Natural ways to cure silent inflammation and protect yourself from non-communicable diseases.
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Balancing Health From Within
Natural ways to cure silent inflammation and protect yourself from non-communicable diseases.
Continue readingThe Magic Bullet For Boosting Your Metabolism
I have seen people obsessed with eating a big bowl of salads, skipping meals, drinking ice-cold water, and other iced beverages, and the most detrimental of all, consuming highly processed food and yet expecting to loos weight or boost metabolism.
Do you believe that enchanted pills, green smoothies, and special diets can amp up your metabolism?
If you have not considered exercise for boosting your metabolism, you have missed the Magic Bullet.
Before I tell you the best exercises out there to help boost your metabolism, understand that multiple factors affect the way your metabolism operates, especially age, gender, and hormones.
Age
Our metabolism begins to decline as we age, and we also tend to lose up to five percent of muscle mass and become less mobile. As combined effects, it’s easier for the pounds to accumulate around the waistline. Approximately 30 to 50 percent of calorie burn should be through exercise.
Gender
Females have a slower metabolism than men due to various factors, including oestrogen levels and a lower resting metabolic rate, which helps determine our overall total daily energy release and plays a vital role in regulating our energy balance.
Hormones
A rise in blood cortisol level due to stress or other factors can lead to weight gain, risk of heart disease, and diabetes. A workout before consuming a meal can help to drop those cortisol levels and improve metabolism.
Low testosterone levels can trigger a bit of weight gain and leave us feeling fatigued. Daily workout regimens can help keep healthy and stable testosterone and support a healthy metabolism.
Estrogen can trigger metabolic malfunction, and the imbalance in this hormone can cause your weight to increase rapidly.
Finally, the thyroid hormone is responsible for the overall effectiveness of your metabolism. It helps control metabolic processes in the body that are necessary for growth, development, and metabolism.
Hyperthyroidism (thyroid in a hypermetabolic state) can induce metabolism overdrive, leading to weight loss and excessive use of your resting energy. On the other hand, hypometabolism (underperforming thyroid) can reduce resting energy expenditure (metabolism) and gain weight.
Remember this; the metabolism is a powerhouse that converts food into energy and propels it without missing a beat.
If you are overwhelmed in trying to figure out the ways to regain control, continue reading this,
During exercise, our muscles utilise a relatively large amount of energy by burning calories. And the most exciting fact about exercise is that even after the workout is over, your muscles can continue to burn calories stored in your body, keeping the metabolism functioning at optimal levels.
There are three activities, when paired together, can do wonders and help you boost your metabolism.
- Lifting Weights to Burn fat; is a practical approach to helping you build not only muscles but also initiate fat metabolism for energy. When you rest, the muscles use more calories compared to fat cells. For best results, do two sets of repetitions (12-15) for just two days a week on the major muscle groups (back, arms and legs).
- Aerobic Activity; is a must-have ingredient for boosting your metabolism. Interval training is instrumental in yielding positive results. Swimming, walking, kickboxing, jogging, or even Zumba are excellent options for enhancing your metabolism.
- Low Impact Exercises; such as Yoga, Pilates, water aerobics are an excellent choice for people with low exercise intolerance due to underlying health issues such as arthritis, diabetes, heart conditions, or physical limitations such as knee pain, back pain, shoulder pain, or scoliosis.
In short, there might be a few reasons for not being able to control your metabolism, but exercise is your best bet and a magic bullet.
We want to welcome you to become a member of the Abbysan community to view all the great Yoga, Pilates, and low impact cardio videos and nutrition plans! Just CLICK HERE!
How to Eat and Exercise for Lasting Energy
Research suggests that about one in four adults experiences fatigue, tiredness, and exhaustion unrelated to severe clinical conditions. If you intend to wake up feeling supercharged and efficiently sail through the day with ease and more enthusiasm, the solution might be simple.
While advertisements that promote energy or power food and beverages and the health food shops and their products promise to increase vigor, simple lifestyle changes are usually more effective. Learn how healthy eating and regular exercise can give you lasting energy.
Healthy And Balanced Eating for Lasting Energy:
- Select healthy carbs – Complex carbohydrates found in whole grains provide a steady source of energy. On the other hand, simple carbohydrates in cookies and other processed foods fluctuate your blood sugar, leaving you much more tired and exhausted. Have you ever noticed, you or your children had a sudden rise in energy just a few hours after eating macaronis, and depleting their energy?
- Control portions – Healthy fats and proteins provide some energy too. Please include them in your balanced diet in reasonable quantity. Too much healthy fat and protein can slow digestion, making you feel sloppy and fatigue.
- Lose excess weight gradually – If you want to lose weight, rather than depriving yourself of energy with crash diets, aim to lose about one pound each week. Being overweight contributes to fatigue because the body has to carry around excess weight that may also interfere with sleep. When your sleep is regularly disturbed, you also have a tendency to overeat, leading to a never-ending cycle of gaining and losing excess weight.
- Enjoy breakfast – Studies show that a cheerful breakfast helps you to resist junk food later in the day. Add Greek yogurt, eggs, and fruit to your diet. If you like, eat salad and soup for some morning than your conventional breakfast foods.
- Eat snacks in moderation – If you often get hungry in between meals or feel sluggish after a big lunch; spreading your calories into smaller meals and snacking in moderation may help keep you on an even scale.
- Drink plenty of water – Dehydration can significantly lead to fatigue, particularly for adults and the elderly, who often become less sensitive to thirst. Keep a water bottle handy and sip some water as often as you can remember.
- Consume more iron – Younger women are receptive to anemia related to iron deficiencies. Foods rich in this mineral include honey, liver, beef, lentils, and spinach. Remember to squeeze lemon on any of the above, as vitamin C helps with iron absorption.
- Consider taking supplements – Most healthy adults can get the nutrients they need from food alone. Consuming quality supplements like multivitamins, B complex, and omega-3 and 6 fatty acids that you might be deficient in, but mainly 300-600mg Coenzyme Q10 per day, will increase your energy.
Intuitive Eating In A Diet-Obsessed World
This mini-course provides high-quality information on intuitive eating, where you can learn how to stop obsessing over food, get rid of food fear and anxiety and take your lives back. Click the link below to sign up.
Mini Course
Intuitive Exercise And Lifestyle Changes For Lasting Energy:
- Understand the impact – While you might think that you’re too tired to move, working out increases energy for several reasons. Your body grows more vital, and you release chemicals that make you feel happier.
- Exercise intuitively – Listen to your body, when it comes to exercise, You can still have a rough outline of the type of incredibly helpful workouts that especially increase your energy, such as Low and moderate-intensity aerobics, local fitness classes, Yoga, Pilates, walking or running or perhaps ride your bike, but you still want to be in tune with your body, and the forms of movement you feel like doing. After all the activities you choose should be fun and enjoyable for you.
- Quit Smoking – If you’ve attempted before, try again as it may usually take multiple efforts to succeed. Prolong use of Tobacco reduces your blood vessels’ diameter, reducing the supply of oxygen and nutrients.
- Limit Alcohol – Alcohol like Taquila may seem and make you feel like the life of the party, but alcohol in any form is a depressant.
Say goodbye to fatigue. A balanced diet and an active lifestyle can give you the energy you need to enjoy the activities you love and accomplish more with less effort.
Why Yo-Yo Dieting Can Be Worse Than Obesity.
More research is coming out to show that dieting in general is harmful to your body (and your mind), and that it most likely isn’t making you healthier in most situations.
However, yo-yo dieting, where you are constantly back and forth between being on and off a diet, can be even worse for you. This is when you either bounce to different types of diets constantly, or you are on a perpetual restrict and binge cycle.
Your body is going through a lot of changes at a rapid pace, which can be far unhealthier than if you had stayed overweight.
- Your hormones fluctuate like crazy – when you diet, especially back and forth between eating and restricting, your hormones are completely out of control.
- You are at the risk – Severe calorie restriction and yo-yo dieting where you have a lot of changes in what you eat over a long period of time can cause your cortisol levels to increase. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and can actually increase your risk for heart disease and diabetes!
- You might have a bigger appetite and more cravings – Yo-Yo dieting also changes your appetite and what you crave. It may seem like you are out of control, but this is not about willpower, it is actually from dieting itself. In your body, you have two different hunger hormones – leptin and ghrelin. Ghrelin is the hormone that increases your appetite, while leptin decreases your appetite, and can help you feel full. If you are dieting, the hormone leptin often decreases, while ghrelin increases, creating an imbalance. Your diet might be the reason why you feel like starving, and not just because you aren’t eating enough.
- Your metabolism slows down – Wonder why when you start a diet, you seem to hit a plateau quickly? This is probably the result of your metabolism slowing down because of all the feast and famine periods your body has gone through. And when you put your body through the ringer from yo-yo diets, you are actually making it harder to lose weight thanks to your metabolism slowing down. You need to stop under-eating, give up the diets, and start to eat intuitively.
- You lose all sense of hunger and fullness cues – When you have pre-determined portions, types of food, how many calories you can have, how many carbs, making sure your sugar is low and protein is high, watching your fibre and meal eating windows, or intermittent fasting, you stop relying on your hunger, but instead on numbers. All of this damages your ability to know when you are hungry or full.
In my experience eating only slightly less than you should, all the time; eating only when you are hungry, and doing physical exercise is much more likely to help you reach a healthy weight than going on low-calorie diets.
3 Simple Steps to help you create a nutrition plan that will work for you and your family.
- Control your portion size: Using hands to measure your portion size is versatile and works well for three reasons. First, hands are portable. They come with you to work lunches, restaurants, social gatherings, etc. Second, hands are scaled to the individual. Bigger people need more food, and tend to have bigger hands, therefore getting larger portions. Smaller people need less food, and tend to have smaller hands, therefore getting smaller portions. Third, it provides reasonable amounts of nutrient dense foods and their specific macronutrients (thus preventing deficiencies). It will help you meet your protein, vegetable, carb, fat, and calorie needs without having to count a gram or weigh a food. You can easily adjust portions based on hunger, fullness, preferences, goals, overall activity level, and most importantly, results. If you need more help in learning how to use portion size, book a coaching session with Dr. Abhishek. He will give you the basic template and teach you to adjust portions at any time.
- Eat until 80% full: Once you have adjusted your portion size the next step will be to only eat until 80% full. This is the important step if your goal is to loose weight and/or gain muscles.
- Eat Slowly: Our body has a built-in “satiety mechanisms” that kicks in about 20 minutes after we started a meal. No matter how much you eat during the first 20 minutes of starting a meal, you wouldn’t feel satisfied or even full until we hit the magical satiety time. So if you ate too much during the first 20 minutes, thinking you’re not full. Then, 20 minutes later, you’ll feel “overfull” and guilty. However, if you only slowed down, your bodies’ natural satiety mechanisms would have kicked in to put on the brakes. (Remember that: You can and will feel full if you just slow down. The body’s natural signals will do the work for you. You don’t have to overthink it.)
Intuitive Eating In A Diet-Obsessed World
This mini-course provides high-quality information on intuitive eating, where you can learn how to stop obsessing over food, get rid of food fear and anxiety and take your lives back. Click the link below to sign up.
Mini Course
How Intuitive Eating Works?
You might be under this misconception that intuitive eating is just perpetuating obesity and unhealthy lifestyles, and just causing people to eat nothing but Oreo cookies and McDonald’s. To some extent its true that many people eat foods they previously thought of as off-limits, they also eat a lot of nourishing food as well.
Intuitive eating is not a free-for-all where you eat whatever you want, in whatever quantity, regardless of how it makes you feel. It is about
- Honouring your hunger,
- Trusting your body, and
- Eating to fuel and nourish your body.
If you fear food, afraid of sugar and fat, and think carbs are coming for you, then intuitive eating is the best option for you.
I like to share some ways that intuitive eating works, and can help you be the healthiest you have ever been.
- It Relieves Stress About Food and Diets – Think about how much time you spend thinking about food, researching diets, trying to plan your life around healthy meals, and the stress that comes from fear of hunger, binge and restrict cycles, and an obsession with how you look. So much of this is alleviated when you begin eating intuitively.
- You Stop Obsessing About Food – You stop obsessing about every single thing you consume. Food just becomes food. It becomes a way to fuel your body, to nourish it with nutrients, to feel satisfied and happy. When you get to this point, you start noticing when you are actually hungry and when you are full, and are able to discover the foods you love.
- You Avoid Binge Cycles – This is a big deal for chronic dieters, people with disordered eating and eating disorders, and anyone who feels out of control around food.
- You No Longer Have Intense Cravings – Feel like you will always crave chocolate chip cookies or salty snacks forever? First of all, there is nothing wrong with these foods. Second, with intuitive eating you will learn when a craving is physical, or if it is an emotional pull from a history of restrictions.
That is the beauty of intuitive eating. If you want to learn about gentle nutrition and eating to live a healthy and energetic-life, Check out my mini course on intuitive eating in a diet-obsessed world.
Intuitive Eating In A Diet-Obsessed World
This mini-course provides high-quality information on intuitive eating, where you can learn how to stop obsessing over food, get rid of food fear and anxiety and take your lives back. Click the link below to sign up.
Mini Course
9 Principles of Health and Longevity
The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense in its 1948 constitution as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
You want to live a long and healthy life, full of beauty, love, and contentment, long enough to achieve your purpose in the world, to see your kids grow up and be happy, and to enjoy all the great experiences that life has to offer.
1. Get a lot of fresh AIR
The air we breathe plays an essential part in our health and functioning.
People often tend to forget about the importance of spending time outside and underestimate the health benefits of spending time outdoors.
Here is a list of important health benefits of fresh air:
- Fresh air is good for digestion.
- It improves your blood pressure and heart rate.
- It makes you happier.
- Strengthens your immune system.
- Fresh air cleans your lungs.
- You will have more energy and a sharper mind.
Enjoy time outdoors and get the maximum out of the health benefits of fresh air.
If you are spending most of your time inside the air-conditioned office or home, you are forcing your body to use stale air. By doing so you are making it harder for your body to stay healthy and fresh.
Long-term exposure to toxic or polluted air can compromise the health and functioning of the cells and organs of our body leading to increased susceptibility to infections and various forms of the disease.
Some long-term effects of polluted air include Lung cancer, heart disease, chronic respiratory disease, and even damage to parts of the brain, nerves, liver, or kidneys, etc.”
2. Drink ample amounts of WATER
Our body is made up of about 75% water. Every single cell is made up of water including the cells in our own body. Water is critical for the life and functioning of cells, tissues, and organs in our body. Water carries elements of life and has the ability to transmit and maintain them.
Consequently, thought processes, movements, nerve function, blood circulation, digestion, elimination of waste, etc., depend on water for their normal and effective functioning.
Did you know drinking water at different times of the day and before and after certain activities have a tremendous benefit to our Health.
Drinking plenty of water helps to:
- Maximize Physical Performance
- Positively affects Energy Levels and Brain Function
- Prevent and Treat Headaches
- Relieve Constipation
- Treat Kidney Stones
- Prevent Hangovers
- Reduce Body Fat
3. Get adequate amounts of SUNLIGHT
The Sun provides the basis for all life on earth. The body manufactures vitamin D after being exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D is critical for the body because it helps the body absorb calcium and also helps it keep the right amount of calcium and phosphorus in the blood.
Without a sufficient amount of vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, or even misshapen.
4. Eat WHOLE FOOD that has strong NUTRITIOUS values
Real food consists of fresh vegetables and fruits, unprocessed meats and seafood, and naturally-occurring starches and fats. What we eat plays a significant role in the functioning of our body, health, and well-being. Emphasize vegetables, and eat local or organic whenever possible. Eating food with little or no nutritious value can, over time, lower the effectiveness of the body’s defense system and compromise your physical and mental health.
Besides choosing healthier, whole foods it’s essential to learn how to consume less at each meal. Keep this in mind:
- Don’t serve meals family-style, with heaping plates and bowls of food on the dining table for everyone to help themselves. You’ll all consume about 14 percent less if you dish out everything at the counter and put the rest away.
- You can trick your mind and stomach by making food look bigger than it is; for example, cut back on the cheese and meat in a sandwich and load it up with lettuce, onions, tomatoes and other veggies.
- Find smaller plates and bowls to serve food in; the bigger the dish, the more we fill it (and then think we have to eat it all).
- Focus on your food, not the TV. Eat more slowly to give your body time to recognize the signs that you’re no longer feeling hungry.
- Avoid sugar, processed and packaged foods, which tend to lead to weight gain, cardio-metabolic issues, disposition toward diabetes, and declines in brain health and function.
- Eat vegetables daily, aiming for four to six servings (2 to 6 cups).
- Limit meat portions to no larger than the size of a deck of cards.
- Eat nuts, but watch the portion size; a 1-ounce serving can be 150–200 calories.
5. Get an adequate amount of SLEEP
Sleep plays a critical role in people’s physical as well as their mental health and functioning. Lack of sleep can compromise immune system effectiveness, which can lead to various forms of health problems. Some experts believe that lack of sleep can make the body become resistant to insulin, a hormone that helps carry glucose from the bloodstream to cells. Other problems resulting from lack of sleep include lack of mental clarity, memory problems, moody disposition, and higher stress level.
6. Be active and regularly perform physical MOVEMENTS
Staying active doesn’t necessarily mean just going to the gym a few times per week. It means making low-intensity physical activity a daily part of life, and little changes make a big difference.
Physical movement is fundamental to the human experience. Throughout history, humans have walked, run, lifted things, carried them over distances, and crafted natural resources to their own use (building shelters, making tools).
Some benefits of moving multiple times a day include reduced risk of developing diabetes, control of type II diabetes, reduce risk for high blood pressure, reduce level of current high blood pressure, control weight gain, build healthy and strong bones, muscles and joints, improve blood flow throughout the body, improves the body’s capacity to use calories, and reduces both mental and physical stress.
Be active without having to think about it.
Here is what you can do to be active:
- Get rid of handy helpers like the TV remote, the snowblower, the power lawnmower.
- Hand washes your car without a pressure washer.
- Plant a garden, it reduces stress and produces fresh, healthy vegetables.
- Walk to a colleague’s office rather than emailing or calling them.
- Conduct the meetings during walks.
Here is what you can do for better movements:
- Walk, maybe jog or sprint a little every day.
- Pick up the kids or groceries and lift them over your head.
- Dance, do whatever movement feels natural for you.
- The Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi are the most effective mindful movements to keep all organ systems especially endocrine, nervous and lymphatic system responsive.
- Regular AEROBIC EXERCISE is beneficial in making your heart stronger and works more efficiently by reducing the amount of fat that can build up which can interfere with electrical impulses necessary for the proper functioning of the heart.
7. Stay connected with a COMMUNITY around you
Get together with friends, family, and people with shared interests face-to-face; stop hiding behind the internet. Humans need connection and social support and you are no different. Tribes and close-knit communities are what helped us survive. Make spending quality time with family and friends a priority. Those with regular positive social interaction, tend to live longer and happier across all cultures.
8. PLAY & LAUGH
Play not only helps us stay connected and relieves stress, but it also sparks learning, imagination, creativity, and problem-solving (source), so perhaps more play just might be the creative in-sight need to discover the fountain of youth.
Perhaps if you let yourself laugh, joke, roll, jump, hide and seek, you’d all be a little happier, a little less worried, and have more energy to live a little longer. Plus, the fun of play can oftentimes lead to laughter and laughter is the best medicine.
Try to see the humor in life, be able to roll with the punches, and flow with life ups and downs and you’re sure to live a long life. Too much or too frequent stress causes the body to age more quickly; it negatively impacts the endocrine system, the adrenals, and even the heart.
9. Experience GRATITUDE, PEACE, & CONTENTMENT
Whenever possible, feel gratitude in your body, let that be the foundation of contentment and you will be at peace. This is the counterpoint to striving too hard, being continually dissatisfied with your life, and looking outward for happiness because all of this creates added stress and lowers mood, which impacts the quality of life, the willingness to live, and since the mind influences the body, physical health is also compromised.
One quote that comes to mind is, “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health” by A. J. Reb Materi.
Fortunately, to experience gratitude, peace, contentment, and the health and longevity it brings, you don’t have to spend money or time searching for it. These positive sentiments will see you through a happy life and their effects will ensure your body wants to live a long time in radiant health.
Observing these principles will have you eat right, maintain the community that nourishes your spirit, lift your mood, keep your brain sharp, and ensure your body is healthy to sustain yours for a long and vital life.
Leave a comment below and let us know what do you see as fundamental to a long and healthy life.
“Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.” – Osho
Why Fancy Yoga Postures Are Not Important
So it’s Monday evening and you are tired after a long day at work, but you just signed up for that cool Yoga class, so you drag yourself there. But after the warm-up and a few simple poses, the teacher asks everyone to do a handstand, a headstand or who knows what kind of crazy arm balance pose.
Everyone seems to go for it, so you try it as well. But you end up falling, diving into your nose or even injuring yourself. You were never good at arm balances, but you see everyone doing them on social media, claiming that they feel so amazing afterwards. But those complicated poses you see on Instagram are the results of years of practice and a life long journey of yoga. There are many factors involved in what poses someone can or cannot do, and they include age, occupation, body type, joints, range of motions, genetic tissue composition and the acquired postural habits.
And the truth is that head standing or arm balances don’t matter. None of the fancy looking postures are that important, and not a single posture will make a huge difference in your life or bring you closer to enlightenment. What’s more important is to do the poses suited for your level and experience, to stick to yoga on the long term and to gradually get better at it.
The History of Yoga
While yoga has been around for thousands of years, the truth is that these fancy poses are relatively new. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a popular text from the second century does not mention any postures at all, except for seated meditation. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a book from the 14th century only includes 15 poses, which are quite basic.
The first texts with more complex yoga poses only appeared in the 1800s and become more popular in the mid-1900s. So they are new practices that were definitely not performed by our ancestors and the inventers of yoga. There are now hundreds of postures and new ones are invented regularly. Does this mean that you need to learn and master ALL the postures in order to reap the benefits of yoga? Definitely not!
What Should You Do Instead?
If you really want to do those fancy yoga poses, you simply need to be patient and to practice them a lot. Anyone can develop certain skills with the right training and persistence. But if you are a regular person that does yoga once or twice a week, then it’s more important to develop skills and mobility that can help you in the day to day life.
A responsive body with good reflexes and a good balance will help you to walk and to run better, to have a quicker response when slipping on ice or to avoid certain dangers and injuries. Having mobility will allow you to easily perform cleaning or gardening tasks and keep up with your children when playing with them. And the great part is that you only need a few yoga and Pilates postures in order to break free from pain and mobility limitations, and to live a better life.
Because of certain health issues and severe limitations, some people may not do any yoga poses at all. But they still can benefit from the meditation and the yoga philosophies & practices that make you calmer and more emotionally balanced. They can also make you love yourself more and love others as well, and least but not last they can help you discover your true self and accept who you are.
Many people have reached a state of wellbeing without ever being able to stand on their head or on their hands. Some have even become successful yoga teachers without being able to perform ALL of the crazy acrobatic yoga techniques.
Not being able to perform certain poses discourages a lot of people and they quit yoga altogether. But this should not happen. You should go there because it makes you feel better and you like it. You should not feel forced to do yoga just because it’s cool and looks good on social media. The yoga mat should become your best friend and you should really look forward to using it. Even if you don’t always get to the classes, you can take a few minutes at home (or even at the office), and just seat in silence, reflect and meditate. This can be more beneficial than going to a yoga class on a Monday evening and performing a head stand.
If it seems like fun and you feel like doing those poses, sure, go for it! But if it doesn’t feel right and only makes you feel uncomfortable and inadequate, just forget about it and focus on the poses that you CAN do. Sticking to yoga and Pilates on the long term is much more important than one single fancy pose.
In case you need a healthy diet approach, mindfulness coaching or Yoga & Pilates classes, the Abbysan Center is here to help. Contact us today!