNZ4CHPFOZzAftqCFoTgu85zVNYaOtq7iRcMSiJlYGxJA

Vitamin D – Serum levels for optimum functioning

  • When we don’t get enough vitamin D, it impacts every area of our biology, because it affects the way our cells and genes function.
  • Your body makes vitamin D when it’s exposed to sunlight. In fact, 80 to 100 percent of the vitamin D we need comes from the sun. The sun exposure that makes our skin a bit red (called 1 minimum erythemal dose) produces the equivalent of 10,000 to 25,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D in our bodies.
  • The problem is that most of us aren’t exposed to enough sunlight.
  • Plus, aging skin produces less vitamin D—the average 70 year-old person creates only 25 percent of the vitamin D that a 20 year-old does. Skin colour makes a difference, too. People with dark skin also produce less vitamin D.
  • With all these causes of vitamin D deficiency, and how hard it is to get from diet alone, supplementing is so important. The right amount differs from person to person. From my own clinical experience and taking into account the latest research on vitamin D.
  • The optimal range falls between 40-70 ng/mL.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Have High Integrity

  • We need to have high integrity. We must stick to our word once we say it. Leading by example is very important when we want to create trustworthy relationships, reliability, credibility and positive impact on others. Walk the talk. Make it possible. Be resourceful rather than searching for resources.
  • Integrity is standing by our word and decisions. Do not break the promises you made to yourself. By doing so you are not only letting yourself down, you are letting your family down. When you break your word, you diminish the power of your word and you devalue yourself.
  • When you do right, you feel right. When you feel right, you think clearly. When you do wrong, you feel wrong, and when you feel wrong, you don’t feel good about yourself and your thoughts are born out of guilt. And once you have these negative feelings of shame, anxiety, and/or fear, your environment becomes a fertile ground for an unethical lifestyle, which will produce more of the same.
  • It is the small private failures during seemingly insignificant opportunities that lead to the surprising destruction of most people. Likewise, it is the small private victories that ultimately add up to their greatness.
  • Make smaller resolutions. Start with small steps and as you see small successes, you will gain confidence. Confidence gives us courage to set higher standards and achieve them.
  • Do not let yourself of the hook by saying all disempowering things like I lack something, I do not have the power, I do not deserve, I do not have the support, I am not in the right place, I am unlucky, I do have what it takes, I am in wrong place and so on.
  • Be grateful to the gifts you have in your life. We get better things in life when we show appreciation for the things we possess right now.
  • Be kind to others and complement them whenever there is a chance. Just by acknowledging someone for their contributions and services however small they are, will satisfy their intrinsic desire to be recognised and praised.
  • Hold yourself accountable for everything that happens in your life.
  • Don’t put down others and bad mouth others in their absence. Stop gossiping.
  • Stop choosing short cuts and backdoors to reach your goals.
  • The road to self-development and progress in life is paved with sacrifices, compromises, struggles, failures. This makes you the result so much sweeter once you accomplish it.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Take Action Now

  • You are much more likely to act your way into healthy thinking than to think your way into healthy acting. —Roger Seip
  • If we want to know what we value in life, then let’s go and evaluate how we spend money and places we visit. We need to do an assessment on how we spend our time daily.  
  • Taking action is the final nail in the coffin. Without action nothing happens. You move. You act. You create motion. You cause change. You win.
  • The Three Faces of Inaction.
    • Fear: “I’m scared to do it.”
    • Entitlement: “I shouldn’t have to do it.”
    • Perfectionism: “I won’t try to do it if I can’t do it right.” .
  • Why do so many of us succumb to fear? Because it’s more convenient and more comfortable for us to let our dreams disappear than to muster up the discipline and the work ethic to go out and transform them into reality.
  • It’s okay to be scared—do it scared. It’s okay to be unsure—do it unsure. It’s okay to be uncomfortable—do it uncomfortable. Just get started where you are.
  • Many of us are frustrated because somehow we believe that we are entitled to a life that is supposed to be easier. We want someone else to work the long hours for us, someone else to solve our problems, someone else to teach us, someone else to get us out of debt, someone else to pay for our retirement, someone else to take care of our kids, someone else to make us feel good about ourselves, someone else to give us what we want. These beliefs are so ingrained and ubiquitous that we don’t even notice them anymore.
  • Ease, comfort, and true satisfaction come through action. They come through working harder than you ever have before. They come from making more sacrifices, getting more done, being more focused, being more frugal, being more prudent, and being more committed.
  • Instead of working, we wait. We wait for the perfect plan, the perfect time, and the perfect resources. The problem is, the perfect circumstances never show up.
  • What was once a harmless decision of opting for safety soon becomes a limiting, even debilitating lifestyle of inaction.
  • The challenges we face today are not a matter of skill, but a matter of will.
  • Our problem isn’t time management; it is self-management. And we’re not losing to poor circumstances as much as we’re losing to a lack of self-discipline.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Have Faith

  • Faith is having the belief that there is going to be better future and hoping for things to improve even though everything seems to have fallen apart now.
  • Having faith and hope enables us to take better decisions. Our decisions would be instinctive, short sighted and would be focused on instant gratification when we are not optimistic of our future. When we have faith that things are going to be fine in future, we would be willing to make short term sacrifices for long term gains.
  • Without faith and hope, we cannot muster the will to make the hard choices and tough decisions. Why would we eat healthy food if we do not believe that it is going to have a positive impact on our health in long run? Why would we do exercise and train hard if we do not believe that it is going to help us stay fit and strong in future? Why would we struggle for our passion and our vision if we do not believe that they would give us a bright future? Why would we save money now if we do not believe that it is going to give us security when we age?
  • Sometimes our ability to stay committed, stay focussed on the process of growth and self-improvement, having integrity, willingness to sacrifice the instant gratifications is dependent on the amount of faith we have on our long term future.
  • People who lack faith on better future give a lot of importance to this moment, be comfortable right now, need things in life immediately, want quick results, seek instant gratifications, look out for convenient options. If something goes wrong, they give up on what they are pursuing and move on to something else.
  • By consistently doing the things most people aren’t willing to do—things will absolutely work out to be successful in your favour in long run.  We need to do certain things in life that others are not willing to do now so that we can have things that others can’t have in future.
  • Faith is not just sitting around waiting for God to make things happen. Instead, we need to do our part first, commit ourselves, put in hard work, make sacrifices. When we take action to prioritize and finish the most important tasks first thing in the morning, we are demonstrating a faith that those things really are the most important and they will contribute to the kind of success we want to have. Overall, we need to have faith that our work has a calling.
  • God put us here for a reason, and while pursuing our purpose we might make money. But more importantly during the journey we could inspire and support others through our words and deeds. Inspire and be inspired.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Focus on Process

  • We need to focus on the process and journey while we are pursuing our ambitions. Progress is more important and achieving perfection. Making progress, growing and learning on the way to success are key factors that keeps us motivated. There is no perfect result or results may differ from what we imagined at the beginning. The better person we become during the course of time gives us more satisfaction than the final destination itself.
  • When we start a venture, assuming that all external factors support your dream is a sure path to disappointment. Sometimes it might take a lot more effort and lot more time than we estimated. Our natural instinct is to stop trying and say self-deprecating things to ourselves. This is where discipline and planning helps to keep us balanced.
  • Our self-worth and self-esteem must be attached to the progress, growth, habits and strength we build during the process rather than the goal itself. This mindset will keep us open to more possibilities and continue to achieve more after we reach our goals.
  • We see a frustration or a problem in a particular day as a huge deal. We find it so annoying right now. But in the vast expanse of our life, when we look back at those kind of issues that occurred few months or years back, they seem to lose significance. In retrospect we also find them to be trivial and now we might even feel that we unnecessarily wasted our effort and time fretting about them. Based on this logic, if we need to have the right attitude when an unexpected event happens in future, then we need to have faith that this does not matter after a few days or months. Based on this we need to take a balanced approach in dealing with uncontrollable situations and must not lose our mind.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Emotions and Subconscious Brain

  • Our subconscious mind (we can also call it as emotional brain) chooses easy over hard, pleasure over pain, inaction over action, energy saving over expenditure. These are human evolutionary traits. This does not mean there is something wrong with us. Stop feeling guilty about it and stop saying to yourself that you lack self-control. Instead stay conscious of our evolutionary instincts and do what you are supposed to do.
  • Our subconscious brain looks out for our safety and survival. Evolutionarily this is how our primitive brain is supposed to work. It is evolved to keep us safe and save energy for critical requirements in future. We survived as a human species because our brain’s most important task is to keep us alive no matter what.
  • It keeps looking out for all the problems externally to complain, put blame and gives a soft treatment to our ego. Basically if you give a lot of heed to your sub conscious chatter, you might most probably fall into your repetitive patterns of self-limiting beliefs and stay where you are.
  • Just do a self-assessment on how many times you had fallen prey to your mind chatter. How many times you did you do something that you did not want to do, how many times did you say something that you regretted later etc. This is all because we unknowingly listened to our primitive emotional brain instead of listening to logical prefrontal brain.
  • Our primitive emotional brain wants to stay in familiar places and situations. It would not allow us to enter some unknown experience even though it is beneficial for us. It would force you to stay where you are because it is a known territory to you even though it is average and mediocre. Just because it is familiar, we would prefer to stay in pain even though we know what to do to get out of the suffering. We prefer to stay in known hells instead of venturing into unknown heavens.
  • Our emotional brain always wants to seek pleasure, choose easy, avoid pain, be comfortable and save energy. But our rational and logical brain is critical and analytical. It questions our instinct of choosing instant pleasures over long term satisfaction. Our logical brain tells us what is the right thing to do. Unless we are conscious of this tug of war in this two regions of our brain, we make decisions based on our emotions and impulses. People who stick to their resolutions give more meaning to the rational and logical part of their brain and try to make a compromise with the emotional part of the brain.
  • Should I go out and exercise or hit the snooze button, should I spend some quality time with family or binge watch on videos, should I have one more beer or call it a quits, should I binge eat on desserts because it is buffet or enjoy moderately, should I buy something because there is discount or save the money for later, should I give everything after taking a decision or look for an excuse to give up. We have to constantly be managing ourselves to take action against a dynamic enemy that is perpetually working against us. It is our limiting self-talk, self-defeating patterns and habit of constantly delaying the things that gets us into trouble.
  • If we make an easy and comfortable choice now, we might most probably have a difficult time later in life. If we make tough yet right choices now, we would have the liberty to have the life we wanted later.
  • The health issues we delay and ignore now would become exponentially severe later. The hard work we are putting in now, the difficult things that we are doing now will make us happier and give us more freedom later.
  • In the absence of conscious supervision and critical thinking, our mind takes us on a wild ride. Majority of the times our mind acts against our good intents.
  • We attract and become what we think and what we say to ourselves. It is the power of subconscious mind. The reticular activating system in our brain becomes sensitive towards the opportunities around us when we have a tunnel vision.
  • Our beliefs influence our thoughts, our thoughts define our feelings and emotions, our emotions define our behaviour, our behaviour impacts our actions and our actions impact the results we get.
  • Is it hard to make some choices against our subconscious emotional brain – For sure YES.
  • Is it worth to make compromise with our emotions and fight for our resolutions – For sure YES.

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Procrastinating and Delaying

  • Procrastinating (Postponing) and sitting on a decision whether to do it or not, drains more emotional energy then actually taking action. Hitting our face with cold water and going to gym is much more easier on us then to just laying on bed half-sleep hitting the snooze button again and again. When we are sure of some decision that is good for us in short and in long run, it is better to jump in into it and figure out to work with challenges that show up in the journey.
  • We must not wait for a perfect day and an ideal moment to take action on something that is good for us, because that perfect day and moment is our imagination . Everyday has its own set of challenges, we have to go through our daily tasks and responsibilities, there is always something that is stressful to deal with, there is always an unexpected situation that needs our urgent attention. Hence it is finally on us to commit to things that are in our best interests and do them in spite of all the life challenges.
  • We  must always plan, prepare, make some sacrifices and take action to keep the promises we made to ourselves. For example If you are a person who says that you would go to exercise only if everything around you is perfect (like weather, mood, physical condition, job stress, people living with you etc,.) then you will focus more on giving excuses and eventually give up by giving all kinds of excuses and self-defeating reasons.
  • If our intentions are average and our future expectations out of our life are mediocre, we would most probably have an average life. Having low expectations out of ourselves would result in a life where you can give lesser and get lesser, you impact lesser, have lesser control over your life, love lesser and get loved back lesser, have lesser significance and value in life.
  • Sometimes many people need a crisis or a big disaster in life to transform their lives. Someone said that a man can resolve to change only when the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing itself.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Commitment

  • Commitment and persistence are needed to experience true benefits of a meaningful change in our life. And the fact is, it takes time for results to show up and it takes time to gain momentum. It takes time for our mindset to take shape and align to our new way of lifestyle.
  • Most probably any new task or activity we do to improve our well-being requires extra effort, time, it feels uncomfortable initially, may be difficult. And the fact is that it is meant to be that way. If we do not experience any stress while we are moving out of our comfort zone, it may mean that we are actually not doing anything that is testing our potential.
  • Commitment is difficult and scary to many because commitment means ‘No matter What’, there is no turning back, commitment is unconditional, commitment means ‘No excuses’. Once we are committed to something ‘Only results matter and reasons does not matter’ and it also means ‘No more excuses are accepted’.
  • When we make a resolution, the most important question we need to ask is ‘Are we committed?’. If you are unsure, that means you are already aware of the challenges on the way and you lack the confidence to take a stand that you are going to stick to the plan no matter what happens. Hence, you are still in the mindset of ‘Searching for reasons and excuses’ to give up on the decision at any giving point of time. Sticking to our decision should not be dependent on the internal and external circumstances we are in.
  • We need grit to stand alone and go against the common thinking of the society. If you want to be an exception in anything in life, then it requires a passion to persevere through all ups and downs. It takes everything in us to excel in any area of life. As some one said, the most difficult thing to do in life is to go against the common thinking of your close ones and your community. We all experience resistance mainly from our loved ones when we are take some hard and tough decisions in life.
  • Sticking to our decision should not be dependent on the internal and external circumstances we are in. When we make a commitment, it is inevitable that certain events in life would make us question ‘Should I’ continue or not. In those times, we need to question ‘How do I make it through’ because commitment is a matter of choice and not a matter of external situation. When we make a commitment, we need to comply to it ‘No matter what’. We need to empower ourselves and motivate by asking ‘How can I’ kind of questions.
  • Unexpected life events have more power than we assume. Life keeps throwing curve balls at us at various stages of life as we progress. But commitment must not be dependent on the uncertainties of life. You cannot create conditions around commitments. If our commitments are dependent on ongoing circumstances in life, we complain, blame others, create lame reasons and valid excuses to quit.
  • When our negative emotions are running high, it is easy to give up, to quit, to not show up, to complain, to blame others and external factors, to give excuses for breaking the promises. Be mindful of this natural human instinct and find a way to stand by your decision with a strong will.
  • Once we commit, we need not to keep pushing ourselves even if it harming our overall well-being. Of course there is a saturation point where one might have to give up and move on. But before that can you say whole heartedly that you have given everything to make it possible.
  • We can only commit ourselves, endure the trials and tribulations, overcome the hurdles only when we can associate our intent with a clear purpose in future. If we do not attach a clear meaning to why we are doing what we are doing now, anything and everything can distract us. Having a mission with a vision is important to stay on track and get back on track if we get lost for a while.

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle- Struggle and Suffering

  • More we delay doing the right things in life, the higher the price we pay for it later. More delay equals more interest we pay and the payment (suffering) will be compounded (like the compound interest we receive for our bank fixed deposits). In actual life, the interest we pay will be in terms of magnitude of suffering we would experience.
  • Suffering is inevitable but we can surely reduce it by choosing to do certain right things early on. We need to choose our daily struggles and become comfortable with them to reduce the suffering later on in life.
  • We cannot hide from suffering as life itself is suffering. But the extent of suffering we might experience is controllable for sure. How we react to suffering is definitely in our hands. Being proactive and preparing ourselves for potential challenges in life helps us to deal with the uncontrollable circumstances more efficiently. Here are few examples that we could struggle for to experience lesser suffering later in life
    • Struggle now – to not fall for instant gratifications to have a sustainable happiness later.
    • Struggle now – to exercise daily to suffer less later and age gracefully.
    • Struggle now – to eat on time and sleep well to suffer less due to lifestyle diseases.
    • Struggle now – to work on passions and do the things that are meaningful to you to not to have regrets later.
    • Struggle now – to contribute and make a positive impact on others  to have a life of significance and respect later.
    • Struggle now – to take full responsibility for whatever happens in life so that you have control over your life later.
    • Struggle now – to let go of your ego and learn to forgive to get unconditional love in return.
    • Struggle now – to save money to have a secured future.
    • Struggle now – to give tough love to your kids so that they become independent, less entitled and responsible when they grow up.

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Life Does Not Give a Damn, So Prepare and Plan

  • Our overall well-being is defined by doing those simple, trivial and unnoticeable activities that we do daily. These habits are the ones that add up to help us in critical moments. The most beneficial things are simple and easy to do in life. But they are also easy to quit because they generally do not give immediate rewards.
  • There is no magic pill or book or diet or exercise or a 30 day program for a healthy and happy life. We must not be fall by those cunning marketing techniques which are designed to entice our primitive brain’s affinity towards shortcuts and convenience. Nothing works unless we work and keep working. Sometimes people fail to reach goals because they just do not want them strong enough. It is not because they could not do it, but they don’t want to do it.
  • We must pursue our resolutions with focus and a clear purpose. We must not keep entertainment and convenience as top priorities while we have a mission at hand. Of course enjoying the process is essential and remembering that it’s absolutely fine to have some lows during the course keeps us on track.
  • Living a healthy life comes with developing certain good habits now and giving up on certain habits that are not in our best interest. When you lack discipline to focus on the values of life like health, wealth, relationships and our personal passions, you will unconsciously fill the day with trivial stuff. You will fill in the gap with all the insignificant activities to justify your incapacity to do the things that matter. If we do not create unbreakable standards for ourselves, our day would be hijacked by the trivial tasks and we would be running around satisfying other’s needs instead of doing things that gives us meaning.
  • If we are unfocussed, we unconsciously spend more time on secondary activities which could be done later or delegated to others or even completely ignored. And that’s how we waste a minute then an hour and then a day without following up on our commitments.
  • We spend too much time doing secondary and unimportant things in life which results in less or no time for priorities in life like health, wellbeing, relationships, self -development, pursuing passions etc.
  • Life does not stop throwing challenges at us because we have good intentions. Every day has a different set of challenges. Try to overcome the challenges that show up unexpectedly rather than just getting paralyzed by them.
  • We need to remember that life has its own plans. People around us will have their own expectations and untimely events keep happening in our lives. Our goal must not be impacted by the external circumstances. We can never stand by your resolution if it is dependent anything that is outside of us.
  • There is never a perfect day to start anything in life because there is no such perfect day. We need to make it happen despite the distractions.
  • Having a healthy life and overall well-being, quality relationships, financial stability, to gain and keep respect in a community requires continuous attention to details. There is no end to leading a healthy lifestyle.
  • Our overall health needs daily attendance and we need to learn to fall in love with the process. It is not like we give everything for a day or week and take the benefits for ever. We need to go through the grind daily to have a harmonious life.
  • Every person on this earth will have moments in life that shakes them up and become turning points in their lives. Many people’s lives take complete negative U turn after those events and only few people seem to trudge their way back to normalcy.
  • Resolutions are not meant to be made once in an year. Any resolution that is made today must again be made tomorrow.—Albert Gray. Our decisions and commitments need constant nourishment every single day or else we go off-track in no time. Success is never owned, it is only rented—and the rent is due every day.
  • Life has ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs, sad and happy moments, life is one roller coaster ride. Preparation and planning is important to deal with unlikely circumstance. It is better to be prepared and not have an opportunity then to be unprepared and have an opportunity. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
  • One of the common reasons for us to waste time is to not have specific tasks or routine planned for any given day. Once you are prepared and have a schedule, you are more likely to spend time in doing the things that serves you best, rather than wasting time in thinking what to do next.
  • There will be certain phases in our lives where we go through traumatic experiences. Prepare for such scenarios so that you can give everything when the situation demands.
  • When you say you don’t have time for self-development and self-maintenance, just be critical and assess if you are indulging in activities that are not a priority (important) and not urgent. Remember that anything that you do to improve your quality of life is of highest priority. Because when you do activities that keeps you in a healthy physical and mental state, you would be in a position to give high performance in any area of your life.
  • If we don’t take the effort to plan or imagine how our ideal day or week must look like, then we may never have a day that we can look forward to with excitement. If we do not have an agenda for our day, then we would run according to other’s expectations and allow life to take its own course. If we do not have a program for ourselves, we would be programmed by external factors unconsciously.
  • It is inevitable to face setbacks when we venture out on achieving something. Have a recovery plan and some fallback options when you hit a roadblock. If we do not plan to handle failures, we tend to get upset and completely disregard the journey itself. Preparing in advance will help us get back on track when we are hit by uncontrollable circumstance.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Discipline

  • Discipline is doing the right thing that is in our best interests even though we don’t feel like doing it. When it comes to our health, fitness, overall wellbeing, relationships, financial security, our passion – we need to do the things that we know are in our best interests even though we do not feel like doing them.
  • It is our natural tendency to avoid pain and struggle, seek pleasure, prefer comfort and avoid any activity that consumes our energy. This is how we survived as a human species and there is no need to feel guilty about. Next time when you feel like snoozing the alarm in the morning, next you feel like eating two more of brownies, next when you want to skip a training session, next time when you prefer to binge watch Netflix over sleeping – reject our evolutionary weakness of choosing  comfort and do it anyways.
  • Discipline is choosing what we NEED to do instead of choosing what we ‘want’ to do.
  • Discipline is doing those things that others won’t do now to have things others won’t have later.
  • Discipline is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
  • Developing self-discipline is difficult initially. Once we master how to be disciplined, we have freedom to do rest of the things.
  • Discipline is trading our short term comfort for long term freedom and autonomy over our life.
  • Discipline creates freedom—the freedom to do anything.
  • Discipline is prioritizing things that are important and meaningful to us. Majority of the times we need to choose those things that give us long term satisfaction over immediate gratification.
  • Discipline is managing or delegating or even ignoring things that are not important and meaningful to us.
  • Discipline is saying NO to distractions and negativity.
  • Discipline is standing tall for our values and morals instead of following the crowd.
  • Discipline is questioning our self-limiting beliefs that are not taking us further and having the guts to embrace change to become our better self.
  • Discipline is having high integrity, staying committed to our decisions, willingness to sacrifice, ability to focus on priorities, planning and preparing, having faith during tough times, taking action regardless of circumstances.

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Amazing Data on Pain Management using Dietary Patterns and Nutritional Supplementation

Refer Dietary Patterns and Interventions to Alleviate Chronic Pain for complete information.

Abstract from above study

Pain is one of the main problems for modern society and medicine, being the most common symptom described by almost all patients. When pain becomes chronic, the life of the patients is dramatically affected, being associated with significant emotional distress and/or functional disability. A complex biopsychosocial evaluation is necessary to better understand chronic pain, where good results can be obtained through interconnected biological, psychological, and social factors. The aim of this study was to find the most relevant articles existent in the PubMed database, one of the most comprehensive databases for medical literature, comprising dietary patterns to alleviate chronic pain. Through a combined search using the keywords “chronic pain” and “diet” limited to the last 10 years we obtained 272 results containing the types of diets used for chronic pain published in the PubMed database. Besides classical and alternative methods of treatment described in literature, it was observed that different diets are also a valid solution, due to many components with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities capable to influence chronic pain and to improve the quality of life. Thirty-eight clinical studies and randomized controlled trials are analyzed, in an attempt to characterize present-day dietary patterns and interventions to alleviate chronic pain.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Why Do We Have Doubts and Misconceptions on Health Supplements

Majority of the people in India have many doubts, wrong information and confusion when to comes to taking nutritional supplements like protein powders or even other nutraceuticals like vitamin/mineral/herbal supplements. A large population is completely against usage of any dietary supplements and these false claims comes ‘unfortunately’ from a large section of medical community.

Lets just be clear about the difference between pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products.

A pharmaceutical drug is a medication or a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. A pharmaceutical company, or drug company, is a commercial business licensed to research, develop, market and/or distribute drugs, most commonly in the context of healthcare. They are well regulated and monitored by government bodies.

A nutraceutical product may be defined as a substance, which has physiological benefit or provides protection against chronic disease. Nutraceuticals may be used to improve health, delay the aging process, prevent chronic diseases, increase life expectancy, or support the structure or function of the body. Generally these are not approved by drug administration bodies for medical use or treating diseases. All health supplements like protein powders, multivitamin and mineral supplements, herbal products come under this category.

As the name suggests, dietary supplements are just an addition to our normal diet. If chosen correctly and with right guidance from an experienced professional, supplements can do wonders in preventing many lifestyle diseases, keeping us energetic and healthy, giving boost to various critical metabolic functions of our body. In fact there some medical studies where certain vitamins and minerals have been used in optimum dosages to treat certain health issues in body.

Of course nothing works the same way for all people and there is no one size fits all approach. The kind of supplements, dosage and frequency depends on a lot of parameters of a person. Taking nutrients in the form of supplement is a personal preference and also a matter of feasibility. It is not mandatory to take nutritional supplements as we all agree that our previous generations were healthier and fitter just by eating normal home cooked foods and with no special physical training programs. Having said that, considering the fast paced stressful lives we are living in and gradual reduction of food quality, there is no doubt that high quality protein/vitamin/mineral supplements could support us and enhance our state of wellbeing.

Just by leading a good lifestyle like having balanced diet, exercise, getting enough sleep, controlling stress – they themselves would keep us well conditioned. When we take the right kind of supplements specific to our individual needs along with a good lifestyle, it gives an extra edge to us. It is like adding fuel to fire.

We also need to be aware of current farming practices, food supply and storage systems, the quality of groceries we buy, the way we store our food and cook our food, the way we eat, our ability to digest the food efficiently and absorption the nutrients from food, genetics, inherent food allergies, predisposed diseases etc. All these factors could have a negative impact on the final nutrition we get from food.

Read https://fitbodytofitmind.in/why-do-we-need-nutritional-food-supplements/ for more info on this.

Taking nutritional supplements is personal because it is not only about the knowledge and information but it depends a lot on ones beliefs, genetics, socio economic background, family support, kind of job and so on.

However there are some misconceptions and misinformation out there which prevents or frightens people to explore unknown possibilities which might benefit us a lot. Let us look into few of them. Integrative or Holistic healing methodologies( usage of a  combination of natural diet, exercise, sleep, meditative/deep breathings techniques, specific nutritional supplements)  are all majorly preventative health practices. It includes Ayurvedic medicine, Unani, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Osteopathy health systems as well. All preventative healthcare systems take a holistic approach of healthy living. Majority of us do not believe in prevention and preventative practices. Even if we believe, it is difficult follow to preventative healthy lifestyle as it does not give instant results and it needs consistency. Preventative approach may require some people to take certain supplements to optimize our body systems to work efficiently. However, we were told again and again by many people especially medical professionals to not take health supplements. There are many reasons for this which we need to critically analyze and take informative decisions as per our individual needs.

Even with a perfect diet, the combination of many things – including our depleted soils, the storage and transportation of our food, genetic alterations of traditional heirloom species, and the increased stress and nutritional demands resulting from a toxic environment – make it impossible for us to get the vitamins and minerals we need solely from the foods we eat.⁣
⁣
Doctors used to think we got all our vitamins and minerals from food. But the tide is shifting. Doctors now prescribe nutrient supplements. ⁣
Emerging scientific evidence shows the importance of nutrients as essential helpers in our biochemistry and metabolism. They are the oil that greases the wheels of our metabolism. And large-scale deficiencies of nutrients in our population – including omega-3 fats, vitamin D, folate, zinc, magnesium, and iron – have been well documented in extensive government-sponsored research.⁣

Supplements are relatively new in India

High quality nutritional supplements are in early stages in India. A lot of people including medical professionals are not aware of scientifically proven efficiency of certain supplements. Many people have a misconception that dietary supplements are relevant to bodybuilding or film stars or fashion models. This is not at all true because certain common health supplements especially protein powders, multivitamins, Omega 3’s, amino acids are used by high performing athletes participating in different kinds of competitive sports including Olympics. They are completely legal and safe products to use if we make correct choices. Dietary supplements are add-ons to our natural diet to provide that extra edge to attain our specific goals.

It is a complete wrong proposition that a common man should not take dietary supplements unless a person is into bodybuilding. It is true that taking supplements is not mandatory but at the same it is completely wrong to say that one must not take nutritional supplements due to some false beliefs and notions. There is no basis for this argument and these kind of statements would come from people who are not nutritional experts or do not read the latest medical researches or who did not try out any nutritional supplement ever or who have wrong beliefs and hidden motives.

Few people might even go to an extent to say that supplements contain drugs or harmful compounds. This is coming straight out of fear of the unknown because this trend is relatively new in India. These comments could also be made by people who might have heard these false propositions from some other people who are not experts in the field of nutrition supplementation.

It has been more than 2 decades since market for protein and other nutritional supplements opened up in India. Until few years back we were having these dietary supplements only through imports majorly from a few US companies like ON, BSN, MuscleTech etc., From past 5 to 6 years there has been a proliferation of many Indian nutraceutical companies who are manufacturing supplements at a reasonable cost. Few There are a few companies that manufacture quality products which gives us results and deliver value.

Moreover, we have access to a lot of scientific studies and researches proving the efficacy and health benefits of having quality dietary supplements. Since there is low awareness among common people to this day, our regulatory authorities mandate nutraceutical companies to label the packs and bottles with warnings like ‘not to be consumed by children, lactating & pregnant women’. These kind of warnings would definitely scare many common people. But the same authorities do not control the ultra-processed foods loaded with sugar, unhealthy fats, synthetic preservatives, colors and flavoring substances which could lead to many chronic diseases and even proven to be carcinogenic to an extent. At the same time it is allowed to advertise junk foods, ice-creams, biscuits, cakes, chocolates, sugary drinks and other processed food in kids channels. Kids watching these channels can easily be lured in to buying these food products believing that they are in fact fun to have with friends and makes us energetic. The ads are too deceptive and alluring for young minds to understand that these junk foods cause more harm than good.

Our minds are being programmed with cleaver and cunning marketing

Low quality kid’s milk powders started long before the advent of whey protein supplements in Indian Market. All these milk powders and energy drink powders are manufactured by big global conglomerates who have large proliferation in Indian market from decades. These companies have all the resources to create an attractive marketing especially using Bollywood and Indian Cricket celebrities. With constant advertising using the celebrities for marketing who we look up to, these companies have programmed the subconscious brain of our people that their products are highly nutritious and healthy.

These companies spend huge amount of money and resources on selling these relatively cheaper drinks to our children and family. Yes, they are affordable because they do not contain quality ingredients. They are much cheaper compared to a whey protein powder because the quantity of high quality protein used in these powders is quite low. Majority of us are least concerned about what is written on product label and many people do not understand many of the ingredients. Most of the milk powders are full of additives such as sugar, barley or wheat powder, maltodextrin, colors, flavors, preservatives. Drinking these powders early morning and evening would not make much difference. Whereas a good quality whey protein contains a max of 3 or 4 ingredients if it is flavored and only one ingredient (i.e. protein) if it is unflavored. Just a 1/4th (quarter) scoop of whey protein can provide us with roughly 6 grams of high quality protein (equal to 1 whole egg). These companies know that most Indians probably will never read the nutrition labels. Even if they do, they won’t be able to really understand what’s written. Our brains have been bombarded with ads on TV from decades. Now our society has reached to a point of cognitive dissonance where it is very difficult to accept the fact that we have been fooled and misled from long time. Despite of the fact that a lot of awareness is being spread by some informed and concerned people against the use of such useless drinks for the families, specially the children; the elders in the family simply refuse to even accept the open lies in front of their eyes.

In the age of information, ignorance is a choice

There are many studies and medical researches which prove the amazing benefits of eating high protein foods and diet. Many people choose to stay ignorant and deny many benefits and therapeutic properties of high-protein diets in health conditions especially during the old age, for younger kids, when some is recovering from an injury, accident or a surgical procedure. In all these cases protein accelerates the recovery process because it is required to rebuild the damaged tissue. Protein is not only useful to build muscle and for stronger bones but protein is also important to manufacture hormones in our body, for many enzymatic activities, for providing essential amino acids for repair and recovery, for growth and tissue development, for optimum mental health to name a few.

Our health care system is majorly curative in its approach and hardly provides preventative care. We visit a doctor only when we are sick and we do not generally go visit a doctor seeking a prescription for how not to get sick. Many of us often get confused between professions and studies like medical science, nutritional science, exercise science and so on. Even though they are all related to human physiology and health, they are all different. Doctors, Nutritionists, clinical dieticians’, physical and fitness trainers are all separate professionals. Each profession has its own value and role to play. Unfortunately we look up to doctors for all kinds health and lifestyle related topics like exercise, diet, nutrition, meditation etc., which does not make any sense.

Doctors would have to study and research on the topics of nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle topics for them to give a valid advise on them. Nutrition science, exercise science, other health related lifestyle practices are not covered in depth in medical studies that doctors go through. That is the reason why they are different degrees, certifications and professionals for different health care practices. Unless a doctor takes their personal time to study the latest advancements and researches in the field of nutrition and health supplements, they would not be able to provide an unbiased and genuine advise. Unfortunately most of the doctors are overworked and do not have the time to spend hours of time in extra research for greater good of patients. Moreover, explaining a person about the lifestyle changes, nutrition and supplementation takes a lot of time but a doctor hardly can spend a few minutes with a patient. In this scenario many doctors can only be focused to provide immediate relief to the patient instead of spending hours of time in explaining the patient about prevention and lifestyle changes.  

We all know that a doctor gives prescription on medical drugs specific to an individual. A doctor never asks you to use the same drug when ever you have the same symptoms in future or use it for someone else having similar symptoms. Because the doctor took the decision to write the medicine based on the patient’s health problem, symptoms, test reports and other information made available to doctor at that point of time. Similarly nutrition needs, exercise programs, sleep/rest protocols, supplementation vary from person to person. A proper assessment of person’s health parameters, habits, daily routines, kind of job they do, stress levels they experience, current physical and mental health condition and whole lot of other metrics need to be assessed to order to take health supplements that work for a specific individual.

Similar to medicines, there are many scientifically proven benefits of certain vitamins, minerals, herbs in improving health, preventing diseases and also in some cases they could even treat certain type of chronic lifestyle diseases. This information is available in public domain in scientific and biomedical research journals like NIH-Pubmed, Lancet, BMJ, JAMA so on. With some effort and time, we can understand how the research is conducted and how a particular nutrient (like protein, vitamin…) has been used to improve the health condition of the test subjects. We can also get the details like supplement dosage, frequency and relevance that has been used in the respective study. Important thing here is for us to be objective and critical in assessing this huge amounts of data and decide its relevance to us. We need to be impartial and must not fall for our cognitive biases while doing research and analysis.

Bad Publicity by medical community and media

We need to understand and accept the fact that there would be few bad people who does crimes in any industry and profession. Unfortunately because of few sporadic events that happened (like catching fake supplements), many people have lost trust in the supplementation industry. Some gyms and trainers would take advantage of enthusiastic youngsters who are willing to pay for a good looking body and they may sell supplements to them that are not good for health. Some people became victim to these fake products and damaged their health. Media made a huge cry out of these incidents (rightfully so) but mislead many people in getting convinced that all kinds of health supplements are bad for health. Instead of looking at those cases as isolated incidents, many people decided not to take any risk and completely abandoned health supplements.

When it comes to media, it’s the negativity which matters, more than the truth. They are happy publicizing news on fake supplements and the side effects people are getting as a result of consuming them, rather than the benefits of original and good supplements and how millions have benefited from them. They selectively ignore the scientific facts behind the supplements and broadcast the negative news to gain more TRPs. We do not avoid taking medical drugs because as we watched few cases where fake drugs were caught in some medical shops because we know we cannot paint everything with same brush.  We need to objectively assess and take informed decisions for our own good instead just listening to unqualified people blindly.

Most of the doctors and media, instead of educating the people about the appropriate usage of these health supplements, they just add fuel to fire and discourage the patients to use supplements.

We know that health care system, pharmaceutical industry and insurance work as a nexus. It has been reported in national and global media regarding huge scams in pharma industry and how big pharma companies paid huge fines for their mistakes, we know there is a give and take between pharma and hospitals, it is an open fact that doctors receive commissions when they prescribe certain branded medicines. The entire system is thriving and making profits on curative approach of healthcare management rather than investing hugely on preventative health system. Hence, many people have their own business interests .

Healthcare people may not be willing to take time and effort to promote something where their own business may be negatively impacted. Many times it is just a fear of unknown and their own beliefs preventing them to give the right guidance. Since they do not use it or believe in it, they do not recommend it to others as well. Unless convinced and paid good incentives, most medical professionals aren’t interested in recommending certain health/dietary supplements, even if they know it’s better. Again I am not saying that everything  and everyone is bad, but this is how majority of current circumstances are.

Nutraceutical industry is still not a priority for the government to regulate it more systematically like pharmaceutical industry. If there are more stringent norms to ensure the quality and genuinely of the health supplement products, people may have a greater trust on the products.

Meanwhile we need to be self-responsible to study, research and analyze the scientific data that is available to us online and decide for ourselves which is relevant to us and which is not. We need to do research on the nutraceutical and herbal companies we are buying products from. Prevention is always better then cure. But at the same time strengthening our bodies using right supplements and approach is very important. Anything has to be taken in a right dosage and frequency for it to work optimally.  

The best person who can take care of you is YOU. So be smart and scientific in choosing correct health supplements as per your body and health requirements. Do not waste money on low quality products which has no scientific evidence. Either you have to spend some time and effort to do research and analysis by yourself or you need to reach out to a qualified expert who could help you out with your health needs. Be an informed consumer and take complete responsibility for your own health. You can take care of others only if you are doing well yourself.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Anti-Inflammatory, Pre-Biotic Foods for Improving Gut/Intestinal Health

  • The health of the community of microbes living in and on our bodies—100 trillion single-cell organisms, outnumbering human cells 10 to 1—has become a top priority.
  • With good reason: Our gut bacteria regulate many of our bodily functions, from creating vitamins to controlling our immune system, our brain function and of course, our metabolism and weight. They are critical to our long-term health.⁣
  • Meanwhile, modern living and our bad lifestyle choices have been hard on those little bugs. Junk foods and Ultra processed foods are impoverished of the things our beneficial gut bacteria require. All the chemicals from processed foods and the environmental toxins we take in only make the situation worse. ⁣
  • Our stomach and intestinal ability becomes inefficient when we eat a processed diet that’s high in sugar and starch, don’t eat enough of the right fiber and prebiotics, or take too many drugs (like antibiotics, acid blockers for reflux, anti-inflammatories, pain killers, hormones, and more). Think of your gut as an inner garden; just as with any garden—when you let the weeds take over, you get into trouble.⁣
  • It’s our job to encourage the good microbes by feeding them the things they need and avoiding the things that damage them. Not surprisingly, good bacteria love healthy whole, organic, plant-based foods, ones that are high in fiber and nutrients and contain no artificial ingredients. ⁣

Foods to focus

  • Apples
  • Avocados
  • Beans
  • Berries like Blueberries, Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Gooseberries
  • Broccoli
  • Brussel Sprouts
  • Cabbage
  • Cauliflower
  • Cucumbers
  • Figs
  • Garlic
  • Oregano
  • Ginger
  • Kale
  • Lentils
  • Nuts
  • Seeds
  • Olive oil and other unrefined cold pressed oils
  • Onions
  • Pumpkins
  • Green leafy vegetables like Spinach

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer