Eating healthy is not enough to maintain a healthy body.
Today I will share with you what I have experienced and what has come to be a major eye opener for me.
For the past 18 months or so I have been working overtime in front of my computer, completely dedicating my time to my work. The course of my day would be working between 10 to 12 hours a day, and having quite a balanced diet, eating the correct amount of calories with sufficient nutritional values. Now, at face value one would think “OK, so he is working hard and is eating correctly, his on the right track”. After 18 months I realized that eating correctly does not necessarily lead to a healthy body and mind, and being in a “seated position” for 10 hours a day is one of the unhealthiest things that you could do to your body.
What I started noticing during these 18 months was that I started becoming more tired than usual during the course of the day. I was waking up more tired than I was before I went to bed and the worst was when I noticed that I was struggling to focus, which was affecting my work among other things. My “bad cholesterol” was going up and my “good cholesterol” stayed stable, and my blood pressure was bordering hyper tension. I had lost a lot of stamina. The fact that I was in a stationary position (seated) for most of my day meant that I was not getting nearly enough exercise.
When I finally came to the conclusion that the reason I was feeling so bad was because I was not being physically active enough, I decided to do something about it. One thing I knew from the start was that I did not want to put myself through a hard exercise regimen. I wanted something simple and that is what I landed up doing.
I decided that for every hour that I sat and worked at my desk, I would devote 5 minutes of my time to walking. I would walk around the outside of my house, the inside of my house, around the street block and wherever I could just so that I could get my 5 minutes of walking time. I even had my “walking shoes” (sneakers) at my desk whenever I decided to go for a longer walk than usual. I calculated that I was working at least 12 hours a day which meant that I would have to walk at least an hour a day. I managed to commit myself to this regimen without a hitch, and started noticing a difference in how I was feeling after a week or so. I started waking up more revitalized, I started feeling more energized and my focus was going back to normal. After 2 weeks of following my “walking” program I felt like a new person again, I was completely back to normal with little to no issues regarding my health. My Blood pressure was normal, blood oxygen was great, both cholesterol counts were perfect and I was not feeling one ounce of sluggishness during the course of my day. This all came about after making the decision to get and walk a bit during my day.
My walking shoes (sneakers)
This proves to me that although one can eat a healthy diet and do all the correct things in regards to eating habits it is just as important to make sure that our bodies have the correct amount of daily exercise. If one thinks about it, one hour of walking is a simple thing to do to make sure our bodies stay healthy.
So to sum it all up, if you are wanting to maintain a healthy body and mind, make sure that not only do you eat correctly, but also keep your body in motion as much as possible. I am not saying that you should run a half marathon on a daily basis, but a simple walk everyday will do the trick.