“Lions don’t loose sleep on the opinion of the sheep”
It’s time to wake up my friend. Stretch your body well, take a deep breath and let go of your past that you don’t want anymore.
Life goes on while living the present, it dies when living in the past and not controllable when living in the future.
First of all you need to clean up yourself from those habits that take you to what you don’t like within you lifestyle. By adding few easy tasks to your daily life your body will start to react giving you more energy and better being.
It’s important that you notice these changes in your body when they occur, and don’t fall back with your old habits because you think now you have more energy to sustain them. They will eventually take over your lifestyle again and you will have to restart from the beginning…again!
Instead, acknowledge that those few changes in your habit are reflecting on your body and consequently in your mindset.
If there is a time to act is right now! Here are some simple suggestions to adapt to your new lifestyle.
Drink water:
It may sound lame as a first suggestion for some of you, but I know what I’m talking about. If you have had a bit of unregulated life you may have to deal with some depressing reactions, in your body and in your mind.
Water is the best energy replenisher and is essential for your body. Is the most abundant substance in your body that makes between 55% to 75% of your total body weight. Basically all of your cells are soaked in water.
But how much should you drink every day? We know that drinking at least five glasses of water a day can lower the risk of deadly heart disease, but is that enough?
You can find out your recommended water intake following the table here below. Just get your need factor depending of your daily activity and multiply it by your weight in pounds (if you don’t know your weight in pounds just multiply your weight in Kg by 2.20).
Water need factor:
0.5 — Sedentary, no sports or training
0.6 — Jogger or light fitness training
0.7 — Sports participation or moderate training 3 times a week
0.8 — Moderate daily weight training or aerobic training
0.9 — Heavy weight training daily
1.0 — Heavy weight training daily plus sports training, or “2-a-day” training
You will get the quantity of water in ounces you are supposed to drink every day (multiply by 29.6 to get it in ml.).
Don’t drink this quantity of water all at once but divide it in 10 to 12 glasses through the day and drink even more if you are engaged in any sort of physical activity and especially if you live in a hot temperature environment.
You need to drink even if you are not thirsty, if you are feeling thirsty you are already dehydrated.
Water helps you recover from your workouts, aids in fat-based fueling of muscles and provides for storage of water inside your cells. When you become dehydrated, all of these functions become less effective and your performance levels lower. Lower body performance equals to lower mind performance.
As the major “ingredient” of the human body, plenty of water is essential to healthy and qualitative athletic performance. And although other drinks like milk, sugared soft drinks and fruit juices are thirst quenchers, they actually increase your need for water.
Good food:
I know you may love that processed burger or those particular chips. But food is a huge part of what your body is made of.
There are many very informative information and videos around the Internet to explain how that kind of food is made and why it taste so delicious. I don’t want to sound too naturalist and I’m not here to tell you to go hug a tree, but that kind of food is not actually real food, it just taste good because of the chemical flavors they use to “build” it.
Get informed about the food you are eating. Wise people use to say: “You are what you eat” and that is absolutely true, I mean in a chemical level.
Your body uses the food you eat to synthesize new cells all the time. The body that you have now, the fibers, the organs, the brain, everything has been destroying and recreating itself at cellular level since you were in your mother womb.
If you start eating healthy food your body will thank you enormously.
You don’t have to go through a drastic change here, begin with little but constant steps. Get your burger, but give a shot to a mixed salad with boiled egg and tuna or a proper steak sometimes, see how it goes from there.
Start to understand what protein, carbohydrates and fats are and how to use them. Read the labels behind the packages at the supermarket and remember this simple rule:
1gr of protein = 4 calorie
1gr of carbohydrates = 4 calorie
1gr of fat = 9 calorie
More calories from fat will get you fat as fat it does not change in your body, it stays stored and may create cardiovascular problems and obesity. Don’t get me wrong, fat is good at certain level, but don’t base your diet on it.
Protein will create muscles if you workout, it’s made of amino acids to literally build your cells.
Carbohydrates are the energy source for your activities.
If you are one of those who need just one coffee in the morning for breakfast, try to change that coffee with a banana and a toast with fruit jam, perhaps drink a green tea to prepare your organism to fight free radicals during your day. You can get a coffee later in the morning, let’s say around 10.00AM. You will notice that you’ll have more energy and you’ll feel less sleepy.
This is an important step for your lifestyle change. The food you will eat from today, will make your body tomorrow.
Learn to get out of the shell of your food habits and cook up something new, different, body oriented, something that will make you feel right the day after you eat it.
Stay far away from MSG, colors and flavors. Don’t get maniacal about it but just be aware of what materials you are using to build your new you!
In simple words, if you had a Lamborghini car, would you fill the tank with second hand crap gasoline or you’d fill it with the best available for outstanding performance? You know very well that the crappy gasoline will make troubles on your engine sooner or later right?
Sleep:
Well, not all the time! But do sleep the adequate amount to replenish your energy and prepare for the morning to come.
If you are still thinking at the Lamborghini car, you know that you should park it in the garage to let it cool off. You can’t always keep it at 300km per hour all the time right?
Sleeping is another important part of the “rebuilding” process. When you sleep your body is still working, burning calories, breathing, digesting, your hearth is beating and your brain is making you dream. Your cells are dying and new ones are being produced.
You should sleep an average of 8 hours per night, but it can change depending on your habits. Some people are just not made for sleeping, as Arnold Schwarzenegger said: “Sleep Faster!”.
But most people are not Arnold Schwarzenegger and they may need more sleeping hours, especially under times of elevated stress. If you are under stress you need to increase your sleeping time, you can try to avoid it but eventually you will start feeling it and it will crush you later on.
If you are waking up totally tired in the morning and you have the vitality of a sloth to get out the bed, try the most common solution. Go to sleep 1 hour earlier in the evening, just for a week.
Is this hard for you? Well, how hard do you want to feel good? How hard do you want to change? How difficult can it be to …go to bed?
It may feel weird at the beginning and you will not be able to fall asleep but eventually you will assimilate this habit and you will wake up much more alert and your vitality will improve indeed.
If you work out a bit before bed time, you could also drink a glass of milk to provide your body with proteins to build up new lean body cells.
Get a chance to take a quick nap at mid day, 20 minutes are perfect, but no more than that or you will fall into deep sleep and you will become some zombie like creature for the rest of the day. Set the alarm and get you daily 20 minutes siesta, it will make you sharper and more alert for the rest of the day.
Our internal clock is having a down period around mid day and the body needs a proper break to gain the energy to jump back up for the rest of the day.
One more thing about sleeping, as we spend almost 1/3 of our life on a bed, you should consider to invest in a good mattress for your body, anyway, don’t forget to rotate it every 2 months.
Follow these 3 simple suggestions and you will see changes in your lifestyle.
Some changes are easy, some other are difficult. It’s all up to you my friend. Remember the 2 steps to start your change? now is time to apply them.
How bad do you want that Lamborghini?