Mental Vitamins

(mark19). Submitted on Mon, 22 Aug 2011

"The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes



A fitness lifestyle requires diet, supplementation and exercise. These are the basics. Take away one and we fail. Do all three well, and we turn into what we want. Add some new thoughts every day (along with the recommended dose of ginkgo biloba, perhaps), and we may dramatically exceed our expectations.

Getting into a fitness lifestyle is not easy. Generally, there are objections to not only starting one, but following through in a responsible and dedicated manner. We have psychological resistances that seem to forever hold us back. These can be anything from being too old to start to being too busy to invest the necessary time. Most always they are due to what made sense to our parents and their physicians.

If we want to get healthy and look good in the mirror, we must get beyond our resistances. That is where the mental vitamins come in. We not only need ginkgo biloba, but a daily input of new ideas and thinking. That is as important as our diets, supplements and daily workouts. We must expose ourselves to what other fit people are doing and saying. If we do not, we will stay in our own ruts, locked into the attitudes of the last fifty years. That is the sure way to go back to our old ways-- the sure way to quit within three months, long before we have the chance to transform.

Much has been said about diets. It is now commonplace to assume that best ones are low-fat, low-sugar with simple gluten-free carbohydrates and adequate protein. But this may not be obvious if we only know about outdated food pyramids or three balanced meals from the four food groups. That has been the advice of the last fifty years, something assumed my many of us to be no more than common sense, no less than right.

When it comes to exercise, we have been told that rest and relaxation are what we need for a healthy life. This is the surest way to get us to our mid-eighties. As life expectancy has increased, that may not be the worst advice The only trouble is that it does not specify what we will look like when we get there. New studies indicate that a  daily minimum of a half hour of cardio-vascular activity is indeed what we require to maximize our longevity. Being unfamiliar with this new thinking may make us think that taking it easy is the only thing that we, as adults, should be all about.

Supplements are important as well. Knowing what is on the market, what they can do, and what they can prevent is crucial. The problem is that our MDs generally do not believe in them, and some of our less than healthy congress people try to ban them. Thus, we may be unjustifiably suspicious of them, feeling that we are perilously on our own. But, with supplements' relatively harmless nature (when compared to the side-effects of pharmaceutics to say nothing of pharmacy errors), we can and should feel safe enough to indulge in some thoughtful, responsible experimentation.

Reputable vitamin stores have internet write-ups on the nutrients they sell. Even if they have ten thousand separate items, a not uncommon claim, they still have explanations of what each product does--why it is good. That is the beauty of the age we live in. There is seemingly endless information at our finger tips. All we have to do is our homework, ideally a little bit each day.

Last, there are stories of people who have made it in the fitness world. The most notable is the late Jack Lalanne. There is a lot which he has written and which others have written about him. The only problem is that initially he may come across as if from outer space. Who can really relate to pulling seven barges in the San Francisco Bay on their seventieth birthday? Nonetheless, all about Jack is on the internet, beginning with him being a sugar-addict as a youth.

We also need to know that he was still doing a heavy Mr. America workout for two hours a day at ninety-six. That is the kind of fact which makes age nothing more than  just a number. Too many of us still think that fitness is only for high school kids. That is something which we need to radically get over. Knowing about Jack can make that happen.

After making the decision to trade in the American good life with its rest, relaxation, grocery store food, and dubious One-a-Days for a fitness lifestyle, we need some ginkgo biloba and some new ideas to keep us going. For most of us, this might mean having an intelligent workout partner, ideally a spouse. That can be a mental vitamin as well.

Having someone on our side is always a plus. Going it on our own can be a blueprint for failure. People who do are still called health nuts--immature individuals in need of the "wise counsel" of pot-bellied, pessimistic, normal "superiors." That is still the case after eighty years of Lalanne's example and lecturing. Knowledge--mental vitamins-- can free us from all that.

As most of us are in front of a computer for at least an hour a day, the easiest way to get our intellectual mental vitamins is to subscribe to health oriented website feeds. A very good one is from Dr.Mercola (Google Dr Mercola), who has dedicated himself to keeping people up to speed on the new advances. He sends newsletters twice a week. Being aware of what he has to say can make the difference we need.

There are other resources as well. A little Googling of fitness and health-related options will highlight ones which are suitable to each of us. Granted, perusing too many at once can result in complete indecision. But, a little trial and error, while adhering to a well-thought out fitness plan, can get and keep us current enough to free ourselves from the health-dogmas of the last fifty years. That is what we all must do if we are going to make the mirror our best friend and keep from adding to the skyrocketing health costs which are crippling our country.

For further thought on how our thinking relates to fitness order my book "Think and Grow Fit."



 

About the Author

Obese 48 years ago; state champion power lifter 1978; in better shape today at 63 than when on swim team in high school

http://blog.foreverfitness.info (subscribe for weekly fitness updates)

Author of "Think and Grow Fit" the no hype guide to getting fit and staying that way forever

http://www.foreverfitness.info  (6.00 ebook or 15.95 softcover from publisher I_Universe, Amazon or Barnes and Noble)

YouTube - mcfitnessguru19

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