Morning:

What do you want to be first thing in the morning? Energetic Fresh. Vibrantly alive. You can be all these and more - because the key to them lies, in your hands! What you need to do is start your body's energy cycle that lasts for the entire day. And how do you rev up this energy cycle which means, you create- use-up-create energy constantly? By two simple ways - exercise, and eat (when you must) the right food.

Call us romantics. But do you know what we like to think? That every time a warrior in the Mahabharat shot an arrow from his bow, it was not to kill. Rather, it was a metaphorical act - to trigger off a quiverful of new ideas and let them cleave through the air thick with outdated notions. It was to allow clean, invigorating thoughts to shaft through the excess 'fat' and generate fresh, positive energy into the field of life. To restore, to rejuvenate, to bring back a balance, a rationality, to make new patterns of peace with a surging vibrancy into an almost-forgotten art called living.

We have read several fitness books and articles. Every one of them lays great emphasis on physical fitness through exercise and sensible eating, but none of them has yet explored one more dimension that fitness explores - the inner you.

You could have learnt at your grandmother's knee that a healthy body is one that gathers food, digests what it requires and throws out the waste. It is a simple philosophy drawn from common sense. If you look around you, you will see that Nature has organised our planet to perfection. We have days and nights for all earthly creatures to work and sleep, animals who prey on other animals, animals that eat plants, the four seasons. Our entire world functions in cycles, Since we are Nature's children, our bodies too ought to be working in similar rhythms. For years, scientists and psychologists researched and analysed - trying to figure out if we functioned in a set pattern. After all, women have menstrual cycles. So, was it possible that the human body operated in some' kind of health rhythm blueprinted by Nature?

And you can give your body - and yourself - the opportunity by believing in yourself. Believe that you are special. Help yourself and this belief by allowing fitness to sing through you. How many times have your eyes been drawn to the words: Know yourself through your stars?

If you are a pure non-vegetarian, you will probably raise a hue and cry at the thought of turning vegetarian! But the truth is that meat of any kind is tough on your smart cells. If Nature intended you to be a non-vegetarian, she would have equipped you with claws, and sharp pointed teeth to tear into any flesh; given you acidic saliva to digest the animal protein; a round stomach with the capacity to produce plenty of hydrochloric acid, fewer intestines to shorten the process of digesting the meat so that you could expel it before it putrefies inside; a liver that could dispel more uric acid than it does.

For years you have been eating pulses such as moong, chowli, channa, masur, etc. You probably soak them overnight in water before cooking them the next day. It is a good practice because soaking them in water makes them less gaseous. Interestingly, we Indians have always followed such healthy practices without really knowing why except that we learnt them from our parents. The west has discovered these means only recently!

"You've not exercised unless you've exerted yourself to the point of sweating and panting." It was one of those careless, over-the-shoulder remarks thrown at a cocktail party by a self-possessed young woman. A petite teen-aged girl reacted with a dainty grimace which said, "No way! I'm not about to join the sweat brigade!" Another nodded knowingly. "How about dieting?" asked another, interestedly.