Even before the year begins we are busy vigorously jotting down New Year’s Resolutions…yet again…
• Resolutions to lose weight (this one usually tops the charts!)
• Resolutions to give up smoking
• Resolutions to join the Gym
• Resolutions to eat healthily, eat on time…or perhaps not to eat at all
Some old, some new, some with a strong motivation to follow…
While some jotted down just for your Insta-handle to show…
Have you ever paused and asked yourself why is that particular resolution, on your things to-do list for the year?

Here are three must ask questions before planning your next year:
1. Why have I not done this before?
2. Why do I want to do it now?
3. Why did I even consider doing it in the first place?

Despite the fact that year after year most of us conveniently relinquish the motivation to give our health & fitness goals a good chase…we continue to set ambitious wellness goals for the New Year.

Relinquish…Motivation…Chase…words that require efforts…considerable efforts…which is a reflection of how most of us feel about health and fitness.

Come January…we struggle to make those infrequent obligatory visits to the Gym, constantly guilt tricking and reminding ourselves about the prepaid annual membership fees. Despite that, except for a few occasional outbursts of activity at beginning of the year, the rest of the year settles back into how it was the previous year…and the year before that…

One of the most popular excuses:
NO TIME: Too many deadlines to meet and a Boss with rather unrealistic expectations…Once this project is over…perhaps…
In a day and age where we work 10-12 hours a day…barely shutting our tired eyelids for 5-6 hrs each night…hitting the gym two hours every day or even every other day becomes arduous…

45 mins walk at the crack of dawn
A two hours of grilling workout at the gym
Giving up fried food…
Giving up sugary stuff…oh the thought of ‘Death by Chocolate’ is killing me…

It seems as if living a healthy lifestyle is painstaking, time consuming and a life filled with renunciation and denial…

Attention Grabber: Healthful living, in reality, is quite easy, requires very little time and is a lot of fun too! All you need is access to the right information and debunk a few misconceptions.

Misconception No.1: Illness and wellness are not constant states. Based on every single lifestyle choice and every single thought you are thinking, you are constantly oscillating either towards illness or towards wellness. If you account for the time lost and money spent along with enduring the physical and emotional agony that illness presents, you will realise that it takes precisely the same amount of effort to become ill as it does to maintain good health.

Misconception No.2: Health and fitness are not synonymous with each other.

You can be an athlete, hit the gym and have a physique like a Greek God and still be unhealthy. This explains why we constantly hear so many incidents of absolutely fit youngsters meeting a rather sad and untimely end.

Consider a Yogi who meditates, eats organic healthy food filled with nourishment, consumes pure mineral water and lives in a calm unpolluted environment. Ask him to run up 6 flights of stairs and he would begin huffing and puffing.

Hence let’s first begin separating the two…Being healthy and being fit are two completely different yet completely important factors to consider for Holistic Well-being.

Misconception No.3: Absence of symptoms or living in a state of tolerable discomfort is not a sign of good health. It is also a common misconception that addressing health when the symptoms show up is prevention. On the contrary, once the symptoms appear it is already too late.

Let us say you have filled the tank of your car with fuel and you have been driving around… When do you decide that you would require a refill? Would you wait until the reserve sign lights up or would you rather check your fuel indicator periodically?

Your body works pretty much the same way. Annual health checkups are done for the early detection of disease. The comfort zone isn’t the fact that your blood parameters are within the prescribed limit or lie marginally outside the limit. Scoring well at the health checkup is not necessarily an indication that we are healthy. It only means that the disease state has not progressed enough to show symptoms…Symptoms are nothing but your body’s reserve sign…Remember: ’Feeling Good’ and ‘Being Healthy’ is not necessarily the same.

To achieve good health you must know which direction you are currently oscillating towards…just like your car, your body also has reserve fuel and most of us have been driving around with body’s constantly on reserve fuel. Sooner or later we are going to run dry. How do you find that out…just as you have a fuel indicator…your body also has several dash board indicators…your skin, urine and your hair are actually primary barometers indicating good or bad health. The color, texture and the extent of the monotone hue of your skin and hair…and even the smell and texture of your urine can indicate the direction you are currently headed in. Normal urine is clear with a yellowish hue. If you have foamy urine which is white and stays after you flush, it is a sign that your kidneys underperforming. Dry hair and scalp could mean you are not getting enough fat on the other hand thinning of hair could indicate a lack of enough protein. Losing too much hair could indicate a Vitamin D deficiency or an onset of Thyroid disorder. Dry skin, rashes, acne, eczema are indicators of a clogged up waste disposal system of your body – Liver and Gut.

The foremost and by far the most effortless approach to begin your journey towards wellness would be to undergo a Detox. A Gut Cleanse, Skin Detox and Liver Detox would immediately catapult your Wellness score. You would probably need to invest 45 mins of your time for 6 days in the entire year to prep your body for 10 – 12hrs long workdays for the next 360 days of the yr…Weight loss and inches loss is usually pleasant side effect of Detox.

A simple and efficient assessment of Fitness: Switch on a timer and begin running up a flight of stairs. Note the time required for you to get breathless. Begin the timer once again as you stop to catch your breath…and note the time required for you to completely calm down. Let’s say it took 2 mins for you to get breathless and about a min for you to return to normalcy….consider your fitness level at 50%. The longer the time required to get breathless and the lesser the time required to calm down the higher is your fitness score.

Do you want to enhance your fitness level and are unable to do it due to time constraints? Would you be motivated if I told you that you could invest just 15mins twice a week and get the same result as you would if you went to the gym for 2 hrs every day…Oh yes! It’s called Resistance Training…find an RTS certified Naturopath who can help you with this.

It has also been studied that people are most motivated when:

They realise how expensive it is to fall sick costing not only their wallets but also the valuable time lost.

They become aware of their current state of health and which direction they are heading in the Illness-Wellness Continuum.

Following a healthy lifestyle is fun and easy: without starvation diets or spending a lifetime in the gym!

It is never too early or too late to work towards being the healthiest you!

– By Dr Ashmita Boopathy Moturi
M.D Alternative Medicine
MSc. Psychology
M.S Medical Engineering
Dip. Health Sciences (Nutritional Medicine)
Director: Wishing Well Healthcare
Founder and Director: NineO2 Detox and Wellness