Look yourself in the mirror. And ask these questions:
- Are you satisfied with your looks?
- How often you fall sick? Is fever, inflammation, cold, cough etc are common with you?
- How often you have to compromise on high physical demanding activities like hiking, trekking, running etc?
- Is your skin clean and healthy?
- What about your hair
- How early you get tired while playing with your kids?
- Any more visible signs of your unhealthy lifestyle?
Once you answer all of these, come back to this article and read further. (also, if your answer was – I am happy the way I am – Please do not read this article, I am not writing for you)
We, humans, are one hell lot of a species, we came this far without being at the risk of complete extinction (until someone decides to press the nuclear button). This was because of fore-fore-fathers hunted, foraged, reproduced and form communities for the betterment of human species. They did medical research (like Ayurveda) in those times which is still applicable in our modern times. They wrote great books like Bhagwad Geeta, Quran, Bible, Vedas, etc which are still useful in our modern times. They made our life easier and hence, we got too comfortable in our lives. Now, the majority of people are not foraging or hunting (Read: No Physical Activity). It is so easy to acquire food now that you just have to go in your air-conditioned car or cab to the supermarket which is again air-conditioned and you will find every kind of food items there. The process of making new weapons to hunt, the waiting of hours under the sun, for an animal to come, the patience of crop being yield – All is gone.
And now we are surprised and bloated with one famous question – “Why the hell I am depressed and suffering from anxiety attacks all the time?”
It is common, every second person around you is suffering from Depression or Anxiety or Both. Before I type further, Read what Yuval Noah Harari wrote in his book Sapiens.
….do people gorge on high-calorie food that is doing little good
to their bodies? Today’s affluent societies are in the throes of a plague of obesity,
which is rapidly spreading to developing countries. It’s a puzzle why we binge on
the sweetest and greasiest food we can find, until we consider the eating habits of
our forager forebears. In the savannahs and forests they inhabited, high-calorie
sweets were extremely rare and food in general was in short supply. A typical
forager 30,000 years ago had access to only one type of sweet food – ripe fruit. If
a Stone Age woman came across a tree groaning with figs, the most sensible thing
to do was to eat as many of them as she could on the spot, before the local baboon
band picked the tree bare. The instinct to gorge on high-calorie food was hardwired
into our genes. Today we may be living in high-rise apartments with overstuffed
refrigerators, but our DNA still thinks we are in the savannah. That’s what
makes us spoon down an entire tub of Ben & Jerry’s when we find one in the
freezer and wash it down with a jumbo Coke.
In short – We killed our instinct to hunt and forage. (you must have got an idea what I am talking about here)
Why we need to do Physical activity and follow a structured Diet.
Let’s talk about Diet first – Whenever I talk about Diet on social media I hear these things:
- YOLO, eat whatever you want
- YOLO, you will have to visit hospitals anyway in your old age
- Bro, it is written in Ayurved, you can eat this food easily before 6 p.m.
- Bro, My grandpa never followed any diet, still, he lived till the age of 98.
- Etc.
Why I focus on a structured diet – simply because our lifestyle has completely changed compared to our forefathers and the lifestyle of early men. But our DNA is the same. We are not walking a hundred kilometres daily, we are not hunting in scorching heat. We are sitting in our air-conditioned room for long hours in front of a computer, hence our Total Daily Energy Expenditure is way too less compared to the past of human species. In fact, when Ayurveda was researched and written, people used to sleep by sunset and wake up by 4am (because of no electricity, devices, and computer/television screens). Do any of us even follow such a lifestyle? No. And that’s where you should understand why 50% Ayurveda diet and style doesn’t comply on us anymore.
Your grandpa never had Chocolates/Chips/Nutella/Fries to binge on in his childhood. His mother, most probably, used to make sweets only during festivals like Holi, Diwali, Eid, etc. Nowadays, Moms are allowing their children to eat chocolates daily with an addition to sweets on festivals. That’s why you cannot compare your lifestyle with your grandfather’s lifespan.
Today If you are not counting what you eat, your lifespan would suffer, your health will suffer and indirectly or directly, your children will suffer. I am not saying to chug protein shakes, eat eggs like that character of Mirzapur, all I am saying, calculate your TDEE and eat accordingly.
“But bro, why it is necessary to work out”
In short – to keep your hunting instincts alive.
In long – With workout, I don’t necessarily mean that you have to lift weights at gym. The workout could be anything – It could be dance or some sports or some form of fighting style or even walk/running.
Just do something which hints your DNA that, this man is moving his body just like those old times. Keeping your body moving and having a structured diet will keep your anxiety and depression at bay but binging on chocolates, fries, cigarettes, alcohol while watching Netflix won’t. (This is proven through many studies, you can google, I am not posting any study link for this commonsensical stuff)
What kind of motivation it was man?
It wasn’t. I cannot motivate you. Who am I? Gary Vaynerchuk or Elon Musk? Nope. I am just a regular guy who forces himself daily to hit the gym. Who cancels his social life just to maintain his calculated food intake. I am just like you. My forefathers were just like your forefathers. I saw myself in the mirror today and asked the same question and I have my answers.
Now I am showing the mirror to you.
Motivate yourself.
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Chirag Barjatya 