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3 things you need to know about optimal health

3 things you need to know about optimal health

Posted by Henry Maitland on 27th Oct 2021

Many of my posts over the years have been referring to the importance of finding supplements that have been well sourced or where the ingredients have come from organic or pristine environments. We have also covered the necessity for proper processing of raw ingredients and the care which is needed to retain the delicate nutritional balance in the original plant or animal product. It is evident that if we’re going to take supplements it would be well advised to make sure that what we are taking is actually good for us!

In these articles I have done my best to make it clear that although I truly believe that supplements can be incredibly powerful and beneficial into our lives it is the foundation principles of health that are the real power house life changing concepts that can bring us to not only high levels of energy and vibrancy but to a clearer happier perception of the world we live in. These are the principles that allow us to supplement with success and truly feel the benefits of the products that were buying.

So today I want to return to 3 key concepts, 3 key foundations of optimal health so that we are continuing to look at the broader perspective of health and not narrowing our perception to the commercially driven belief and commonly advertised ideal that a pill or potion (even if it is a high quality organic super food!) is going to revolutionise your life forever on its own.

Learn to move your body, to become strong and stable

Exercise has been written about extensively as a key to health, a key to get killer abs and sexy legs, a way to lose weight and achieve the ‘body beautiful’. Indeed, exercising is a vital contributing factor to achieve the things we may want and expect from exercise.

Most people that I have seen as clients over the years needed to learn to move correctly and in so doing lean to balance their bodies, correct there posture and become free of pain before or at the same time as addressing the things they want to achieve longer term.

For example many people want a better butt. Very good, why not, who am I to argue with more men and women wanting a better butt! The problem is that going to the gym and going crazy on lunges and squats when you have, as most people do, an instable pelvis and butt muscles that don’t work properly will lead not to incredible gluts but to incredible pain! At best you might get what I call ‘short term gain for long term pain’ and at worst a serious injury.

If you really want to train hard enough to make a difference then work with someone that can rebalance your body, strengthen your core muscles and teach you to move correctly. It is after all the movement that matters as this is the foundation of stability which in turn is the foundation of strength and power, and it’s these things that lead to the killer abs and perfect butts! 

Eat well, enjoy your food and connect to the environment it came from

We are, as it is said, what we eat. This is largely true; I would also add to this that ‘we are what we can absorb’. So if your intestinal tract is not healthy enough to process the nutrients then they will pass through the body and be excreted.

Still the old adage works well and it is true to say that a diet rich in high quality vegetables, proteins, fats and fruits will serve us well. It is critical to make sure that we have addressed and understand the balance of food that it right for us or our ‘metabolic type’ if we are going to find optimal health.

Metabolic typing is not another crazy fad diet it is a principle of looking at biochemical individuality and then making sure we are eating correctly for who we are not what the latest diet guru has come up with for everyone.  I would advise either reading the book ‘Metabolic Typing’ by William Wolcott or finding a practitioner nearby who can help advise you on what may be best for you.

Correct nutrition is not just about physical health and making sure all our complex systems are working to full effect, it will also ensure a better hormonal balance which will in turn effect how we feel emotionally. When we have the right nutritional balance we can feel very different, with more energy, more confidence, and more consistency of mind to achieve whatever we may want to achieve in the world. 

From serenity and calm find certainty and power 

The world we live in seems to get faster and faster and life seems to get more compressed into the moments when we are not working.

Has relaxation become TV, Xbox, wine, beer or other distractions?!It’s not that I think any of these things in moderation are bad, I like the occasional cold beer on a hot day or a fine wine on holiday and I love movies. I do however think that the greatest single action for improved health is to give some time for quiet reflection, for true relaxation, for meditation if that’s your way to quiet. It could be a walk in the forest or some quiet time in the garden.

From quiet reflection, in time, one finds greater stillness of mind, from stillness of mind comes greater certainty of action as more consideration has been given to what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. With greater certainty we come to have increased confidence and so action can be taken from greater power.

Conceive, believe, achieve… from stillness comes clarity of thought and this stillness and silence is the origin of greatness. Does it not make sense to reveal greater clarity of mind, greater health, grater energy and greater power?

I think so, and so this is how I live.

In health and happiness Henry