HEALTHY LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT

Lifestyle management programmes are closely linked to the concept of health promotion, which is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. Based on this, a lifestyle management programme is defined as a structured, action-oriented health promotion initiative designed to help individuals improve their health, reduce health risks and promote healthy behaviours.

In today’s fast paced world, daily office work has become more taxing and task driven. Alongside that daily travel has become very cumbersome and time consuming. Life has become very difficult. As a result people maintain very poor food and fitness habits. In other words, people begin to develop lifestyle disorders. Lifestyle disorders can happen due to many factors such as hypertension, diabetes, stress, obesity, and psychological disorders, etc. to name a few.

Now that we know what are the causes of these lifestyle disorders, we should be definitely try and find out how we can prevent these lifestyle disorders. A healthy lifestyle should be our way of life. It’s not that we follow this lifestyle only for a short while and then go back to our old food and fitness habits. We should plan our daily food and fitness in such a way, that we enjoy following this every day. These days very few people concentrate on following a regular food and fitness regimen. These are mostly sportspersons & those whose professions demand proper health and fitness. As a result, the remaining who does not follow a regular food and fitness regimen have started developing major illnesses at a very young age.

An amateur person would say good health is solely an absence of sickness and diseases. This is not at all true as the term ‘health’ is much more inclusive. A person is said to have good health only if his all-round physical, social, mental and spiritual well-being is good. There is an age-old popular phrase, “Health is wealth”. So, Health and fitness are very important aspects of a person’s lifestyle. Being fit and healthy is not as hard as climbing a mountain; just changing a few simple things will be of substantial help. A person can start by doing small changes in diet, and that would start to yield the benefits.

When we are concentrating on developing a healthy lifestyle, there are 2 major areas we have to improve i.e. diet and fitness. We will first talk about fitness. Fitness or physical exercise is also important to develop and maintain good health. Daily physical activity offers benefits like improved blood circulation and a healthy body. We need not necessarily hit the gym everyday to have a healthy physique; we can do few physical exercises every day like walking or jogging, cycling, swimming, etc. Physical fitness is very much essential for a healthy life. Note that only physical exercise without adequate diet and rest will create fatigue. So, understand that a proper diet, proper exercises and adequate rest alone can help improve and maintain the lifestyle of any person.

Now, we had already seen the definition of Diet in the 1^st chapter. The food that we daily consume is called diet. But what is important is we need to know what food to eat, how much quantity of food to eat and when to eat. And much of our health depends on these 3 mentioned factors. Therefore, we should ‘eat to live and not live to eat’. We should eat the right foods to improve and health and well-being.

Many people eat at their will, & still don’t show any weight gain. Though this may look harmless now, this could health repercussions in the near and distant feature. So, how much quantity of food we eat daily matters a lot. For Example, curd is good for one’s intestine but too much of curd is not advisable. Similarly, there are multiple other healthy foods which we must consume albeit in the right quantity.

Also, we should not restrict ourselves to just one kind of food for all the days. We have to eat multiple kinds of healthy food, so that our body doesn’t lack on any of the nutrients. Maintaining a healthy diet increases our vigour and vitality. This helps us in involving ourselves daily in some kind of physical activity, which in turn helps us to live a long and happy life.

Each one of us would have different kinds of food working for us. And we really don’t know what all that could be. Also, we don’t know all the foods which are good or not so good. So, it would always be better to consult a dietician and nutritionist, who would guide on this. Remember, the small steps that we take today would be rewarding for us both in the near and the distant future.

Negligence in health and fitness matters is what is of serious concern even for the younger generation. Diseases that were once only known among the elderly like diabetes, cancer, and heart disorders, etc. is today fast affecting even our younger generation.

These days most people are affected by mood swings that come from diets that do not include all the nutrients in the right proportion. There are some people who prefer potatoes daily at breakfast, lunch and dinner. They would not add other vegetables or fruits in their diet. Having too many potatoes can cause digestive issues such as abdominal discomfort, bloating and gas.

Also, as mentioned previously, we should equally focus on diet as well as physical exercises. If one does have a very good diet, but are hardly involves in any physical exercise, that person cannot get healthier. The drawbacks outweigh the benefits. Similarly, a person needs to focus not only on exercise but on diet as well, as having strenuous physical exercises without a proper diet will certainly have negative consequences for one’s health.

So, to summarize, nutrition and fitness are essential for a healthy lifestyle management. In other words, a balanced diet, regular exercise & sound sleep are the prerequisites for a healthy lifestyle management. Note, this is the key to a fruitful and prosperous life. Face or our external personality is the reflection of what we eat. Hence maintaining a healthy lifestyle would make us look and feel good. It would also keep us from very severe ailments and ill health. Though it’s clearly understandable that it is difficult to maintain consistency in following a healthy lifestyle, it is a very important thing to take care of one’s health. It’s is not as cumbersome as thought by many.

We need to take a firm decision in this regards, and follow up for a healthy lifestyle. Prevention is better than cure, so we ought to take care of the bodies that God has given to us. We need to maintain our health well, as we are God’s creation. In the further chapters we would see further how to go about following a healthy lifestyle.

- by James J.