Are You A Health Freak?

You don’t have to make yourself crazy to be healthy. That defeats the whole purpose of living well. If you're desperately trying to keep your cholesterol below 200, your blood pressure under 130 systolic and your silhouette svelte, you're letting healthy living get the best of you.

It may not be your fault that you've become obsessive about eating right and staying in shape. Good health is also big business and both the media and medical profession do a pretty good job turning out Health Freaks who are coincidentally healthy consumers, but it is possible to live a healthy lifestyle without becoming consumed by the state of your constitution.

Here are some basic guidelines for Healthful Living from a former Health Freak :

- You don’t have to buy every vitamin supplement on the market.

- You don’t have to swear you’ll never eat another French fry or beat yourself up for missing this week’s aerobic class.

- You don't have to be a particular size to be beautiful or strive to become the poster person for The World Health Organization.

What I'm getting at is that it’s really not that difficult to become nutritionally normal and sensibly in shape. For a healthy mind and body, I propose Moderation, Mobility and Mindfulness.

Trying to adhere to all the Rules of every Medical Association, Health Organization and Disease Foundation can be more stressful than helpful. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not a model health nut.

Here are some ways to Moderate your methods for keeping fit and nutritionally sound.

Don't fast or skip meals – take a few energy bars, low-carb bars, sticks of string cheese, packets of nuts, cans of V-8 juice and other easy non-perishable healthy snacks with you for those times when eating a larger meal is not possible.

Don't fall for diets that favor one food group or make grand promises. The best diets are well balanced nutritionally, promote moderation and are sustainable, meaning you can easily live with them for life. Forget the fat-burning food diet, the metabolism boosting diet, the brain power food diet and Pizza Diets. It’s all a load of rubbish.

Drink plenty of water, but don’t feel you have to drink gallons a day to “flush out those fats and toxins”. Choose room temperature water over expensive sports drinks. Water is good for you but if you’re sacrificing quality time for urinating in the bathroom, you’re overdoing a good thing.

Moderate unhealthy sleep patterns. You may like to work or party into the night, but you need to get at least 6 hours of sleep. Eight hours is even better. It’s been said that sleep deprivation is not only bad for your general health, it can cause weight gain. If you have trouble sleeping, try natural sleep aids before you succumb to prescription medications.

If you do take pharmaceutical drugs regularly as prescribed by your doctor, be aware that at least ten common medications rob your body of essential nutrients. The good news is that they can easily be replaced. Here’s a simple straightforward article from The Free Library that lists the drugs and the supplements you can take.

10 common medications that rob your body of essential nutrients (and how to protect yourself).

Take a simple over-the-counter multi-vitamin each day. Most doctors agree, a higher priced multi-vitamin doesn’t always mean it’s a better product.

Daily Exercise puts Good Nutrition to work. They go together like Love and Marriage, but you don't have to work out for hours a day. All you really need to do is to get up and move for more than 25 minutes.

Here are some ways to Mobilize your methods for staying healthy:

Allow yourself at least 30 minutes to something good for your body. It can be as simple as stretching or as intensive as running. Just do something you will enjoy. There are loads of Hubs, Blogs, Books and Articles on Quick Workouts and you’re sure to find one suitable for your lifestyle.

Another thing I like to recommend is laughter. It's good medicine. It also burns calories. A person of average weight will burn somewhere between 10 and 50 calories in a 15 minutes period. I don’t know if an overweight person burns more calories in the same period of time, but it’s worth a try and have you nothing to lose except maybe a few pounds.

Laughing also produces those happy hormones called endorphins. Those endorphins also strengthen your immune system and lower the stress-producing hormones. Even pain is lessened during an endorphin rush.

If you don’t feel like laughing, eating chocolate also produces those same endorphins, so don’t forget to indulge every once in a while, but don’t overdo it! Chocolate is high in calories and carbohydrates (as if you didn’t know). What you may not know is that it’s also constipating which will compromise your mobility.

Meditate Before You Medicate

Think about being healthy and practicing good nutrition. Creative Visualization really works; it’s relaxing, fun and doesn’t cost you a penny.

Here's an example: If you need to address a genuine health problem and you distrust pharmaceuticals, don't let yourself become overwhelmed by the many avenues of alternative methods of healing and natural medications. Let the information you’ve researched sit with you for a while. Visualize each modality and each form of natural medicine even before you make a choice. Don’t intellectualize, just go with what feels best. Sometimes your intuition is your best guide to finding the answers to difficult questions.

Visualization has also proven to be an effective aid to weight loss programs. Thinking thin, and visualizing yourself as being in shape is very powerful.

Here are a Few Tips That Will Prevent You From Losing Your Friends

Don’t brag about the fact that you work out 7 days a week and fast for two of those days. Not everyone thinks that type of “healthy living” makes you a better person or even a healthier one.

Don’t analyze what’s on your friend’s plate and criticize them for choosing to eat what you choose not to eat. One of my vegetarian friends does that to me and it puts me off my nice nutritionally balanced dinner.

Don’t collect unfinished vitamin and mineral bottles. They clutter up the pantry, lose potency and get stale. Throw them out. Your family will thank you.

Throw away those stale and foul tasting low cal/low carb desserts you’ll never eat again. They’re not going to taste any better than they do now and someone in your household may eat them by mistake. I know, I’ve been there.

There are many admirable qualities in being a Health Freak so don't think I'm picking on you if you qualify. You're most likely loaded with energy and commitment and have a high level of integrity. You're also probably strong or shapely or both, but if you're ready for an easier route to good health or if you're simply striving to become nutritionally normal and sensibly in shape, remember to think Moderation, Mobility, Meditation…and Laughter. It’s your life. Enjoy yourself!

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