To Your Health and Happiness

Good morning. Over the years acronyms have been a favorite device of mine. They're easily memorized and make it simpler to remember points, sequences, and elements that can otherwise get lost.?

Here's one used mainly in the field of Health and Fitness Instruction. I used it back in the 1970s when toying with the idea of a Newsletter to be sent by post. We didn't have emails then. This was used a lot in workshops, talks, programs, and presentations.

The acronym is?‘N E A R’?. It's an indication of how closely we live to the possibilities available to us to be Fit, Healthy, and Well. The first letter stands for 'Nourishment', not only for the body but for the nourishment of the Mind too. But nourishment for the body needs to be a greater consideration for a lot of people. Why?

Well, according to the World Health Organization, 75% of all illnesses are due to malnutrition. That's a good one, isn't it? Here we are, with more money than we've ever had, more nutritional knowledge to hand than we ever imagined, and more scientific studies and information than we ever thought existed, and we're eating and drinking ourselves to early death.

Or, as the late Dr. Risteard Mulcahy put it, we're digging our graves with our knives and forks.

The advantage we have here is that a few small changes can make a great difference. We don't have to turn our lives upside down, inside out, or make it a dreadful experience of loss and deprivation. A couple of months ago, a woman came to me asking about a litany of diets she reeled off from some magazine article she'd read. The article compares the fashionable diets of the day and suggests the pros and cons of them all. She was confused by the article and asked me which diets work and which ones don't.

They all work.

But keeping with them for?life is another matter. I've often suggested a particular plan for someone to get to an initial goal. Then when they're there, they can modify it to something they can live with. But let's get back to the word 'Nourishment'. Using food isn't just about cutting some stuff out. It's about getting the right nutrients into our systems that nourish, repair, and maintain the health of the body. For that to happen, we need three elements of the formula that go to feed, maintain, and nourish our systems; oxygen, water, and nutrition.

That's our first aim. Once that's in place we can devise exercise routines, breathing patterns, posture points, and rest periods, to help regulate how we work. Nourishment for the body, including good muscle tone, normal weight, abundant energy, and physical and mental well-being, all become part of our lives when we pay attention to the basics. Rather than complicating the issue, the trick here is to simplify it. This takes a firm decision, decisive action, and a bit of perseverance and discipline.

I hear people talk about 'motivation' every day, looking for some compelling thrust to get them going, keep them at it, and get great results. That can happen. But the most constantly successful people are those who take a decision, decide to stick with that decision, and see it through. As I was often told when I was a ten-year-old, 'Whatever you do in your life, boy, take a decision, do it with a will, and see it through.' That hasn't changed in 70 years. Mental Nourishment. Over the next few weeks, we'll explore how we can make the most of what resources are available to us, how we can decide which ones are the most suitable for us as individuals, and then how to exploit them to the best purpose. Stay tuned.?

And have a look HERE for a way that could suit YOU.