MEASURE CAN RHYME WITH PLEASURE

To have a good weight and figure, you don’t need to suffer.

To have “ideal” measures, you just have to be wise and smart.

To make a good start, take notice of these hints.

1) BioLogic

If you think about what human beings were made to be, you’ll find that we lead lives much different than we were supposed to.

The Human Being was made to

- run for hunting

- sleep once the sun sets

- starve through rough seasons

- seek food and shelter, walking for miles to find a safe place to create a family

The Modern Human Being

- drives a car, uses elevators and treadmills

- goes to sleep after 10 PM (sometimes you better call it before 6 AM)

- has a fridge and a supermarket

- live in the apartment just down the street

No wonder that, with all the technological evolution running faster than biological evolution, the human race hasn’t had enough time to adapt to the new circumstances: abundance.

You don’t need to go to the woods and hunt rabbits, wearing a cat fur and sleeping on the hard rock. Save the cat fur for a cocktail and woods/hunting/sleeping on hard rock for camping.

All you need to do is change a few habbits of your daily life.

a) Eat regularly. This means you will re-learn the feeling of hunger – that is, to differenciate it from glutony. To do this, start eating meals every 3 hours. Don’t eat before the 3 hours and after the 3 hours have passed, eat even if you are not hungry. After a week or so doing this, you will have acquired a healthy eating rythm.

b) Eat properly at every meal. Staring with breakfast – NEVER MISS YOUR BREAKFAST – it is the most important meal of the day and it will provide you energy throughout the morning. Have a nice balance between carbohydrates, proteins and vegetables at main meals. You should be feeling satisfied by the end of the main dish – if not, have one more serving of vegetables. Always have fruit for dessert. If you still want to have a sweet after that, go ahead – but just a little portion!

c) Have 3 main meals and 2 small meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be the main meals – so they will be more complete and provide you more nutrients. The mid-morning and mid-afternoon small meals will keep your sugar level stable and give you some more energy to finish the half-day. If you can, dinner should be lighter than lunch.

d) Early to bed, early to rise. This may be one of the most important changes you make. You will feel more energetic after just 3 days and you will be more efficient at everything you do. Try to do the work in the morning instead – you’ll see how the day becomes longer!! A good trick is to sleep with the curtains open, so you wake up slowly as the sun rises. It will feel wonderful!

e) Exercise daily. It doesn’t mean you’d have to run the marathon everyday, but at least take a 30 min walk, take the stairs, walk to the supermarket or to work, walk your dog, you name it!!

f) Eat as few sweets as you can. If you really, really have to eat some, do it at the end of a main meal – this way, it will be less absorbed. If you one of those people (like me…) who have a sweet tooth, don’t cut sweets completely, or you’ll be in a bad mood. Try to reduce to the minimum – either only once a day, once a week, once a month (OH MY GOD…)…

g) Go natural. Processed foods are (evolutionnary speaking) something new. This includes, nowadays, most of the available foods. But there are quite a few choices that can be quite au naturel. Fruit, raw vegetables, fresh fish and meat and whole-grain fruits are good examples.

2) Moderation

A good rule to follow anytime. In Portugal we have a funny expression: “neither 8 nor 80″. To be too fat is bad for you, but to be too skinny also. To exercise too much can cause you damage, but not to exercise at all can have quite as nasty consequences.

So the diets that cut completely with one type of nutrient (carbohydrate, protein, vitamins…) cannot be healhty. Nor can those that make you spend one week only drinking juices and water. And I don’t have to talk about the eat-what-you-want-whenever phylisophy.

Also, working out for 3 hours a day will most certainly make you lose those extra pounds, but you will get them back in no time once you strain your knee. Ironically, you can also strain your knee from not using it…

So, bottom line: in middle lies the virtue.

Eat with moderation. Drink with moderation. Exercise with moderation. Sleep with moderation.

Have health in abundance =).

3) Go for the long-run

It’s harder to stick to a health program than to attain a goal.

It’s easy to think: “I need to fit these pants in 2 months” and to have that motivation in your head all of those 60 days. But then… “I am already thin, I an have this cake!” or “Gained some weight? No problem, I’ll lose it next week” or even worse “I’ll skip the next three meals to compensate for this fast-food”.

Oh no, you won’t. That’s what they call a Yo-Yo. You know what are the first things to appear on women when you do this? Skin striations. Those you can’t lose. Never ever. And the bad consequences go from bad to worse.

Not to mention the peace of mind you can get to have a stable health, a healthy weight, a healthy skin, a good and honest smile an zero fear of the scale.

That’s what you get from adopting that lifestyle indefinitely.

I remind you that it doesn’t mean you can’t make a little sin or two once in a while. You can and you should. I try to do it once a week – more commonly twice – generally on fridays. On the day you chose to skip the healthy living, really do it. That way, you’ll feel satisfied and it will be natural for you to keep sticking to healthy choices for the rest of the week – causa you had a bit of something you really wanted. No sacrifice, just choices!

4) Ask for help when you need

There are people whose job is, exactly, to improve your health, wether it is a physician, nurse, sports teacher, nutritionist or, simply, a friend.

If you feel like something is wrong with you, don’t be afraid to share. And please, do!

5) Don’t worry, be happy!

The most important thing is that you feel good about yourself. If you need to be more in shape to feel better, than do it. If you need to lower your cholesterol to reduce your cardiovascular risk, then go for it!

Any change in your lifestyle should be slow and progressive, or your body will resent you and won’t be able to keep up.

Be patient and make the choices that are the best for YOU. If you care about yourself, then it’s a pretty good start! If you are reading things on the web or on books, you are already taking some steps!

Keep up!!! Good luck!!!