10 commandments for a healthy body!

1.      Early dinner: Earlier the dinner .. the better, preferably 7 pm. The strategy is, even if we go for high fat food like meat for dinner we need to give our body time to digest the food completely before we go to bed. This would help to have a quality sleep and aid in point #2 and eliminate & heal indigestion related diseases like GERD.   

2.      Good night sleep of 7 to 8 hours: Good sleep is a topic that is often neglected, but it is a very important aspect of our everyday life. It is advisable to close your laptop or mobile at least an hour before you go to bed. Its better to sleep in a dark and well-ventilated room. A room with lights can confuse the brain and affect melatonin production and impacting the sleep rhythm.

3.      Drink plenty of water: specially in the early part of the day. I keep a water bottle near my bed just to make sure I gulp at least 2 glasses of water before I get up from bed. It’s very important to keep the body detox and hydrated. Water also helps in regulating body temperature and boost digestion. However, drinking too much of water before going to bed can affect your sleep.

4.      2 or 3 times meal with no snacking in between: I used to have at least 4 times meal with regular snacking in between, very little I knew at that time, about its danger and the chronic diseases I would be inviting. It took time to understand about insulin, mTOR and IR – Insulin Resistance. I would advise to take quality meal 2 or 3 times minus fast/junk foods, breads, processed food and drinks. Also reduce food high in carbohydrate like most fruits, rice, chapati. We will discuss a little more in point #7

5.      Practice intermittent fasting: I am an evangelist of intermittent fasting. 16: 8 is what anyone can start and slowly reduce the feeding duration. At present I am practicing 18: 6 ie 18 hours of fast and 6 hours of feeding window. Again, it’s either 2 or 3 times meal with no snacking in between. You can actually start without any change in diet/food plan and just reduce the feeding window. Intermittent fasting is a possible way to enhance autophagy. Autophagy is the natural, regulated mechanism of the cell that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components. It allows the orderly degradation and recycling of cellular components. Intermittent fasting gives the whole-body system especially liver a must needed rest.

6.      Exercise daily: Exercise is so important for both mental and physical health.

a.      Short HIIT exercise for muscle building – 30 minutes: The best time to do it is just before breaking your fasting cycle. Its effective to do in fasted state to reduce fat and build muscles. I am a novice here and must admit I have never been to gym. However, few weeks back @ home I have started with some Russian twist, alternate hammer curl, Arnold & shoulder press, DB overhead extension, DB curls back dips , sit ups etc.

b.      Aerobic exercise, jogging or long-distance cycling – 1 hour: I prefer going for cycling, if time permits a short 15 to 20 km ride. Please note cycling / jogging / aerobic exercise need to be in normal breath and it should be more of feel good. Do note stretch yourself and go anaerobic as it can cause cramps, joint pain and fatigue.

7.      Reduce and eliminate carbohydrate, go for LCHF – Low carb High fat diet.  We all are used to high carb diet, thanks to rice and wheat. However, we need to reduce and train our body to shift its primary energy source from carb to fats and ketones. Also, it’s even more important to enhance our digestive system to properly digest fat. Point #8 along with probiotic foods like yogurt can improve digestion. Lastly we need to understand that not all fats are good, its the saturated fat that’s good and healthy e.g. Ghee, Butter , Coconut Oil [eliminated vegetable and other artificially refined oils], Meat [good source of Omega-3, provided its grass fed], Fish [small, young, not farm raised are best like sardine, mackerel etc. It’s also an excellent source of Omega-3]. Bell pepper, cauli flower, leafy green, cucumber eggplant etc. are vegetables which easily make to the good to have list. Another important food that needs to be added in LCHF are eggs, remember to take egg yoke which is super rich in protein, choline [excellent for liver] and healthier than egg white.  

8.      Drink diluted ACV – Apple Cider Vinegar is a super solution for gas and acidity relates problems. The root cause of the problem is increase in pH / reduce in acids in stomach [usually with age]. I still can’t understand why anyone should take antacids, because all its going to do is further reduce the acids in stomach which would eventually worsen the condition. Daily 1 teaspoon of ACV with a cup of water without sugar or honey [you can add a pinch of salt along with half cut lemon juice] will help is reducing GERD and other digestive problems.

9.      Practice breathing exercise - It’s such a wonderful way to immediately lower your blood pressure.  I find it very difficult to practice it regularly and planning to achieve with habit stacking, try to do it twice or thrice daily and also immediately after the stress impact like meetings/presentations etc.  Its important to make sure that breath out should always be longer than breath in. Breath in you take the oxygen and its the breath out that calms and lowers the pressure, so do it slowly.

10.  Reduce primary stress hormone Cortisol – After numerous reviews of content on health and chronic diseases, I could easily arrive at the conclusion that most of the diseases can be simply eliminated by reducing the stress hormone Cortisol.  One of the best ways of reducing stress is point #9 along with point #2 & point #6 [exercise increases Growth Hormone which can aid in suppression of Cortisol. Anaerobic exercise should only be for short intervals, otherwise it would increase the Cortisol levels]

I sincerely feel most of the chronic diseases like diabetics, blood pressure etc.  can be easily reversed and cured by following these 10 healthy commandments and also completely eliminating harmful medicines that we literally have daily like breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor nor any nutritional expert. All the content mentioned above has been scripted after detailed review of numerous health content. Also, I am not an expert in any of the points, however I have started practicing most of them and seeing good benefits. This article was created to share the knowledge and help friends to follow a healthy lifestyle.