Gateways to Better Health
by KC Bajai
Weight lifting and fitness in general is a gateway activity that leads to other areas of overall health. After a certain amount of time – and this could actually be years – you will (hopefully) come upon the benefits of nutrition for both your physique and good health in general.
You will probably find yourself feeling more powerful and energetic as you fine tune your diet. This comes from being more in touch and in tune with your body as you use it more; regardless of whether it’s lifting weights, running, body weight training or practicing yoga or martial arts. At some point you will realize that what you just ate or drank gave you a boost, and while you wait for the crash, it doesn’t come.
As you continue what started as a (non-competitive) “body building” journey you are likely to find yourself becoming more spiritual; not that you’ll rush out and join a church or cult or something, but you will discover through your practice(s), the foods you consume and the new friends you meet, that living in joy and peace improves both your focus and thus the results of your workout.
As the fitness lifestyle evolves into a “healthy lifestyle” you’ll likely discover that you get sick less often. Nonetheless at some point you may start to actually understand and care about things like resting heart rate, basal metabolic rate, cholesterol numbers, triglycerides and different internal factors that could thwart your healthy progress if neglected.
However, if you’ve already incorporated physical activity, nutrition strategies, emotional control and high frequency attitudes into your lifestyle you’ll likely be happily surprised by your test results.
The magic of gateways to better health is that it doesn’t matter where you start. My personal story starts with weight training; some peoples’ stories start with quitting some kind of substance such as cigarettes and/or alcohol; some people start with nutrition and find their way to weight training, or yoga or running marathons.
The journey to healthy living can start anywhere but it brings you through some very specific territories. Once you realize that you want your body to look good, it’s not long before you want it to feel good as well. You want it to move easily in and out of situations and in order to do this it has to respond to your commands.
The realization of the importance of the spiritual realm or the outer, ethereal body comes to different people at different times in the journey, however at some point, in an effort to make the body feel good, you’ll have to eliminate or at the very least, channel and filter stress. This could lead you to the concept of moving positive energy in and around your body and the practices of massage, acupuncture and the chakra system.
My rational side wants to reduce a healthy lifestyle to a fixed number of essential elements, however I know there are more and the more I explore and learn the more elements reveal themselves. However, as an introduction let me just start with five [my favorite number for lists], in no particular order.
1. Nutrition, food, fuel, diet. This is essential and in the proper order, because fueling out body with food (matter) is what we do most. Nutrition also includes the kinds of vibrations we absorb and whom we surround ourselves with.
2. Body movement, exercise, activity and the like.
3. Emotional control. This can be simply stated as keeping calm, but this is easier said than done.
4. Medical – although I’m not the biggest fan of the medical industry, tests are useful in discovering what’s happening inside your body, arteries, veins your heart etc.
5. Spiritual – this can also get very complex, but to me it means understanding that we are one with the universe and everything around us. It means communicating with our subconscious self and recognizing our greater self. The spiritual element is very personal and there’s no absolute answer, the best advice is to find what works for you. If you are happy and getting good results stick with it. If it’s confusing, frustrating and brining you down, ditch it.
Ask anybody how far they can move into a healthy, fruitful, happy energetic lifestyle – and maybe they’ll tell you, ‘All the way.’ Because once you get there, there really is no turning back. Once you’ve mastered happy and calm, why would you want to go back to anxious and miserable?
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