Healthy Body – Happy Life – A Well Balanced Diet, Exercise and Meditation Sharpens the Mind and Improves the Quality of Life

Process in Attaining a Healthy Mind and Body

Diet, exercise, and meditation -This combination is the key to maintaining a healthy Lifestyle.  It includes being mentally and physically fit.   A healthy body without peace of mind gives a lost or apathetic feeling.

Lack of exercise and an unhealthy diet produces not only lethargy but chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart failure and much more.  Weight gain is another downfall of an unhealthy lifestyle.  Avoid smoking, excessive drinking, and stressful situations.

Keeping and maintaining a healthy mind and body.

Steps Taken to get there

There’s enthusiasm at the initial stage of this process.  A few weeks in, however, approximately 90% lose interest…Why?  Not necessarily due to laziness or lack of commitment, but due to lack of organization.  Change must be taken seriously to be successful.

See the big picture:

It’s a Life Changing Event.

• Draft an itinerary to include diet exercise and meditation.
• Discuss your health with your doctor before making any changes.
• Write your goals.
• What you’d like to accomplish.
• When you’d like to accomplish them (realistically).
• The weight you’d like to attain and maintain.
• Research and choose meditation
• Choice of exercise: Yoga, walking etc.

An excellent form of exercise is walking twenty to thirty minutes daily.  Meditation is also a great way of maintaining health and happiness.  Make a schedule for your daily routine.  Wake up time; Excersize time; Meditation time; Breakfast time.   Meditate at least ten to fifteen minutes.  A healthy mind and body make a Happy and Fruitful life.

Life Changing Event.

Don’t be discouraged if you slip back into your old routine.  Engaging the whole family is a great help.  During exercise young children especially are eager and they make it a lot of fun.   Starting them early gives them discipline and organization early in life. However, if they’re definitely not interested, they should not be forced.

I moved to the US at 16 years old. I was slim. I had no problems with weight.  Four months after my arrival, I went from a size 9 to a size 12.  As a sweet addict, I went full fledge into the decadent sweets that I did not enjoy as a child. Needless to say, I was mortified due to the weight gain.  I unsuccessfully tried several diets.  The addiction to sweets always won out.

Island in the Sun

We moved to Puerto Rico my last year of high school.  Oh “Island in the Sun.” I had the luxury of two worlds.  The beautiful island and succulent island fruits and foods and the decadent sweets from the mainland.  What a life! And my weight escalated.

After high school, the tug of war continued, up down and so on.  I fared better in college.   It still wasn’t to my satisfaction. wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I finally grasped that I had to do a lifestyle change.  Focusing only on food was not the way to go.  Had to include diet and exercise.   As I got older I incorporated meditation. Finally a well-rounded regimen.

Nutritious Foods to Nourish Mind and Body

When we think of diet most of us think of nourishing our bodies.  We may starve ourselves to lose weight which is detrimental to us physically and mentally.  Fruits, vegetables, and nuts are rich in vitamins and minerals. They strengthen the bones, sharpen the mind and generally keeps us happy and healthy.

Sweets…. a joy to the taste buds.  Fine when eaten in moderation but can eat just one or two of the tasty and oh so delicious and downright sinful morsel. It’s not only addictive but unhealthy.  Sugar should be eaten in moderation but the American diet is so riddled with sugar and fat making our population obese with diseases that make our lives miserable and shorten it as well.  To maintain a healthy lifestyle, the sweets below should be eaten sparingly.

Unhealthy

Let’s face it sugars and fats are embedded in our diet.  It doesn’t help that it’s delicious to our palate.  The more we eat it, the more cravings we have.  You could easily wean yourself off fats and sweets by following this simple step.  Drink water all through the day from the time you awake.  Just take a sip.  Have a bottle with you at all times whenever possible.

Drinking water has numerous health benefits.  It relieves fatigue and makes the body function efficiently.  It’s quite effective in improving weight loss.  It also helps fill you up and suppress your appetite.  It helps in digestion, boosts your metabolism while flushing out toxins.  It also treats headaches and migraines.  It improves mood and promotes healthy skin.  It beats bad breath and regulates body temperature.  Amazing what something simple as this does for our health.

Cholesterol- Good and Bad.

We are aware that cholesterol is imperative to our (general health) well-being.  The difficulty is determining the good and the bad and how we control the bad cholesterol from overtaking the good.  We know diet plays an important role.  Here we go again…Foods we enjoy vs foods we tolerate not to mention some we hate.  Those we enjoy raises our unhealthy cholesterol and those we don’t like as much raises the good cholesterol