This is a wake up call for those who believe that they cannot reduce
their risk of falling sick. When it comes to health, evil is watching
you closely at least three times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Nevertheless, the truth is so hard to accept that few people want to
make the effort to change direction.
Do you really need all those expensive health foods?
Although millions of books
about weight-loss and dieting are sold every year, have you observed
improvements in the health of people you know? Pricey organic items have
become popular in supermarkets, but have you witnessed those products
having a positive effect on someone's health?
Most people's
health-improvement attempts are fraught with waste and disappointment.
Despite great intentions and strenuous effort, the tangible results are
often negligible. Do most weight-loss plans and prescriptive diets fail
because they are unnatural and expensive?
An artificial lifestyle
creates stress and anxiety
What is unnatural goes against the grain.
Trying to push people into radically new habits disrupts their
psychological stability. On top of that, prescriptive diets often prove
impractical and time-consuming. No wonder that many men and women give
them up after a while. Who wants to lead an unpleasant and constrained
life?
Take heart and stick to your objective of getting in better
shape. There is a better way to achieve that goal, a more effective
approach that takes into account the psychological aspects of
self-transformation. The method that really works is called rationality.
Human
beings are essentially logical. We can be fooled for a while, but
ultimately, we come around and begin to ask tough questions. We want to
make sure that we are advancing on the right track. We want to
experience short-term progress in our long-term endeavours. We want to
see beneficial results from our commitment.
Low-cost food
substitution, the preferred approach
Low-cost food
substitution should be the preferred short-cut to losing weight and
improving our health. Forget about purchasing costly exotic vegetables.
Don't bother with high-ticket packaged products that promise magical
results. Instead, make inexpensive changes in your lifestyle, little by
little.
Acquiring healthy habits at your own speed is more
powerful than making radical lifestyle changes that cannot be sustained.
You may for instance begin by replacing high-fat meat by simple fish,
such as trout or halibut. Pick up a sort of fish that is readily
available at your local supermarket and whose taste you enjoy.
Another
short-cut to a better health is replacing prepared desserts, such as
apple pie or ice cream, by simple fruit. Eating a modest apple for
dessert instead of chocolate cake is a low-cost habit that anyone can
acquire without much difficulty. You may for example peel the apple, cut
it to pieces, mix it with low-fat yoghurt, and sprinkle it with
cinnamon. This is easy to do and delicious.
When you replace
prepared desserts by fruit, choose varieties that are abundant and
inexpensive in your area. Keep always some fresh fruit on your office
desk, in case you feel the need to have something to eat between meals.
Drink water instead of
carbonated drinks
A
third short-cut to a better health is drinking water instead of
carbonated drinks. In many areas of the world, drinking mineral water is
safer than tap water. See if you can purchase your mineral water at the
local supermarket in discount packs and save some money.
At the
office, it is a good idea to keep a small bottle of water within reach.
Drinking a fair amount of water every day allows our organism to
function better. If you can heat water and make some healthy tea, so
much the better. Green tea is generally considered a healthy drink, but
many other types of tea have positive qualities. Try out different sorts
and see which one works best for you.
Once you start on the road
towards a better health, there are no limits how far you can go. The
trick is to take small but relentless steps. Replace unhealthy habits by
rational ones. Get rid of negative influences and embrace a thoughtful
approach to living.
If you spend some time reading cooking books,
you will realize the possibilities of cooking your favourite meals in
healthy ways. You may for instance learn to make pizza at home by mixing
yeast and whole-wheat flour. Making pizza dough by hand is not
difficult and does not take long. A whole-wheat pizza with tomatoes,
tuna fish, olives, and onions is delicious and healthy.
Make up your mind
and start moving in the right direction
Rationality
demands that we advance slowly and that we enjoy the way. Babies take a
year to learn how to walk and three times longer to speak in complex
sentences. In dieting, weight-loss, and health improvement, a
progressive transformation is usually the one that lasts.
We only
live once and little is gained by making ourselves endure unnecessary
hardship. Never choose suffering or deprivation if a better option is
available. Radical diets can make your days bitter, rarely better.
Persistent action guided by reason is the short-cut to a better health.
We
are intelligent beings and our minds call for logic and consistency. It
is natural that we prefer life to be enjoyable rather than unpleasant.
It is understandable that we favour methods that produce tangible
results rather than speculative theories. When it comes to attaining
better health, check the facts and obtain proof. Then Then make up your mind
and move.
For more information about rational living and personal development, I refer you to my book The 10 Principles of Rational Living
[Text: http://johnvespasian.blogspot.com]
[Image by not a hipster under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us]