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Healthy habits and success go hand in hand. To remain healthy, successful people make a concerted effort to eat right and exercise every day. They consider not only what they eat, but also how much they eat. They manage their consumption of food & do not overindulge in food or drink. If they do slip, it is managed overindulgence, relegated to that of an infrequent occurrence rather than a regular occurrence, such as a holiday meal or a party.
“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep the mind strong and clear.” – Buddha
Make Exercise a Habit
For successful people, exercise is a routine, like brushing their teeth. They understand that daily exercise improves their bodies and minds. Routine exercise improves the immune system and results in fewer sick days. This further allows for an increase in productivity, since the frequency of sick days is less than that of others. People who regularly exercise generally have more energy during the day. These people have a system or routine for weight management that works best for them. Some have sophisticated systems, some less sophisticated, but they “manage ” their weight. Managing weight means monitoring the amount of food consumed every day and engaging in a daily exercise regimen.
Unsuccessful people have no consistent, day-to-day control over their health. They are always in search of the latest and greatest quick-fix diet idea. Unsuccessful people deal with health matters irregularly and usually require outside influences to motivate them to eat less or eat differently. This is the reason why there are so many diet books out there. With little control over their eating habits, they go through phases of gaining and losing weight again and again. This behavior takes a toll on the body, which eventually manifests as medical disorders, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and the like. These people approach to exercise the same way they approach their consumption of food, requiring some outside force to momentarily motivate them. When that motivation wears off, they fall back into bad habits, stop exercising, and gain weight as part of a cycle that recurs throughout their lives.
Exercise Makes You Look Younger
Regular exercise helps you in weight loss and in building muscles. But these aren’t the only benefits you’ll get. Exercise can make you look younger.
A study from McMaster University in Ontario on the effects of exercise on the skin examined adults aged from twenty to eighty. The main goal was to discover if there is a change in the skin and its condition for people who are actively engaged in exercise routines versus people who rarely exercise. It was found that people who are exercising at forty have skin that is as elastic as people in their early thirties.
We age at the cellular level. At the chromosomal level, actually. At the tips of each chromosome is something called telomeres. Telomeres control a cell’s aging process, and as we age these telomeres get shorter and shorter. So longer telomeres are connected to living longer lives, or so the research suggests. Studies from the University of California San Francisco have found a link between regular exercise and the rate at which telomeres slow. The more you exercise on a regular basis, the longer it takes for telomeres to slow, and the longer your cells will live. You’ll not only feel younger, but you’ll also be physically younger – literally!
Monitor the Food Consumption
An easy way to monitor food consumption is to count the calories after every meal or snack, and document daily consumption. During the first thirty days of your weight management program, you will need to track what you normally eat and figure out the number of calories for each food item. During this thirty-day period, you will be able to identify certain foods that are high in calories and you can thereafter choose to avoid those high-calorie foods, at least on a regular basis.
Do not confuse monitoring and managing food consumption with dieting. They are not the same. Diets don’t work in managing weight in the long term. The reason is that they are too restrictive, unsustainable and, quite frankly, take the fun out of life. Managing the consumption of food does not mean starving or never again eating special treats. You are going to eat treats from time to time and you should not feel guilty about this.
You simply need to understand that you can’t eat those high-calorie foods every day, as this will likely push you over your daily caloric threshold, which is the threshold you need to stay within in order to lose or maintain your weight. But you need to understand that eating some of the foods you love might mean occasionally exceeding your caloric threshold for that day, which is fine as long as this is the exception rather than the rule.
Focus on Weight Reduction
Before moving further, let’s go through below key facts regarding obesity (World Health Organization, Jun-2021)
- Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.
- In 2016, more than 1.9 billion (190 crores) adults, 18 years and older, were higher in weight.
- 39% of adults aged 18 years and over were higher in weight in 2016, and 13% were higher-weight bodies.
- Most of the world’s population lives in countries where higher weight kills more people than underweight.
- 39 million (3.9 crores) children under the age of 5 were higher in weight in 2020.
- Over 340 million (34 crores) children and adolescents aged 5-19 were of higher weight in 2016.
- Obesity is preventable.
Obesity is spreading fast in each age group. It acts as a catalyst for other diseases. Obesity has a major impact on national economies by reducing productivity and life expectancy and increasing disability and healthcare costs.
So, to remain out of the above issue of obesity, you need to go beyond monitoring food consumption. You must engage in a daily aerobic exercise regimen for at least twenty to thirty minutes a day, four days per week. Jogging outdoors provides the most effective results. The number of calories burned by running is greater by about one-third than an indoor treadmill, or stationary bike.
Lifting weights, sit-ups, push-ups, and the like, are good supplements to any basic aerobic activity, but they are not substitutes for aerobic activity. By themselves, these exercises will not help you lose weight as much as they will help you shape and tone your body. Morning may be the best time to engage yourself in healthy habits.
(Content inspired from ‘Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals’ by Thomas Corley).
