Health, Diet and Sport– an Insurmountable Triad

They say that without achieving good health & fitness markers, the prospects of living a fulfilling and productive life become more and more remote.

A Word to the Wise

This is not just a pithy saying (meant to inspire the typical couch-potato or closet food junkie to get back on the treadmill), but a subject backed up by real-life evidence and experience. Can you imagine going about your day with a rioting bout of a headache – one that has been brought on by the culinary excesses of the night before, and the decision not to pursue any kind of sporting activity for an extended period of time? Even if you can accommodate such a feat in your typical working week, chances are that you might not be able to meet your usual round of daily work and personal challenges with your game face on, and a mind that is both sharp and alert!

In order to offset any such debilitating health occurrences from ensuing within the lives of individuals, all fitness authorities (including medical personnel, dieticians and gym trainers – among other specialists) recommend daily sessions of muscle building & fat-burning exercise coupled with a healthy diet. By following such a proactive regimen of targeted and holistic bodily therapy, you can not only minimize the chances of contracting an entire range of common ailments from affecting your health but also serve as a motivating influence for some of the special people in your life – by way of positive peer pressure. For more on this topic, check out the many informative health blogs and articles available online – by subscribing to one of several Optimum Triple Play.

The Positive Reinforcement-Feedback Health Loop

No human being can thrive in a vacuum, or a continued state of isolation where he/she is not influenced (whether positively or adversely) by the presence of others. When a certain individual appears to be in good shape – where the outward façade corresponds directly with increased bodily mobility as well as a more engaging & active social life –the people who come into contact with him/her are inspired to imagine the same fitness conditions for themselves.

This positive feedback loop, which is collectively set up in the sociological sphere that permeates through every established community and household, successively enthrones the healthiest (and most exuberant) individual into its center – who is simultaneously taken off the proverbial ‘pedestal’ when someone with a more vibrant health profile comes marching along. And so this spontaneously begotten cycle continues, and psychologically impacts the mindsets of all the individuals who fall under its effective scope.

When Capitalism Should Strike…

This abstract phenomenon, as you may imagine, is essentially positive – but it can be perverted under the profiteering auspices of private corporations and commercial players (who might try to sell products and services that prove hazardous to people’s health in the long-run). An evident case in point is that of the burgeoning sugar industry, which achieved its hey-day during the misguided 60s and 70s – when health professionals laid all the blame for obesity and heart disease at the doorstep of fats (a crucial food nutrient).

Low-fat diet pundits, with their voluminous collections of fad diet books, proposed eating regimens that substituted fats with carbohydrates – thereby ushering in massive revenue boons for all corporations engaged in the wholesale manufacture of sweets, bakery items, and other edibles belonging to the said category of foods. It was only after the victims of these diets reported with unprecedented increments in the incidence rates of cardiac arrests, cancers, type-2 diabetes and other inflammatory conditions (all of which arise as a direct corollary of excessive sugar consumption), that healthcare professionals became alerted to the dangers posed by the low-fat binging regimen.

By significantly reducing all fats from their bodies and attempting to compensate for this deficiency with increased boluses of proteins and carbohydrates, a lot of dieters emerged with symptoms of irritability and mental fatigue (brain fog), as well as other serious conditions like successive kidney failure and epileptic disorders.

Shifting to the Sporting Arena

On a similar front, but with a shift in focus, the bulk of sporting exercises that we may participate in do undoubtedly yield a great number of positive effects on our bodily frames, but some kinds of physical activities (particularly those that employ sporting equipment popularly sold within the consumer marketplace) can actually prove dangerous. The example of circuit marathon runners will help explain this point further.

Professional runners intrinsically depend on increasing their exercising stamina and lower-body muscle mass to score wins on the tournament field. For this reason, they channel thousands of dollars every year towards acquiring expensive shoes, apparel and health-enhancing supplements to better their odds against their competitors – most of whom follow through with similar investing decisions on their end. While all these attainments certainly do help their wielders to achieve their intended aims in the short run, their influence (particularly in respect of athletes straining with one type of activity) can prove fatal for the same sportsmen.

Conventional sporting wisdom claimed that in order for a particular player to achieve a marked degree of proficiency in his/her desired sport, constant and increasing rounds of the same activity proved key. For this reason, traditional coaches spent hours on end (everyday) trying to motivate their trainees to run or lift faster and/or heavier – no matter how much their muscles strained to bear the weight of these accelerated exertions. But these old training routines imposed a great deal of burden on players’ cardiac muscles; something that eventually led to them falling flat (and even dying) on the sports field.

When researchers analysed these occurrences more thoroughly, they discovered that aerobic exercises (the kinds that result in greater rates of blood being pumped out of the heart) proved insufficient in leading to an overall state of good health. In order to achieve this end, players had to complement their exercising regimens with spells of targeted resistance training (that results in increases in muscle strength, and not only in their operative capacity). Most of the leading exercise specialists today strive hard to build their training routines around this research-borne principle, and try to balance weight-bearing resistance activities along with continuously repetitive aerobic ones.

The Unmistakable Triad between Them

Based on the brief information provided in this post, it may not be hard for you to locate the inter-related pattern that seems to emerge – connecting the three domains of health, dieting and sports. For more on this subject, please visit the myriad of health journals available on the Internet (retrievable through the Optimum Internet Plans – and endlessly educative).