How to Stay Committed to Your Health & Happiness

Happiness is an endeavor and health is a long term commitment. We need to develop a bent of mind that puts these two over everything else, for a long time. There are no shortcuts to happiness, and health also doesn’t come with a free ride.  We all want to progress and be achievers in life, but in that quest we forget about the things that really matter. The real things being the things that contribute to happiness and a hearty health.

We often resort to the shortcut, a quick fix, because it is presumably easy. While it may give us a temporary sense of achievement and happiness, it does not benefit in the long run. Quick fixes like a crash diet, a vigorous exercise regime, a short term course or a self help book that we read and forget are some things that may give us peace of mind, but what they also do is stall our long term plans of a commitment towards our health and happiness.

It is also necessary to set goals and overcome them on a daily basis. By staying focused on the present, we take steps to improve our future. Short term goals like following a diet, eating vegetables, exercising at least 10 minutes a day and increasing it with each passing day, sleeping at the right time for the right duration, having an early start to the day, to do more of what we enjoy and spend time with the people we love are some of the short term goals that lead to a long term happy and healthy life.

While achieving the short term goals need a considerable push and effort, it eventually becomes a way of life. When we consciously focus on working towards a happy and healthy life every day, we do not see it as an effort after a point. A few points below will help you move forward, from the short term goal setting to committing yourselves to your long term goals.

1.    Start with something that you can do and enjoy. Never opt for diet plans that are hard to keep or a workout regime that you can’t stick to. Sustainability is the key!

2.    Prioritize the things that make you healthy and happy. If you give more importance to things that are bound to make you happy and healthy, you will never undermine them.

3.    Be ready for the initial effort

4.    Never feel guilty for slip ups, but don’t make the slip ups a habit.

How to Build Muscle & Get Ripped-Nutrition & Fitness

A right diet is necessary to get the right nutrition. Hitting the gym and crushing weights won't get you anywhere if you don't get the support from your diet. Eating the right things at the right time along with the right supplements and the right exercise, may also take a while to get you in the shape you want. This is because as you inch closer towards your goal, your plan of action needs to be altered a bit according to the way forward.

The most crucial role in building muscles and getting ripped is played by food. The food that you eat provides you energy to be able to work out. Supplements and good nutrition help with muscle growth and muscle injury recovery. As we exercise, our body undergoes minor tissue damage that is not easily detectable and affects us only in the long run. Supplements help in the recovery of the minor damage, so it doesn’t lead to a major one.

The calorific consumption of the body determines the kind of body, it will develop into. The important thing to build muscles is to eat more calories than you burn which is known as caloric surplus. However, you need to be careful in this case. As if you gain calories more quickly, it will start depositing in your body as fat. It is important to do this progressively and track it regularly.

The next step after building the muscles, comes maintaining the weight. The simple logic being, burn as much as you take. This is called caloric maintenance. Knowing your maintenance caloric intake is the point where you begin. The next step from here is getting ripped!

Often called the caloric deficit, it is the art of burning more calories than consuming them. During the process we use the fat reserves in the body and you tend to lose weight. There has to be a basic weight that you need to have to get started. The weight depends on individual to individual. The process also involves losing fat only, as losing muscle will be a deterrent in more ways than one. To get ripped one must also prepare a nutrition spreadsheet as losing fat without losing muscle is a nutritional challenge. For this purpose, to know the macronutrient breakdown of the food is important. Carbs are also an important part of the diet to get ripped. The next step is choosing the right strength training and cardiovascular activities.

We wish you all the luck in your quest. If you stick to the basic rules stated above with the right monitoring, you are sure to get that muscular body.

10 Ways Health Supplements Can Help You Live to 100

Health supplements have become the necessity of the day. While there is nothing like a balanced nutritional diet, our lifestyle and daily stress make it hard for us to keep our diets in check. Supplements help us to get the much needed nutrients in our body that not only help us in the longevity of life but also help us in leading a healthy life.
Here are 10 ways in which supplements can help one live a long and healthy life:

1) Increases immunity - There are researches that support the decrease of immunity with age. The elderly are more likely to contract infections and diseases than the younger lot. There are a number of vitamins and minerals that have an immune boosting potential. To name a few Vitamins like A, B2, B6, C, D and E and minerals such as Zinc and Selenium acts as immunity booster. Herbs (like aloe Vera) and natural supplements like garlic, ginseng, Echinacea and probiotics also serve the same purpose.

2) Reduce the risk of diseases - Vitamins such as vitamin C are known to keep the cold and flu away. Some vitamins also help in prevention of cardiovascular diseases and prostate cancer.

3) Increases bone density and reduces the risk of fractures - Vitamin D and Calcium supplements help in improving the bone density and strength, which reduces the risk of fractures.

4) Boost energy and beat stress – Coupled with a healthy diet, supplements accentuate the capacity for energy intake and also helps in beating stress.

5) Muscle power - Muscle building supplements help in building muscle mass and hence makes you fitter.

6) Multivitamins, the inexpensive insurance policy - Apart from reducing the risk of many diseases, supplements also help reduce the ill effects of diseases that are a part of your system. Example, Omega 3 fatty acids that are found in fish can be taken by vegetarians who have diabetes or high level of cholesterol.

7) Necessary for pregnant woman - Supplements are necessary for women between the age of 30-55 or while they are pregnant. While specific doses of iron and folic acid helps prevent many diseases in the child, it also helps in developing brain functions.

8) Reduce wrinkles - Tired of spending money on lotions and creams that don’t work? Here is how you can get that wrinkle-free glowing skin. Scientists have found topical collagen supplements to be a good supplement that reduce wrinkles.

9) Helps to get in shape - Obesity leads to many diseases which can be avoided by simply being in shape. Certain supplements help to reduce fat and the bad cholesterol that leads to weight gain.

10) Hair raising truth - Certain vitamins help in prevention of hair loss and stimulate hair growth. Foliate and multivitamins such as biotin helps in hair growth.