Introduction to Extraordinary Health:

Extraordinary health can be achieved through a combination of regular and a balanced diet, we all know that. Right? Additionally, a positive mindset plays a crucial role in maintaining extraordinary health. But in this article, we will understand 6 principles to achieve extraordinary health.

To begin with, According to WHO, Obesity has nearly tripled in recent times. More than 1 billion people worldwide are obese -650 million adults, 540 million adolescents and 39 million children. The numbers are still increasing.

Additionally, WHO also estimates that by 2025, approximately 167 million people will become less healthy because they are overweight and obese.

Besides, Obesity is a disease that impacts most of the body system. It affects the heart, liver, kidney, joints and reproductive system. It leads to Type-II diabetes, Hypertension, Thyroiditis, Cardio-vascular diseases, cancer as well as mental health issues.

The key to preventing obesity and achieve extraordinary health is to act early, i.e. to develop healthy lifestyle and food habits. For more details about extraordinary health, read my article 4 principle for well-being.

Let’s discuss about 6 principles to achieve extraordinary health.

There are 6 principles to develop diseases free and extraordinary health;-

1. What to eat
2. How to eat
3. When to eat
4. When to stop eating
5. Exercise
6. Sleep

First, we have to understand what is the diet which leads to health loss, energy loss and metabolic loss. Diet has to be a representation of what you will be eating your entire life. Diet is not starvation. Our body needs nutrition to gain extraordinary health.

It is a bitter truth that so many diets are launched in the market, but they are just for profitable business making and not for extraordinary health gain. For example, Crash diet, Vegan diet, Low-carb diet, Low calories diet, Keto diet, Detox diet, etc all these types of diet looks like a punishment.

By following such diets, we look thinner within few days or few weeks, but we don’t know that we have lost essential fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals. Due to which we will have to face the problems of hair loss, feeling lethargic, skin wrinkles, muscle loss, hormonal imbalances and vitamin B12, D3 deficiencies.

Now, you might think, what is the solution? Solution is to never go on extreme diets, they are not sustainable and just don’t work. It should be a diet which we can follow for more than 05 years and live disease free for a lifetime.

The conclusion is “Never go on a diet: Modify your Lifestyle”

Principle No 1: “What to eat ?” to achieve extraordinary health:

Everybody seems to know what we should not eat – sweets, fried foods, etc. but there is a confusion about what should we eat. Let me try to solve this confusion.

1. Carbohydrates: Carbs are responsible for providing our body with the energy, most importantly carbs helps in the functioning of our brain cells and neurons. Carbs are classified as simple (refined) and complex.

Moreover, Carbs are also classified by their glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). GI is defined as carbs depending on how quickly they lead to an increase in our blood glucose and insulin levels.

High GI lead to sharp rise in the blood glucose level and low GI leads to slow, steady rise in the blood glucose level. High GI food like packaged and processed foods get converted to fat quickly and low GI food like whole grain, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds have a much better chances of getting utilized for energy instead of getting stored as fat.

On the other side, Glycemic load (GL) is based on glycemic index and portion size. GL will tell you what exact amount of glucose will increase after eating.

GL = Total carbs * Glycemic Index / 100

In fact, Low GI complex carbs is the right choice to eat as the absence of carbs, fats cannot be utilized for energy. Carbs provide body with many essential nutrients and fibre. Fibre slows down the release the glucose in the blood and reduce the GI of food. Fibre also leads to feeling of fullness and helps in digestion and bowel movement. Whole grain, green peas, lentils, berries, nuts and seeds should be eaten in right proportion.

• Protein: It helps to burn fats. To lose fat, the body must be able to increase the circulation and mobilization of stored fat. Then these fats need to be converted to energy. To improve circulation of stored fat and to break it down into energy, the body needs several nutrients. One of the most important nutrients is methionine. Methionine can be supplied to the body in adequate amount by balanced diet and consuming good quality of protein like fish, eggs, milk products, soybeans and whey.
• Fat: It plays a big role in our body. It helps us survive during periods of prolonged mental and physical stress, sickness and prolonged starvation. Fat is stored as adipose tissue in the body from where the energy can be used in extreme cases. Fat is for our body’s survival for bad times. It is the only nutrient that can help us for survival through the difficult phase of our life. Hence eat Fat to lose Fat.
• Vitamins and Minerals: All vitamins and minerals play an important role for enzymatic, chemical and metabolic reactions of the body. These vitamins and minerals don’t provide us energy but for body’s cellular repair, they are very important so that we can use our energy.

A high intake of packaged, processed food, stress, smoking, alcohol, late night eating and other sedentary lifestyle are increasing our need for vitamins and minerals. All vitamins and minerals work together, they do not work in isolation. For one vitamin absorption, other vitamins are necessary. Hence, we will need a well balanced diet, regular exercise and to be in relaxed state of mind to improve the absorption of vitamins and minerals.

Vitamin A, B-complex, C, D, E,K and minerals like iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, selenium, zinc, copper, chromium, manganese, etc are necessary for good health.

• Water: About 70 % of the human body is water. It is the most important nutrient in our body. Water is primary transporter of nutrients in the body. Drink enough water so that your urine is always crystal clear, not light yellow, dark yellow or reddish.

Principle No 2: “How to eat ?” to achieve extraordinary health:

This principle is very important to achieve extraordinary health. It is important to keep “3-S” in mind while eating. 1. Sit 2. Slow and 3. Senses.

Sitting in crossed legged comfortable position (sukhasana) helps in improving our digestion process. Getting up and sitting down elevates the body movement. It helps you feel full earlier. Follow this pattern regularly if you want to lose fat. This position is also effective in relaxing our mind, helps in reducing fatigue and enhance blood circulation in our body, helps in maintaining a good posture.

Sitting down to eat our food makes us humble and more grounded. It also connects the family together, so make sure that you start eating your meals sitting on the floor with your family and loved ones and avoid gossip during meals.

Start eating preferably with your hands and eat slow. Chew your food slowly. Use your entire mouth and don’t just chew from one side of your jaw, while you have food in your mouth, don’t pick up food in your hand from plate, so that it helps us from overeating.

Eat food with all your senses and think about how the food gives us nourishment from within.

Principle No 3: “When to eat ?” to achieve extraordinary health:

This Principle depends on the “Infant Formula”. Babies always know the right amount and time to eat. Their feeding times are like clock work. Babies will always wake up at their regular times, they never seem to miss their meal timing and once they have had the right amount, they will not take even a sip more.

According to this formula, we should take meal regularly on time. We can digest the most amount of food between 7 am and 10 am and then we should listen to our body. Food should be put into the stomach according to the hunger.

Whether you want to lose weight or prevent acid reflux and other potential health issues, it is best to eat dinner before the sunset. This will ideally give your body a few hours to digest food before bedtime.

When you feel hungry, then eat. There are no health benefits of eating more often. It doesn’t improve blood sugar control. Study shows that eating more than your body requirements can cause weight gain. Recently, one research has examined the timing of meal intake and its effect on health. This concludes that it may not only be what you eat but also when you eat is what affects your body weight and health.

Principle No 4: “When to stop eating ?” to achieve extraordinary health:

According to Spiritual Science, someone has said “Listen to your body” and “Listen to what your mind is saying”. “You get only one life to live”. Each line described here is beautiful, but how should we interpret them?

For someone, Listen to your body means my body feels like eating this, which may not be healthy and not right for me, because consciousness or awareness is missing. Today without even knowing the requirement of our body, without checking the requirement of the mind, we are consuming anything. If we listen to our body and mind, we will never consume anything which is wrong for the body.

It is hard to understand that everything said has a right meaning. There is a lot of wisdom shared and all of them are beautiful, but our mind selectively picks what it wants with attachment of consciousness.

If you listen to your mind and body with awareness what is right for your mind and body, you will not consume anything in your body. which you are putting today, without being conscious of it. Don’t keep drinking and eating, thinking and speaking and doing without listening to that consciousness. That is why we keep eating anything while watching TV due to the unawareness.

Because our focus is on the Television and we are just putting anything into our mouth. That is why even for obesity, the first thing is advised to not eat anything while watching TV.

The conclusion is that “Listen to your body” means listen to the consciousness to know what is right.

Don’t suppress the consciousness each time, the wisdom inside will repeatedly tells you that you have eaten enough, yet we say that let me eat a little more, because we are not listening at that time. There is an inner voice which keeps guiding us towards what is right.

Now, let us look it in another way, India’s No 1 Nutrionist, Rujuta Diwekar teaches us Jordan Formula about when to stop eating.

Let us understand with an example the Jordan formula. When we eat 1 plate of Poha with protein shake, the second plate should be eaten only if we have space in the stomach to eat the third one. If the third plate is full enough to eat, then the second plate should be avoided. Same thing if you ate 2 plates of Poha, then third should be eaten only when you have space in the stomach to eat the fourth one.

This formula is enough to understand “when to stop eating” principle.

Principle No 5: “Exercise” to achieve extraordinary health:

The science of Exercise depends on 4 “S”. They are Strength, Stamina, Stability and Stretching. Let us look each one briefly.

1. Strength: Any exercise that makes your muscle work harder than usual is a strength exercise. Examples of muscles strengthening activities are lifting weights, working with resistance bands, climbing stairs, hill walking, cycling, dance, yoga, push-ups, sit-ups and squats.
2. Stamina: It is the strength and energy that allows us to sustain physical and mental effects for a longer period of time. Five ways to improve stamina are running, jogging, skipping, holding asanas and ashwagandha- a herb.
3. Stability: An enhanced sense of stability or balance doesn’t just protect us from future falls but there are other health benefits too. For example, one legged stand, weight shifts, yoga and Pilates, heel to toe walk, back leg raises, knee curl, toe stand, squats, side steps and back extension.
4. Stretching: Study has shown that stretching can help improve flexibility and range of motion of the joints. Better flexibility enhance physical activities and risk of injuries diminishes. For example, standing quad stretch, standing hamstring stretch, standing calf stretch and triceps stretch.

Principle No 6: “Restorative Sleep” to achieve extraordinary health:

One of the most ignored and under appreciated aspects of the good health is good quality sleep. During sound sleep our body repairs at the cellular level, enhances GH (Growth Hormone), activates our immune system. We might have forgotten its value. All the ancient cultures considered sleep as vital, rejuvenating property of body cells and mind also.

According to Ayurveda, Follow 3 habits on daily basis and get good quality sleep.

1. Fix your bedtime along with fixed wake up time
2. Warm water bath
3. Apply ghee on the soles of your feet

In summary, With the help of these 3 simple habits, we can synchronize our circadian rhythm, digestion and metabolism rate. And moreover our mind will also become calm and relaxed.

I hope that this article has introduced you to the “6 Principles for Maintaining extraordinary Health” and you find it worthy and implement the same.

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