If you type up Weight Loss in a keyword tracker tool or in a search engine like Google, you will be alarmed to see how many searches in a day are being done on this subject alone. Take submit express.com for example, put weight loss in their word tracking device; you will see that on a daily basis, more than 5000 searches are being done on how to lose weight. However, this shouldn’t be alarming, I mean the average person does have the desire to be liked, sought after, and popular. This might explain why we are so captivated with celebrities and perhaps why we at times blindly follow whatever fad or trend they might propagate in the quest to lose weight and be slimmer, sometimes at the cost of our own health.
An observation of Nature will show that no animal free of captivity is upholstered with excess weight and are oft times very fit, agile and sharp. This is because unlike man, all animals adhere to the simple laws of nature to maintain health which include eating the right foods for your type and getting adequate exercise. Well these are the basic laws, others might include getting sufficient rest, getting sunshine, interacting with others.
There are so many myths and fads that promise to aid you in losing weight that when they are intelligently dissected will make you wonder what ever made you think to give them a shot, which is part of the reasons why I am writing this to inform you that as the slogan of my site on drugless healing says: “if one way is true, it is the way of nature?Moreover, Nature bows at no alter, seeks neither praise nor applause, she only asks for a hearing, my friends.
For weight loss, your best bet will be to embrace the three limbs of Naturopathy:
-Proper Exercise
-Proper Diet
-Positive Thinking.
Now I will explain each one in brief detail:
PROPER EXERCISE:
Now, there was a time, like almost everyone, that I assumed big and inflated muscles meant fitness and health. Wrong. Maybe it might depict strength-to a degree and that, for only a while, but you ask anybody about one of the greatest martial artists of all time, Bruce Lee, here was a guy who was said to do a thousand (1000) push-ups and other feats of strength and any picture of him shows he was not a blown up mass of muscle waiting to atrophy and deflate as is the case with most fitness experts and body-builders using artificial supplements, I mean look at the agedness depicted across their faces most of the time.
This leads one to conclude that for exercise, basic Aerobic-with oxygen-exercises (such as walking, jogging, and dancing) and Anaerobic-without oxygen-exercises (such as push ups, pull-ups, dips, using the ab-wheel and weight lifting for body builders) can be sufficient without the use of synthetic products. For those who want an exercise for the mind as well as the body, Yoga definitely is unmatched. From my experience, if you were to do the Sun Salutations (hailed in Yoga, Martial Arts and African Wrestling as the ‘best exercise for humans? which have been passed down from centuries with a proper and sensible diet, which I will be explaining soon, you are well on your way to weight loss and strength.
Some Indians perform about a 100 plus rounds of this marvelous exercise on a daily basis and have immense fitness, strength, agility and virility. Add some other poses like the inversions (Shoulder-Stand), Forward Bends (Head to Knee Pose), Backward bends, Balancing Poses (arguably the best exercises to tone the arms, abdomen and restore a sense of balance and self confidence in humans who practice them) and you are bound to see the immense results. Speaking of emulating celebrities, well did you know Sting, Madonna, Russell Simmons, Beyonce and Prince all practice some form of Yoga and need I mention how fit and good they look?
I could go on and on about Abdominal exercises and Breathing Exercises of the Yoga genre (which in the case of the latter is also EXTREMELY effective for weight loss) but that will be another subject in itself, the bottom line is: in my opinion, exercises that use the body’s weight for resistance such as Yoga, Calisthenics and Pilates are arguably the best for the human body. Have you ever seen a chimpanzee lifting rocks repeatedly? Yet that distant cousin of humans can rip a door off a car and is easily 8 times stronger than an average modern day human. Still, if we share about 98% DNA with this primate (as well as other apes), its evidence to make one wonder how much healthier and fit we would be by adhering and living as close as possible to Nature’s laws of diet and exercise.
PROPER DIET
-“You are what you eat?(Anonymous)
-“Let your foods be your medicine and your medicine your food?(Hippocrates, the father of medicine)
-“Every herb bearing seed and every tree bearing fruit with seed in it shall be yours for food?(Gen 1:29)
From these radical quotes above, it should be plain to see that most modern day meals and mixtures are totally against Nature’s intent for us as humans for fitness, agility and strength. It will be safe to say that if you want to lose weight, re-read these three quotes and the proper diet will stare you right in the face: Fruits and Vegetables.
Admittedly, and you can take this from a guy who was a raw vegan for several months,(Now, I mostly fast and eat mono meals of fruit and raw or cooked vegetables every other day) that might be kind of hard to accomplish or adhere to. Well, if you approach it the wrong way, being radical in nature and as with all things that don’t have a strong foundation, you may be bound to fail.
The good news is there are several books on the subject of this kind of a diet and though adequately addressed in the core e-book of my site, you can type up Vegan Diets, Raw Vegan Diets, Vegetarianism in any search engine to be educated-to a degree- on the subject. I have experimented with each of the three kinds of diets and have been on the Standard American diet and am now of the firm belief that the first two and maybe the third if done sensibly and wisely are the best for humans, period!
I touched on the subjects of internal cleanliness and non-animal product diets in my article available in my blog and some article directories under the title “Is a Low-Carb, High Protein diet the best for weight loss??but I will briefly state again that based on the quotes above, and the facts that this diet has been proven countless times to be the best (Ask Bill Pearlman-four times Mr. Universe winner!), without the need for much of an argument, a diet free of animal products is simply the best for humans.
For an idea of a daily menu, you can look for my article “How to Cure Acne in 10 days?in some of the major article directories online, last time Google did its spider crawl, it came up in most of them but I also put in my blog for my readers just in case.
I’ll leave you with this factor to consider though on the subject of proper diet, based on the anthropological approach of several authors of Naturopathy, and from simple observations, we as primates, just like our distant cousins, the great apes, are frugivores, eaters of mainly fruits and green leaves and it cannot be a co-incidence that these substances make up the mucus-less or alkaline forming foods that even science has proven to be the best for human life and of course, weight loss.
POSITIVE THINKING:
Some quotes from perhaps the most rugged book ever put together, that being the Bible, bring to mind just how important it is to think positively-and wisely so-in any endeavor one is undertaking. “As a man thinks in his heart; so is he…” and “Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life? That stated, what you constantly think over and over is eventually what comes to pass.
The mind has such powers that are beyond human comprehension at times, but according to the author of the “Power of Positive Thinking? Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, “You are what you are now based on your thoughts five years ago and will be in five years what you constantly think of yourself now.?Although one’s thoughts are very important, without taking the steps to act on them (of course when they are constructive and positive) they do end up being a waste, but your reading this article does depict a desire to want to improve yourself be it through weight loss or any other factor.
Like with any journey in life, of course, you will have times when you may want to give up, lose faith or focus and consequently get off the path to success, which may explain why most people fail at diets and fads in the quest of losing weight, well, my friend, you will have to literally tune your thinking to be positive so as to overcome the doubts and fears as you go about accomplishing your goals. It honestly will be easier applying the two other limbs of drugless healing above for weight loss as they do go hand-in-hand.
In conclusion, forget the fads and hypes. For a healing program to be successful at anything, especially weight loss, it must cover the three limbs of health: diet, exercise and positive thinking. It is my hope that this article will show you how to choose the best methods of attaining not only weight loss, but fitness and health on the inside and out.
Foras Aje is the author of the e-book Fitness-Inside and out, a book on Naturopathy about Yoga, Calisthenics, Proper diet and mental attunements. For more information on health, fitness and Drugless Healing, visit http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com or read his blog at http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com/wp/index.php