Learning to Live Well IV - Fitness
Learning to live well is an ongoing process in anyone’s life. Growing and aging is something we all do and the more attention we pay to the process the better off we will be. As we continue this blog I will share with you another series of important words – Faith, Family, Fitness, Finance. These grow out of the progression of personal development presented in Learning to Live Well I, II, and III. They involve more intensive work and commitment so they will be presented in a separate series for each word. Having thought about:
I - Probabilities, Possibilities, and Productivity
II - Persona, Persistence, Perseverance
III - Survival, Security, Significance
I hope you will be challenged to continue growing in your life in the areas of Faith, Family, Fitness, Finance.
Fitness: [Fiscal Investment Toward Necessary Evolution Sustaining Self]
Good health is a prerequisite to a great life!
This one is all up to you! I am sure you are familiar with the old adage: “Use it or loose it”. Your overall wellness and fitness depends almost entirely on you. Your fitness is fiscal because it will take some money and time. Only you can enable your body, mind and spirit to evolve toward the necessities for sustaining yourself.
CARE – Constantly Appreciate and Respect Everyone
It is important that you practice care for yourself when it comes to your health and wellbeing. Appropriate care for yourself will enable you to live and work and be actively engaged in service and care for others. Fitness is the essence of who you are and what you become. There are four basic areas of concern that everyone needs to be attentive to in order to insure fitness – exercise, nutrition, good air and clean water.
Exercise, regular physical activity, is primary to good health, as almost everyone will tell you today. There are some basic investments you will need to make like: clothing, shoes, simple tools for accountability like a pedometer, iPod, etc. Fundamental walking or running can be done almost anywhere at any time. Should you feel the need for additional equipment for exercise in your home or for signing up to go to a gym it will require a bit more fiscal investment. It is absolutely necessary that you maintain regularity toward your progress to sustain yourself properly.
Accountability is a must! Certainly accountability to yourself in an honest manner is basic, but you may also want to become accountable to an individual or a group for consistent results. “Challenges... and to be challenged, can be very motivational. That added test or obligation can be the ultimate incentive that makes the difference between think; try; do. I can easily rationalize my own procrastination; but when I am accountable to another, that additional co-dependence provides the necessary incentive to push through my reluctance to achieve what I should do on my own. So joining a "group" benefits "me"... who'd a thought of that?” – Bill Stadnik (a teammate on VitaLife Fitness). This is a place you can go to gain access to the kind of co-dependence that Bill Stadnik speaks about and it is FREE.[i]
Nutrition is very important since the energy necessary to human life comes from how much and how well you eat. Good nutrition is difficult today for at least two reasons:
1. Fresh and nutritious food is hard to come by because very few people grow their own fruits and vegetables – or raise cattle for that matter. Most of our food comes from a supermarket that usually gets their produce from distant places.
2. Because of the time it takes to transport most of our produce it is not very fresh with all the nutrients that would be present if they were eaten soon after their harvest. There is an excellent online resource available that will goes into detail to explain. Please take a look to see some of the highlighted information it contains.[ii]
How do you know what may be a healthy diet for you? Surely there is no one plan that fits all. Common sense would tell us that the more active we are the more food we will need. On the other hand, the less active we are then we certainly do not need a large quantity. We are very fortunate in these United States to have a program that provides each of us with some specific and individual guidelines for good health. I invite you to go the this site called “MyPyramid” and look through all the advise and counsel that is available to you and your family.[iii]
For many of the above situations in today’s lifestyles there is another important aspect of nutrition that is becoming more necessary – nutritional supplements. Our bodies do not absorb chemicals very well and most supplements are mainly made up of chemicals formulas. This is why doctors have often said that vitamins are not very useful for nutrition since they are mainly excreted as waste. When it comes to nutritionals, BIOAVAILABILITY is probably the most important word when you consider taking any supplements. It means that biologically your body is capable of absorbing and digesting all the nutrients that are contained in the supplement because they are made of all natural ingredients. Supplements that are made of all natural ingredients from fruits and vegetables are not in most drugstores. Douglas Laboratories is certified to produce pharmaceutical quality nutritionals and may be obtained online at: www.JandDHealth.com. When you go there you can read about the certification of Douglas Labs and learn a lot more with Flash presentation and detailed articles.[iv]
Water is another important resource that your body needs to stay in healthy. Since the percentage of our bodies are mostly water we are a virtual water machine. Our energy level is impacted largely by our consumption of water. Unfortunately water around the world is contaminated because of the amount of chemicals – drugs, pesticides, fertilizes, etc. – that enters our water resources every day. There is no new source of water on the earth since it was formed (it is all recycled) and pollution levels continue to rise and remain in the earth, our water is increasing in these contaminates. Either we filter out these contaminants prior to consumption or we force our body to be the filter! As stated in a report from the National Cancer Institute to the Surgeon General, “No level of exposure to a chemical carcinogen should be considered technologically insignificant to humans”.
You might do well to do some research on this subject to protect yourself and your family by finding out what you can do about this growing problem. You can go to Wikipedia[v] – a free Encyclopedia online – or do a Google search for yourself to see why we are very serious about this. Water is clearly vital to your health and well being so it will be difficult to think you can Learn to Live Well without looking into the water you are drinking. Because we have been seriously involved with “Learning to Live Well” since 1977 we are able to share some real solutions to this problem on our website that provides considerable information regarding health.[vi]
Air is last but surely not least. Why? How long can you live without air – only minutes?[vii] Something as vital as this ought to be of major concern to one’s health and well being. To give some weight to the importance of the four things that are essential for everyone’s health and well being, I started with exercise because it should be a significant priority relating to health and lastly with air. Somewhere I was told that people always remember most the beginning and ending of a presentation.
I think most everyone is aware that much of our air is polluted. Depending on where you live your air will be for better or worse. Many may not realize that indoor air, without proper filtration, is worse than the outdoor air. To speak about this issue, here is a government website that has a lot of information about this.[viii] This article also speaks to the fact that this is one area of health concern that can be reasonably solved with minimum cost and equipment. Unfortunately there is a variety offered that vary in price and complication. To keep this article short I will try to summarize some basics that I hope will be helpful.
Hot air heat/and or air-conditioning: Filters are necessary for whole house units to protect the units themselves and to eliminate basic particles of dust that would be circulated inside. It is important that they do not block the flow of air that will inhibit their basic effect to heat and cool. Here is a more detailed explanation from NAFA.[ix]
HEPA filtration that can be very effective but also very costly to purchase and regularly change the filters. Here is a basic comprehensive explanation from NAFA regarding HEPA filters.[x]
Air Cleaners using Ultraviolet Light Germicidal Irradiation Technology. This technology uses no filters that need to be changed periodically and no chemical are involved. They are energy efficient using only pennies a day and the UV bulb lasts about one year before changing. There are also units that can be installed directly into existing air ducts for central air purification. We make these very efficient and less expensive models available on our JandD Health website.[xi]
As an entrepreneur I have spent all of my working life is service to others with regards to the whole person – body, mind, and spirit. We have created and established ministries for people in need, especially the disabled and autistic, through my pastoral opportunities as a priest in the Episcopal Church. Along with my partner, Dwight Tintle, we have also established relationships with other astute and professional people to make available the essential resources available to a health lifestyle.
In my retirement this blog is one way to summarize our life experience and knowledge. It hopefully will be helpful to those who need it or wish to continue to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the various ways they can maintain good health. Our next blog will talk about Finance. This is the one that most people put first, but good coaches over the years and life experience teach that healthy finance is a result or fruit of a good life. Take care.
[ii] http://www.foodsecurity.org/policy_trans03_brief.html
[iii] http://www.mypyramid.gov/
[iv] http://www.JandDInternational.com
[v] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution
[vi] http://www.janddinternational.com/index.html
[vii] http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2003-04/1049239760.En.r.html
[viii] http://www.epa.gov/iaq/index.html
[ix] http://www.nafahq.org/LibaryFiles/Articles/1Article002.htm
[x] http://www.nafahq.org/LibaryFiles/Articles/Article012.htm
[xi] http://www.janddinternational.com/Products.html
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