FITNESS : Run For A Better Life

This post is about thinking and taking action to lose weight and gaining fitness of your life time. It’s my second on weight loss and a serious one, earlier was a fun remark(written with some humor). I now have enough evidence to prove that there is no shortcut to lose extra body fat, at the same time it is not at all difficult as they show in TV programs, advertisements and in various magazines. The best and perfect way I found is simply by running early morning.

Flashback:

I was a sporty person till some 4 years back, before actually moving to Bangalore; I weighted around 72kgs back then. Blame it on the regular ordering of pizzas and biryani in office and mostly eating outside every day. I gained 8 kgs. My dream of having six pack abs shattered with those ever growing six pack flab around my abs. During photo clicks I was breathing in to hold my extra flabs in, Slowly I stopped tucking shirt into my jeans and then came the era of “L” sized T-shirts, even in office, this added more butter into the fat, I mean into the fire, it affected adversely. The fat around the waist grew even more rapidly under the loose T shirts, my chin up count dropped to 2 from 15(it used to be once, in single stretch). In climbing my 2nd floor stairs I was feeling short of breath , my heart rate would go up and worst of all when someone labeled me "Ram Kapoor" , holy cow. Never do this, never buy anything from TeleChopping networks, like a sauna belt , tablets , powder , morning walker etc. that’s wastage of time and money.

Three months back:

उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि न मनोरथैः ।
न हि सुप्तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगाः ।

Only by taking efforts and hard work any work can be accomplished not by just wishing. Prey (animals) never enters inside a sleeping lion's mouth. The mighty king lion has to hunt for his food, and in his hunt he runs a lot and loses fats, never mind. I took this Sanskrit shloka seriously and decided to run every day. Swimming was another option but you cannot swim every day, Gym has its own risks and time investment. The best and easiest and accessible of all is running on road, jungle, sand, soil, early morning. Initially it could be painful and exhausting but it will be fun when you do it regularly.

Prerequisites And Clear Motives :

Strong will power, to lose your extra body weight: You can live whole life with few or many extra kilos, but remember the law of conservation of happiness the total amount of happiness is constant. You need to decide you want to live longer with less tasty food or a shorter life up to 40 with all yummy buttery delicious oily and deep fried foods. Because once you doctor says you have a high cholesterol level, you cannot eat anything tasty,life ends there.

Strong will power, to get fitness of your life: Same as above, you can maintain a normal looking Uncle or Aunty ji type bodies and look whole life , but don’t you think life is a one time opportunity, don’t you want to look fit, lean and active. I don’t know if running can cure dark circles too.

Strong will power, to improve your health: Same as above, you can keep catching cough, fever, cold, back ache, headache, knees ache etc whole life. But don’t you think you should work on improving your stamina, immunity and resistivity to common illnesses,by hard work. I bet, if you start running even in winters even in fogs,rains, you won’t catch cold (unless you are allergic to so many things), I don't.

And lastly

Strong will power to wake up early morning. Early because there is less pollution on Indian roads around 5AM. To get up early you must sleep early and take dinner early as well, so you are already coming into routine. Who doesn’t like to sleep whole day on a weekday or especially on a weekend, I guess those who want to be fit. Stop watching TV in nights, preferably sell you TV. TV is your biggest enemy at times, it burns your precious time always and destroys creativity.

Amazing Benefits:

Weight-loss: When you run, almost every body part moves, limbs, shoulders, abdomen, back, neck, waist everything, this stretches whole body, all this needs more energy so body burns your stored fats, Specially running early morning on an empty stomach triggers your metabolism early plus as you are on empty stomach body gets only stored fats to burn from various zones. This further lowers the blood sugar and cholesterol levels and so it reduces the risk of diabetes as well. Also if you have a poor appetite, running will improve your appetite as well. But it doesn’t mean you start eating a lot, prepare a diet plan.

Running definitely helps in building strong active bones and strengthen the muscles, tendons and ligaments in legs, calf, thighs, arms shoulders and abdomen. As the doctors say, while running the muscles cartilages and everything in our limbs, hips, knees, waist, abdomen and ankles compress and expand which pumps in more oxygen and that’s helps them in staying healthy. Without running or exercising bone cells, muscles and cartilage cells become inactive and gradually weak. 

Running also increases bone density, which keeps off osteoporosis away. 

With regular running you will gain more control on your body parts, actions and stability whether you walk or sit. So you improve yous reflexes in your movements (see, like Spiderman) , which makes you less susceptible to sudden sprains and strains. Remember your school days when you could bend anywhere and could tie your shoelaces.

Improve your cardiovascular fitness: Running helps in lowering of blood pressure by maintaining the elasticity in the arteries, really? yes, arteries are the blood vessels which carry oxygenated blood from heart to the whole body. While we run, we burn more energy, so body needs more oxygen, so arteries carry more oxygenated blood at a much higher rate. For this they expand and contract more rapidly than usually, and this keeps them working and elastic always and lowers the body blood pressure low. This reduces any possibility of developing any blockage in the arteries. 

If arteries are clogged or have any blockage the risk of heart disease and stroke increases. Now, its a common sense, if your arteries are well open then the blood will flow smoothly, the heart doesn’t have to work hard to pump the blood. For details please visit carotidarteryblockage.net  & livestrong.com

Healthy Heart: Running strengthens heart muscles, increases your blood circulation capacity and so once again it prevents you from heart attacks. The heart in an inactive person beats more than that of a runner or an athlete. Because an athlete's heart can pump more blood in each beat, because its an strong heart. 

Extra information, the average resting heart rate in adults is 60-90 bpm (beats per minute), however regular athletes have resting heart rates below than 60. (From Wikipedia) Miguel Indurain, a Spanish cyclist and five times Tour de France winner, had a resting heart rate of 28 beats per minute, one of the lowest ever recorded in a healthy human. I am not saying become Miguel or Lance Armstrong, but keep your heart healthy, the cardio system efficient and strong, just by normal running. 

You don’t even have to go for calculating your heart rates, unless you are planning to become a professional and keep a check on your performance improvement. In that case “Male Maximum Heart Rate = 214 - (0.8*age) and Female Maximum Heart Rate= 209 - (0.7*age). Never go above 90% of your MHR.

Improve Breathing and Lungs Capacity: Obviously running improves our lungs capacity, during running we inhale more air (oxygen) than usual; so we breathe faster which inflates lungs more and so keeps them strong powerful and fully utilized. As per Yoga Guru Baba “Ramdev” most of us don’t even know how to breathe correctly, and he is so correct. While running remember to breath from both your  nose and mouth together, this is the correct way.

Running slows down the aging process. Definitely, with the above mentioned benefits, anybody who has healthy heart, lungs, strong bones and muscles etc will age slowly. With running you will sleep better and earlier, you won’t struggle for it. I sometimes felt sleepy in office though. I bet running bring glow to face and reduces dark circles as well.

Great Feeling And Mental Relax: As you finish your everyday’s early morning run you feel great, you feel like a winner even if you are tired then, but you think of next day’s run. Definitely you feel free and separated from your daily life’s madness and office work. You think only about yourself. I feel the same.

There are many more other direct and indirect benefits associated to running, these are the once I have discovered in past 3 months. If you have other benefits which I didn't mention, please do share, you are most welcome in the comments section.


Who can Run:
Any human being from any age group, who can who can walk, can initially jog and then later start running for shorter distances and then to go up to any extent I mean distance. 

But remember everyone’s body is different so please know your limits, gradually, slowly increase your targets.

How to Run:
Start with stretching of Legs, Arms, bend and move you backbone left and right , but slowly , for two minutes.
Start with a slow walk, then jog for 10 minutes and then increase your pace. You can go up to 8 km/hr, that's  is a good speed. I found it the best and less tiring. 

What to wear & Other Stuff:

Wear anything initially whatever you feel is comfortable, night suit, Jeans, Pajama, I have seen people running in lungis J etc.

Once you are a regular runner and start liking your new passion, then invests on better branded stuffs, on shorts, Track Pants, Capris, 3/4th, Running Tights , T-shirts , full, half or sleeve less jackets. Running tights for sure reduces muscle cramps and helps with chaffing in long run. Believe it or not stylish running apparel is definitely a motivating factor, I felt it. 

I liked this site lifemojo.com , buy online, they offer great discounts and free home deliveries in Bangalore and in big cities. I have used it twice and found it cool. Browse internet for tips, what's good and bad on apparels, there are millions of suggestions waiting for you.

Buy a pair of branded comfortable running shoes and comfortable socks, right running shoes is a most important factor for ankle and sudden foot sprain. Browse web for tips, there are plenty of suggestions in various sites.

Don’t forget to carry a light MP3 player with you, music and songs again are a great pain killer, you don’t feel alone and tired and at the same time you don’t think about the pain. Last month I bought an iPod shuffle, it’s great, light and perfect for running.

Carry ½ liter of water bottle, drink two sips after every half kms, I do this and don’t feel my throat getting dried of excessive inhaling and exhaling. 

I prefer running outside early morning (5am to 6am) in open air instead of running on a treadmill in gym.

Disclaimer:

At the end, my suggestion is to try running at least 5 times a week as per your strengths and body limits, browse internet there are many forums where people (especially from EU and US) share their experiences and suggestions. The disclaimer part: Don’t forget to consult your physician before you start running if you think you need to take special care and you are not comfortable. Also this write up is just for information purposes for personal education only, please don’t use this for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease. :)

~bd


P.S. I lost 5 kg in 2 months by simply running