Posts filed under 'Healthy Lifestyles'
Sometime back I jumped on to the vegetarian bandwagon. I have been a non-vegetarian for a pretty long time, and had kind of got used to the taste of meat, the feel of meat, rather.
I am a great lover of animals, and was therefore always at conflict - if I loved animals, how on earth did I manage to eat them with a clear conscience? When I say I am an animal-lover, I don’t mean just a dog or cat lover. I love animals - wild, domesticated, reptilian, whatever. There is an absolute innocence about animals that is missing in us humans. We are robbed of this innocence because of our ability to think, because the basal dichotomy that the ability to think creates is what makes our world, our lives, such an entangled web of contrasts and complications.
It is not like I haven’t tried to stay vegetarian. However, each of these attempts has been a failure; the longest period I managed to stay vegetarian was 2 weeks. Because food just didn’t taste the same without meat being a part of it. It was then I realized that much as I wanted to get off meat, I just couldn’t. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I had kind of got addicted to it!
Addicted to meat! The word ‘addiction’ has some very degrading connotation to me. Enslavement, and me? No way! But it was true. Fact - I was addicted to meat. Fact - I craved for it when I didn’t get it. That discovery made me angry and frustrated, because I always liked to believe that I was in control of my life. To discover that my will was subjugated by something as basic as greed, was numbing and annoying. When I was young I used to read spiritual texts where they talked about our body being enslaved by the 5 senses (indriyas). I could now perfectly understand what it meant; all this while it had seemed some mystical, almost alien concept.
I have always loved challenging myself, and this seemed one of the best challenges I could have thrown at myself. So I quit eating non-vegetarian stuff, and that was that. I figured it would do me a world of good, from the point of both physical and mental health. Mental health because ayurveda says that non-vegetarian food can make people aggressive and aggressive is certainly one of the requirements for finding mental peace.
There are other more important benefits as well. From a health point of view, by combining my turning vegetarian with a proper exercise routine of walking and yoga, I have managed to make myself fitter, lose a few pounds, something I had been wanting to do desperately, and also live with a clear conscience now. There is a level of purity associated with vegetarianism that is missing in non-vegetarian diets. Maybe it is all in my head, but I like to think that being vegetarian makes me more caring about the world around me, the world that the animals share.
It was not easy initially, though. I had to do a lot to shore up my defenses. Especially when I made my way to the cafeteria on hungry afternoons and the whiff of non-vegetarian food hit me like a sledgehammer. However, now it’s been 2 months, and I am confident enough to be able to write about remaining off meat, finally.
July 12th, 2006
Written By: daisy
Though we talk of exercise and fitness and going to the gym and all that, we need to realize that there is a mental side to the whole aspect of fitness as well. Go to the gym, work out for a couple of hours, have a shower, and you’ll see what I mean. Along with burning the calories, exercising has this amazing ability to relax you, calm you down.
When I first started visiting the gym, I used to be wonder how on earth I’d manage to stay awake at work after a strenuous 2-hour workout (strenuous because I was in a hurry to get rid of the flab). But I was surprised when I found myself zipping to the office, singing along to Led Zep and other assorted inspirations, after a 2-hour session at the gym every morning.
Nowadays I find I don’t have the inclination or the energy for the 2-hour sessions. Living the fast life has taken its toll, I guess. But I have found another alternative - walking half an hour every morning, and an hour of gym in the evening. The effect is the same, and the morning walk is invigorating too. It’s good for the circulation and the heart, and keeps the body fit and able. What else could you ask for?
July 5th, 2006
Written By: daisy
In the gym that I go to, the cardio-vascular suite is on a floor above the swimming pool. You can see down into the pool while you puff and pant on some machine of torture such as a treadmill or exercise bike.
I can’t but help watch some of those swimming below and sometimes its hard not to laugh.
Some of the elderly swimmers, in particular, have a style that borders on the comical. I watched one lady today, who must be in her 70’s, swimming almost vertically in the water, taking tiny strokes that inched her along the pool.
It was a very funny sight - but do you know what? I admire her tremendously.
That lady was taking responsibility for her health and well being. Not for her was it a sedentary afternoon watching daytime TV. She had made the effort to go out and swim to the best of her ability, which is highly admirable.
I just hope that when I’m her age I have the physical and mental strength that she has.
July 4th, 2006
Written By: chris
I’ll be the first to admit that I have often bought a bottle of mineral water - particularly if it is sparkling.
Well it must be good for you surely.
It costs at least £1 (almost $2) per bottle, looks healthy in well designed packaging and tempts you with enticing descriptions about how it is naturally filtered by age old rocks in far flung places.
Water from a tap, on the other hand, should really only be used for washing things like vegetables. You don’t drink it do you?
Well actually if you live in the UK, you should as its been found to be as healthy, and far cheaper, than bottled water. Test carried out on drinking water straight from a tap, around various parts of the UK showed that 99.96 percent of the samples met the stringent UK and European water quality standards.
Not only is the water quality as good, but when you look at the cost differences, it is staggering. It would cost about £1 per YEAR for a person to drink eight glasses of tap water per day, whereas it would cost over £500 (about $800) to drink the same quantities of bottled water.
So in future I will fill up a bottle of water from the tap and take it to the gym, rather than paying exorbitant amounts for bottled water.
I know tap water quality various tremendously from country to country, but maybe you should at least consider tap water if your supplies are meeting good health standards. And you could save a whole year of gym membership fees at the same time!
July 3rd, 2006
Written By: chris
A new obesity pill is available on prescription in the UK from today.
Apparently it controls appetite and can therefore help the obese patient reduce their weight significantly. This, of course, is good news as it will help reduce their risk of heart disease and diabetes, particularly as it has been shown to reduce the fatty deposits in arteries and organs.
There are side effects such as nausea, dizziness and diarrhorea, though these are reported to be short lived by the manufacturer (perhaps predictably). Another side effect is that these “once a day” pills cost £55 (GBP) per patient per month.
I know that these pills will mostly be prescribed to those who cannot lose weight by other means, such as changes in lifestyle, but it does get me thinking about health care priorities.
My monthly gym membership is £44 (GBP) per month. For this I get access to a superb 25 metre swimming pool, a huge cardiovascular suite, spa and free fitness classes covering a wide range of subjects from aerobics to Yoga. This is also for peak access so I can use these facilities from about 7am to 10pm seven days a week.
What are the side effects? Well I feel fitter and healthier than ever. I can walk long distances without feeling tired. I can swim a mile in 40 minutes and oh, by the way, I’m losing weight too!
Why does the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) invest so much in drugs? The NHS could get some great discounts with commercial gyms and fitness centres - or even better still - open its own dedicated facilities. It would save millions of pounds per year and yet create a fitter, healthier population.
The National Health Service would then live up to its name rather than its current status, at least in my opinion, of the National Illness Service.
June 29th, 2006
Written By: chris
I have always wanted to live to a ripe old age. Right from the time I was a kid, I’d tell people, ‘I am going to live to be 100 years old.’ Well, seeing the world as it is today, I have come down on the original number of 100 a bit (80 should suffice). However, the desire to live a long life is still there. And over the past few months I have added another parameter to ‘long life’ – healthy. I don’t definitely want to drag myself over the last few years; I guess that wouldn’t be worth too much.
Recently I read about Harriet’s life. Actually, I first read about her death, and then caught up with her life. For someone like me aspiring towards a long life, Harriet was an instant celebrity. For those who don’t know, Harriet is a Galapagos tortoise that passed away last week at the ripe old age of 175 (that reads more like a batsman’s score in a cricket match than someone’s age!). She was an institution, and some of the landmarks she witnessed make awesome reading – she was 35 when Lincoln was assassinated, 82 when the Titanic sank, and a 111 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor!
And all without too much exercise or hard work! Just imagine, you loll by the pool (in Harriet’s case, pond) all day long, eat at your leisure, walk maybe a few steps, grow fat and big, and yet live to be 175! Why? Because that, god bless you, is your actual life span!
We on the other hand, are different. We have invented and discovered a thousand different ways to run ourselves close to the edge, and another thousand ways to get back from the brink and into the pattern of a healthy life. We work too hard, we are scared of sickness. We work too less; we are still scared of sickness. We have money, comfort, luxuries, technology, but to what end? We spend all our time rung behind things, and then sweat the nights away thinking of the next imminent visit to the doctor and what it might show up…
There are times like these when I wish I was just a damn tortoise – not too significantly noticeable to have the rest of the food chain above me behind my back, and yet able to live a contented, worry-free life, and long life!
June 28th, 2006
Written By: daisy
How about some good news for a Monday?
Apparently regular exercise not only helps you stop smoking, and improve your sleep, it can even improve your sex life too!
We all know that regular exercise can reduce our cholesterol and blood pressure levels, as well as help us shed those extra pounds, however we’ve got more reasons now to make that trip to the gym that we’ve been promising ourselves.
Feeling fitter and healthier helps us feel better about ourselves - more desirable, and apparently more desiring - and according to the research even improves our performance. You also get to sleep better afterwards!
June 26th, 2006
Written By: chris
We hear a lot about how blood clots can cause strokes and heart attacks, but another disease of the arteries can be just as dangerous.
Artherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is caused by a gradual build up of fatty deposits into plaques, on artery walls. As well as gradually constricting the blood flow through the artery, artherosclerosis is also dangerous because a plaque can rupture creating a potentially lethal blood clot.
High levels of bad cholesterol are primarily responsible for the build up of plaques on artery walls, however research is now indicating that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables per day can reduce artherosclerosis, by up to a third, which is great news.
The research was undertaken on rats, but don’t worry about that - eating five such portions must be good for you anyway.
The hard part is to eat five portions of fruit and veg each day, which is something I’ve been trying to do for a few months now.
Go to almost any supermarket in the UK and you will be met with a bewildering display of fruit and vegetables including many imported “out of season” and exotic varieties.
Some supermarkets helpfully label their fruit with “five a day” type labels so you take the hint and fill your trolley with a whole range of tempting fresh produce and enjoy a virtuous moment when your trolley load looks far more healthy at the checkout than the customer’s in front.
Now to the eating part.
You have a glass of orange juice for breakfast and an apple for lunch - thats two portions. Three to go.
Dinner, and you’ve got to have three portions of fruit and/or veg so that is carrots plus peas, say, with the main course. You can then hit your target by having something like strawberries for desert.
Actually, as I write that I think “hey that sounds delicious”, which, of course it is.
However the next day you’ve got to have five portions of fruit and veg. Then the day after that and guess what? Every day - for ever.
Yes five portions of fruit and veg a day is only a guide, but its an excellent way of building a varied and healthy diet. It’s probably quite expensive and time consuming (shopping and preparing), though remember that frozen vegetables are often more nutritious than “fresh” produce which has been stored in a warehouse for a week.
However if you value your health and want to reduce your risk of artherosclerosis, as well as developing a more healthy diet, then give it a go - take on the 5 a day challenge!
June 19th, 2006
Written By: chris
I had been wondering for a while now - how on earth do I get myself a healthy lifestyle? There is so much work I do, so much running around, and then partying and all, where is the time for anything else?
And then it struck me, how much more stupid could I get? I figured it is a simple matter of prioritizing. Rescheduling, if you like. So first up, out with the partying. No more alcohol (it doesn’t do me good anyways, and costs money too). I am not a smoker, so that is something I don’t have to worry about.
Second, I need to make time for a proper meal. No, not proper meal, because in my case ‘proper meals’ become really proper meals… So nowadays at lunch and dinner, my stomach throws a general tantrum (arrrgh! fruits and juice again???? Nooooo…) But I listen to my brain, which is what I should have been listening to anyways, and it constantly nags me - no sweets, no chocolates, no rich food. At the same time, I must be careful not to fall into the dieting trap. No starving myself, instead I need to have 2-3 small meals of fruits. It will sate my hunger and is healthy too, I guess.
Third, I need to sleep a bit more than the usual 4-5 hours. I am doing 6 hours now, and I can see the difference. Now there is a different problem, which I had written here - I can’t wake up early!!
Fourth, I am trying with the jogging thing. Yoga, I figured, is too complicated right now. Good old walking/jogging is ok for now, I think.
The problem is actually this. Once you get used to a set lifestyle, every cell in your body screams out when you try to alter it. Especially when you try to downsize. Its a universal principle, I think - downsizing is good, but is always hated!
Let’s check the results after 2 months!
June 17th, 2006
Written By: daisy
Sometimes I feel sorry for chickens. They’re getting such a bad press at the moment.
If they are not going to kill you with bird flu, these unfortunate creatures will get you another way, that is if you like fast food.
Apparently there is a major fast food chain that is being sued in the United States for cooking its fried chicken in partially hydrogenated oil containing the naughty trans fatty acids.
Hydrogentated fats prolong the shelf life of processed foods and are linked to increased risk of heart disease, probably by raising the levels of bad cholesterol in your blood.
The maximum recommended daily intake of trans fats in the diet is 4.4g for women and 5.6g for men. Apparently a single portion of Killer Fried Chicken can contain 4.4g of trans fats so that is your whole daily allowance in one portion.
Eat any more foods containing trans fats during the day and you’re increasing the chance of raising your bad cholesterol levels.
Angina, heart attacks and strokes can be caused by prolonged elevated cholesterol levels as the bad cholesterol causes narrowing and hardening of critical coronary and cerebral arteries.
So the next time that you feel like tucking into a portion of fried chicken at your favourite fast food outlet, think of those trans fats circulating in your blood until they find a place to land on one of your artery walls, slowly clogging up your arteries.
June 16th, 2006
Written By: chris
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