Health Foundation Principles
The key to robust health is to consistently practice the 6 Heath Foundation Principles
Thoughts
The thoughts in your mind can help to manifest the life of your dreams and goals, or draw you closer to your greatest fears. Your thoughts have power! Your thoughts have power to change your physiology and control virtually all of your body's functions from hormones to digestion to feeling happy, sad, or stressed.
Breathing
Breathing is your body’s fuel and nourishment. This all important delivery of oxygen affects your daily tasks, your intense physical activities and your emotional stress. Diaphragmatic breathing improves lung capacity and increases oxygenation of the red blood cells.
Our breathing often becomes inverted because of too much stress, sugar, caffeine, artificial colours and preservatives in processed foods. Poor breathing mechanics can be attributed to poor posture and many physical ailments.
Did you know the way in which we breathe affects which part of our nervous system we're stimulating?
Poor breathing stimulates our sympathetic nervous system which is great to utilise if we're running away from a lion but not so great if we're going about our day to day activities. Diaphragmatic breathing helps you shift your nervous system into a more rest/ digest state.
Hydration
It is essential you maintain proper hydration throughout the day by drinking clean filtered water.
Drink 0.033 x your body weight of clean filtered water per day to optimize energy levels and maintain optimal body weight. Add a pinch of unprocessed sea salt to every litre of water to help with electrolyte balance.
Dehydration negatively affects your cognitive/ brain function, energy levels and your body is under a lot more stress. All bodily processes occur in water. Drinking enough good quality drinking water means better absorption, increased metabolism and better elimination of waste.
Food Quality and Quantity
To build a good body, optimize your health and energy levels, you need quality materials. You are only made of the materials you put into your body. Eat organic food whenever possible. Organic food (meats, fruit and vegetables) are without herbicides and pesticides and can be up to 40 times more nutrient dense than non organic foods.
A basic philosophy and a good place to start is:
Eating moderate amounts of protein (grass fed, biodynamic/organic) which includes chicken, lamb, beef, fish and organic pastured eggs. This could mean eating 1g-1.3g of protein per 1kg of lean muscle tissue per day depending on the work you do, training and lifestyle.
increasing good fats (coconut oil, plain butter, activated nuts, avocados, extra virgin olive oil)
Eat Raw unprocessed dairy.
Increasing vegetables and small fruits (blue berries)
Decreasing or eliminating refined carbohydrate and high starch foods (breads, crackers, cakes, cereals and pastas)
Decrease or eliminate sugar containing foods.
Consistently practicing these nutrition principles will manage insulin levels and allow you to start using stored fat as an energy source meaning better fat loss and health for you.
Exercise/Movement
Flexibility increases the range of motion in your joints and helps you move freely.
Everybody needs some level of flexibility to go about daily life without feeling tight, uncomfortable and getting injured.
Stretching the correct muscles helps bring the body into balance and improves your posture. Stretching properly reenergizes/improves chi flow (energy) to your body.
Aerobic conditioning (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling) improves efficiency of your heart and lungs and therefore improving fitness. 30 minutes three times per week is optimal. If you are pushed for time it's better, you get your heart rate up when doing your conditioning. The human body is just like a car the harder you push the pedal the more fuel/calories you will burn. Change your aerobic conditioning program regularly because your body adapts quickly to aerobic exercise. Keep the body guessing.
Strength training is a very effective way to decrease your body fat and change the shape/ tone of your body. Lifting free weights (dumbbells and barbells), exercises involving Swiss balls and body weight exercises are classified as strength training exercises.
Strength training increases your metabolic rate for up to four hours after you have finished your workout that means you are actually burning fat while you are sitting down or going about your daily activities.
Sleep
Get to bed by 10 pm. Earlier is better. We are just like our sun driven ancestors. We should be in bed within 3 hours of sunset and rise with the sun. Sleep helps with both your physical and mental repair. Sleep is important to aid our recovery from day to day and between training sessions. If we don’t get enough sleep then our nervous system becomes progressively stressed and our nervous system controls our immune system.
