Happy Halloween! Today’s the day when monsters and ghouls roam the streets in search of a sweet fix and even adults succumb to the guilty pleasures of consuming way more candies and treats than they could hold down. People love to get a good scare this day, and so it is doubly strange that it was on this very day a year ago that I got the biggest scare of my life: a real-life lesson in the truth about fitness and how I was going about it the wrong way.

It began with a freebie

Halloween 2005. Audible, the audiobook company was offering one free audiobook just for signing up (don’t bother checking - they don’t have a similar deal this year, unfortunately). I had a page full of choices including Life of Pi, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values and Tyrannosaur Canyon.

But my eyes were drawn to a bright orange colored book sitting silently on one corner of the page. Ho hum, I yawned - another fad diet book with a cover full of promises and content full of lies. I already knew what worked, right? I had just started using the company gym for a few months and I thought knew just what I had to do to make over my body - i just had to hit the machines everyday picking whichever ones were free and work out till I was tired. As for eating I had to eat less to lose weight - simple! I just had to this and I knew I would have the body I desired.

But there was one problem: I was 3 months into this regimen and could see no sign of any change whatsoever. What could be wrong? Heck, this was a free audiobook - what did I have to lose? Nothing, I realised a week later. Except years of misinformation, bad eating habits and random exercising!

Learning and implementing the facts about fitness

Everyday for a week, to and from work, the audiobook guided me chapter upon eye-opening chapter to help me understand the truth behind some of the deceptive marketing practices so prevalent today. I learned about calories, trans fats and high fructose corn syrup. Almonds, oatmeal and flaxseeds. Lowfat milk, cottage cheese and yogurt. Whole grains, eggs and lean meats - the juggernaut of information just kept on coming.

I had to listen to the whole thing again to make sure I got it right - I had been wrong all this time! My foods were wrong, my exercises were wrong - no wonder I saw no change in my physique or general health! I immediately did two things: implemented the recommendations into my life right away and made a plan to spread the word.

The first was easy because certain changes were downright simple to make:

1. Banish fried snacks (chips, doughnuts) and calorie-dense (but nutritionally empty) foods like ice-cream and cookies. These were now “special occasion” or “party foods” only and even then, in moderation.
2. Switch to whole grain alternatives for bread, pasta and rice.
3. Include a lot of dairy and eggs (being vegetarian I realised the importance of whey protein sources all the more)
4. Incorporate a comprehensive exercise plan that comprises weights as well as cardio.

Spreading the word with a blog

The difficult part was trying to spread the word about what I had learned. I already knew that obesity was a growing (!) problem in the world but the massive amount of misinformation and deceptive advertising was only making it worse. It wasn’t until early this year that I realised that blogging about my experiences with fitness and nutrition was probably the best way to get the word out there.

They say you learn the most when you teach and although Fitness Mantra is not really meant to teach but rather recount my experiences with products and fitness news , I have indeed gained a lot in this entire process. Certain posts take a lot of research because I strive to present an unbiased view yet take into account all the latest information available about a product. Doing this takes time, but the research keeps me much more informed and I take that as a healthful side-effect of running a blog like this.

The results and what’s next

A year later, I am certain that the efforts have not been in vain. I look better and am certain I am in the best shape of my life although I can see massive room for improvement. I feel more energetic, my clothes fit better, my posture has vastly improved and the best part is that I know what is good for me and my family helping us make better choices everyday. I certainly hope this site has been useful to you too and I can assure you of continuous and pertinent information about the world of health, nutrition and general fitness as I get hold of it.

Fitness became my Mantra because of a chance offer on Halloween, but I hope you wouldn’t leave it to chance, but instead make a conscious effort right now to get educated and inspired to make a positive change in your life through a good mix of healthful eating and exercising. The benefits of doing so (and the costs of not) are simply too great to ignore.

All together now, let’s repeat our mantra: Let’s Make Fitness Our Way Of Life!

[tags]fitness mantra, health, fitness, nutrition, halloween[/tags]

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I am starting a weekly feature which will appear every Friday on Fitness Mantra. It is simply a review of the current week’s best health, fitness and nutrition related stories from all over the world that I am tracking using the del.icio.us bookmarking service. You can also subscribe to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed separately.

Without further ado here are the week’s top stories:

1. Government to issue new guidelines for exercise: There’s a food pyramid to help guide people’s eating habits, so why not one for exercise? The government said Thursday that it would develop guidelines for physical activity.
   
2. Moderate Exercise May Lower Cold Risk: A new study shows postmenopausal women who exercised regularly lowered their risk of coming down with coldscolds compared with more sedentary women.
3. Coffee May Protect Against Diabetes: Drinking caffeinated coffee was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 60% in a newly published study that included people at high risk for the disease.
   
4. Cupcake Turns 25: Dietitian Believes Trans Fat Has Kept It Together All These Years: At the beginning of Licensed Dietitian Bonnie Minsky’s career, she wanted to show school kids the difference between real and fake food. It was 1981. She purchased a Hostess Cupcake and let it sit for a few months. As she suspected, it kept its form and did not break down, unlike her apple, which started becoming spoiled in a few days. Did it ever cross her mind that the cupcake would still be in “pristine” form 25 years later? Never.
5. Trans fat warnings sought for fast food | Chicago Tribune: Big fast food chains would be required to post trans fat warnings under a measure unveiled Wednesday by Ald. Edward Burke (14th).
6. To Spend Less On Gas, Lose The Spare Tire: Americans could save enough gas to fuel 1.7 million vehicles for an entire year simply by shedding enough pounds to be as svelte as the Americans of 1960.
7. Red Wine vs. Colon Cancer: People who drink three or more glasses of red wine a week are less likely to get the abnormal colon growths that can lead to cancer, according to a new study.
8. Exercise Helps Smokers Quit: The nicotine treatment worked pretty well. Just over half of the smokers on nicotine replacement alone were able to quit. Exercise plus nicotine worked even better. Eighty percent of those who moved their butts put out their butts.
9. Staying lean may help the body to reject cancerous cells: Keeping slim may help ward off cancer, according to a study which has discovered that lean animals are better able to fight the disease than obese ones.
10. Study: Veggies could stem mental decline: Eating two or more servings of vegetables a day may slow a person’s mental decline by about 40 percent compared with a person who consumes few vegetables, according to a six-year study of nearly 4,000 Chicago residents age 65 or older.
11. Berry juice may be a heart tonic: Scientists in India have developed a way to extract juice effectively for the first time from a berry which is thought to be good for the heart.
12. Studies: College Kids Packing on Pounds: The “Freshman 15″ is more like 5 to 7, but it is followed by the “Sophomore 2 or 3,” say researchers who led two of the largest and longest studies ever done of weight gain among college students.
13. Chefs not counting calories, study finds: A survey of 300 restaurant chefs around the country reveals that taste, looks and customer expectations are what matter when they determine portion size. Only one in six said the calorie content was very important and half said it didn’t matter at all.

If you missed any of these stories during the week, now through the weekend is a great time to catch up and be in the know. Look for this feature every Friday!

Knowledge is power, especially in the world of fitness.

[tags]health, fitness, health news, fitness news, del.icio.us[/tags]

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