Does your fitness and dietary supplement consumption say much about your lifestyle choices?

Your lifestyle is determined by a number of factors - including the time you wake up, what you do right after it, what you eat, how much exercise you get, and if our not you have a few habits such as smoking, or drinking. Your mental well-being and what you do to keep your mental health intact also becomes a part of your lifestyle. Being healthy and staying fit are on this list of goals for everyone - no matter who they are and where they live. People often associate all their health troubles to the lifestyle they follow. Whether it is waking up in time, eating healthily, exercising regularly, or the habits we have - all are a part of the lifestyle we lead. However, people often confuse various health phenomenons - for instance, some people believe that being skinny is healthy - whereas being underweight, or unusually skinny can be both a cause and effect of an underlying health condition.

 

"Physical fitness is simply our body’s ability to complete physical work. This can include cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and muscular endurance etc. Usually, people who maintain a good level of fitness are lean, maintain normal body weight and lead a healthy lifestyle. But, this may not always be true, as exceptions are there," says Dr Biju K S, Senior Medical Officer at Vieroots Wellness Solutions, even as he shares more insights on the link between fitness, and lifestyle.

 

Can your level of fitness bespeak your lifestyle?

The word ‘Lifestyle’ has broad meaning as it incorporates elements of health, finance, culture, environment etc. Considering the aspect of health, it is fair to say that, the better level of fitness of a population is directly related to a good lifestyle of the population. Since ‘fitness’ is a measurable indicator of health, generally we can say, the more fit you are the healthier you are.  The physical fitness assessment of a person can help a healthcare professional to understand about his lifestyle, which in turn helps to advise regarding what changes the person needs to make in his lifestyle to become more fit and healthy. Here also there are exceptions, that one may seem ‘fit’ in his external appearance, but internally he may not be ‘healthy’. Pointing to the case of Sourav Ganguly, even a fit person can also easily get into lifestyle diseases. This was not an isolated incident. It is happening to a lot of common people around us, and since they are not celebrities these incidents go unnoticed. Thus it is high time to analyse your level of ‘fitness’ with the help of a competent professional and using highly advanced tools.

We all know, lifestyle diseases are the number one killer, when it comes to death due to diseases. The ultimate solution for these diseases is nothing but changing the lifestyle itself.  As a part of adopting a healthy lifestyle, embracing a fitness regime and supplementing the nutrients which are lacking in food are some of the methods adopted by people nowadays. The flipside is, some used to lead unhealthy lifestyles (smoking, eating a lot of junk foods) and to overcome its ill effects, they indulge in various quick-fix fitness programs and overload themselves with dietary supplements, which is absurd. But in general, people who give importance to fitness and find time for it knows the importance of a healthy lifestyle and follow it. 

 

Dietary supplements and your lifestyle

Dietary supplements cannot substitute a well-balanced diet. at the same time, it is tough to have all the required nutrients in our daily diet these days due to innumerable reasons. Consuming dietary supplements became a part of our lifestyle as many nutrients are lacking in our new dietary practices in this fast-paced world. But, there is a not-so-familiar dimension for this. For example, if you think, you are taking enough supplements to better your health, sometimes you might be wrong. Consider, you are taking a Vitamin-A supplement in B-carotene form and if your body has reduced capacity to convert B-carotene to Vitamin-A, you still possess the risk of deficiency of vitamin-A. Thanks to the advancement in medical science, now it is easier to find which nutrients you need in supplement form by doing a metabolic assessment using various advanced techniques.  Also, it is crucial to find out the right brand. The purity, efficacy and bioavailability of the supplements play a vital role, as this market is flooded with products and some of them are sham, too. Consuming a lot of supplements won’t make you healthy but the right choice of them as per your need and its efficacy are the keys.

 

Yes, your nutritional habits and your fitness levels play a major role in deciding whether you are leading a healthy lifestyle or not. It is worth every penny in spending in these ‘preventive’ areas because the expenses incurring after becoming a victim to lifestyle disease will be much higher than that required to prevent it. Also many at times your money cannot bring yourself back to perfect health, too.