By Krrish Edirisinghe
Health and exercise; a term associated with disgust or is frowned upon. What’s disgusting is neglecting your body and treating it like a junkyard. Living a balanced life is very fulfilling in the long term and why not achieve your fitness goals in 2022? Make this year count.
Let’s start with diet. Having a clean, nutritious diet just makes you feel rejuvenated and provides that energy that you desire. It provides an all time high which cannot be achieved through junk food which makes you feel sluggish and tired. One major benefit is clear skin. Junk food has high GI levels causing insulin levels to rise. This can make your skin drier and cause pimples to form.
When eating healthy, one may have many different goals. Some may want to lose weight or gain weight. There are different ways of tackling this. One of the biggest flaws in everyone’s diet is crash dieting. Going on severe cuts depriving yourself of energy. This is a major mistake especially done by teenagers who need that extra energy for growth and your body is going through many hormonal changes. So, in simple terms do not go on these fasting diets as you are 70% more likely to fail since it's not sustainable.
You do not have to cut down on food severely, just generally eating healthy whole foods when you are a teenager can help aid in weight loss. Avoid unhealthy food and don’t follow any of these fad diets like the keto or no carb diet. Cutting out an entire food group is not healthy whatsoever especially as a teenager. If you feel hungry just eat something healthy like a fruit. Don’t restrict yourself so much as you are still growing so your body would need food. Don’t suddenly start eating healthy, make small changes and soon it’ll be really simple.
If you are trying to gain weight, eat more food. Preferably clean foods which are high in calories.
Eggs, oats, fish or generally anything high in protein will help assist you build lean muscle mass. This needs to be complimented with some sort of resistive training. Through lifting weights (which does not stunt your growth– it’s false and there has been no scientific evidence to back up these claims) You can use dumbbells and a bench to train at home. You can still use your bodyweight to still build muscle. Pushup variations and pull-ups can help on your journey.
Here’s a basic bodyweight workout routine you can follow: https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/bodyweight
Choose a routine that suits you best and stick to it. Stay consistent and do not keep alternating with workouts. Stick to the routine for a few months. Add progressive overload (increase the number of reps or sets you do each week). Go close to failure on your first few sets and on your last two sets go directly to failure. This means you must struggle on that last rep. Give all your energy and you will reap the benefits of exercise. Take however much time you need to recover between sets so you can give your best on the next set.
Building muscle will help you feel more confident. You will be respected by others and will help you escape that shell you live in. You will learn self-discipline when you stay consistent with the workout and diet. And the single greatest advantage is that you live longer.
Sleep is key to building muscle and for your studies. More sleep will help increase your grades and it’s the single most underrated aspect of life. If your sleep schedule is horrible then you will feel really tired and lethargic in school. You won’t give your best and hence you won’t get good grades. Your concentration in class decreases and nobody wants that. What’s ridiculous is how many people flex how bad their sleep schedule is. It’s not something you show off like a badge of honour when you sleep at 3AM on a school night. I sleep at 9 pm and many people just laugh at me. People will laugh at you for trying to improve your life since it’s something so foreign to them but those words should go through one ear and out the other. Nobody should criticise you or have the right to judge you if you decide to live a healthier lifestyle.
So to sum it up, the key principles of living a healthy balanced life are a clean diet, 7 to 9 hours of sleep and exercise.
It’s very simple and many influencers online overcomplicate things. So, feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll link some trustworthy sources who will help you on your journey. If you do decide to climb the arduous, rocky journey of health and exercise. Be prepared for many challenges and obstacles that you can overcome. Just never give up and don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to only yourself of the past. Be proud of the minor changes you have made! Its progress. I would like to end this with my favourite quote that always motivates me –
“Do the hard work, especially when you don’t feel like it”
Citations of trustworthy fitness influencers:
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