A series of 36 blogs that will change how you think about your body and your health and how YOU age.
Become a Lifelong Learner
Because I have ventured onto this path of Health, Wellness, Fitness, Nutrition and Agelessness, I came to realize that I had to become a lifelong learner and so must you. It is a never-ending journey of discovery that we are on, and it is the process and not the destination. On our path to optimal health, we will explore the misunderstood concepts of aging, diet, mental health, lifestyle choices, exercise and diet. As we look at these, you will be able to make personalized choices on how to nourish and strengthen your body that are adaptable, sustainable and appropriate to your ever changing stage of life.
Our focus will be on healthy aging, and how we benefit from nutritious whole foods in combination with enjoyable, sustainable, physical activities. With these, we will incorporate healthy mental acuity, mindfulness and a calmness of mind. We will look at lifestyle choices that can be easily incorporated into our lives.
The end result is that we will be healthier, stronger and more engaged in our lives. The point is the journey, not the destination. You can be your own teacher for your entire life. You need to know where to get accurate information, and you need to know when you are being sold a load of baloney. One source of information is the Internet. It is very fast and easily accessible, but it is filled with a great deal of false information. Always keep in mind how reliable the data is when you are taking advice. Just because someone is wearing a white coat or looks to be in perfect physical health doesn’t mean they are a reliable source… and that includes me; always be skeptical… become a student and not a follower.
The goal here is to find a way to live our lives with the most health, longevity, happiness and freedom to make our own educated choices. My belief is that there is no need to maintain weight by dieting, severe calorie restriction or deprivation. There is no need to be counting the minutes in our workout program just to get it out of the way for the day because exercise is moving to live, food and nutrition should be chosen with joy and enthusiasm and work for you, not what works for someone else. What typically does not work for most are strict, rigid weight loss programs, very controlled exercise routines that simple wear on us and aren’t very sustainable. Processed foods, drugs, pills and substitutes for real food is a growing problem; one that we will talk about more as we move further along.
Diet for me is a way of eating as opposed to a way to lose weight. I will focus on healthy, fresh whole foods as a style of nutrition. Our physical activity should be enjoyable, fun and the by-product should be exercise. Well thought out activities also make us stronger and healthier and enable us to live a longer healthier life… they need to be enjoyable. Weight loss and physical fitness should be a by-product of enjoying healthy, nutritious whole foods while engaging in activities that we enjoy doing.
A few rules as we get started:
Make small changes in our diet and exercise… if we want to get to a new place, we must do it slowly.
Moderation, moderation, moderation. Our bodies are designed to come back to a neutral position… it’s called homeostasis, staying the same. Our bodies do not like extremes in weight loss, weight gain, overtraining and so forth.
Everyone is different. What works for one may not work for another, and this applies to everything. So in the end, we must make up our own minds about health, nutrition, fitness and lifestyle. There are some parameters that we can follow which I will guide you , but in the end, the choice is yours.
Over the next 4 months, we will talk about Aging - how and why we age, and Nutrition - whole foods and not just a diet. We are going to find joy in good healthy food and find a way for you to eat healthy for a lifetime. With exercise, we will focus on moving to live and not the work part of a workout. Getting fit should be enjoying the process and looking forward to getting in some movement for that day, whatever that is for you.
We will discuss lifestyle, you, your body and your environment so you can make healthy choices for a long productive life. Remember the Latin phrase “mens sana in corpore sano”, the desire for a sound mind in a sound body.
Cooking food destroys much of the natural enzymes and most nutrients in your food. Cooking also destroys the natural life energy, eating live foods keeps us alive. Eating raw will eliminate this problem. Here is a great super salad…
RAW RECIPE
1 large bunch of broccoli, broken up into bite-sized bits
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 - 1 cup raw soaked almonds blended with water and herbs in blender
3/4-cup walnuts
Red onion, diced
1-cup baby spinach
½ cup organic local blueberries
½ cup diced local strawberries
1 tbsp organic olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinaigrette
sprinkle with Himalayan salt
Place all ingredients in a festive salad bowl and enjoy!
Heating food above 118 degrees Fahrenheit will destroy much of the nutrients and enzymes in your food. While some foods must be cooked at a certain temperature like chicken or turkey, most fruits and vegetables should not be cooked at 118 degrees to retain all the health benefits.
Making a list before you hit the market will prevent you from over spending and buying impulse items you really do not want or need. In addition, if you write it down you will not forget it, which I normally do if I do not make my shopping list.
When you shop the perimeter of the store, you are generally staying clear of all the garbage and junk food in the aisles. The perimeter is typically, where you will find fresh produce, fish and meat markets and all of your dairy needs.
Knowing what you are buying and consuming is key to a healthy lifestyle. Since the government is not to concerned with our overall well being including the FDA and the USDA I am recommending to you to discard what is on the front of the packaging an go straight to the ingredient and nutrition labels to find out what you are really buying. And if you don’t understand what you are reading, toss it.
Buying seasonally is a great way to stay healthy; nature intended us to eat seasonally. In the springtime we should be eating leafy vegetable that represent new growth. Summertime consume cool refreshing fruits and veggies such as summer squash and broccoli. Autumn is a time for more warming food, harvest type foods such as carrots, sweet potato, onions and garlic. In winter turn towards exclusively warming foods, foods that take longer to grow are generally warming foods and all animal foods are warming foods, fish, beef, chicken, lamb and venison.
A great place to learn about the real foods you should be consuming is at your local farmers market. Talk with the growers, they are a wealth of information plus it’s a great place to get fresh, local produce and meats. Prices may vary, but you know what you are buying.
