Research shows that people who remain active right through the day have a far greater resistance to falling ill, than even those who gym merely twice a week and remain sedentary the rest of the time. Of course, if exercise is a daily routine, you will be gifting yourself amazing resilience. So why not spread the cheer of good health through consistent exercises rather than punish oneself with aches and pains and loss of energy?

In India we have an amazing tradition of celebration. Every region has its own flavor of festivities. But these festivities traditionally always followed hard work! We were a lot more physically active – there was always dancing and singing, lifting – either the dhols or the brides, riding a horse, carrying water pots, dandiyas, pottery, harvest, cleaning season – you name it there was a purpose to those festivities. The culmination of any of them was a grand feast. Today however, we begin and end our festivities with food! It is all about what dish to cook, how many sweets, for how many days does the Baraat go on with how many meals and so on. How about some real activity? Ask yourself, did you dance your feet off to deserve that meal? Did you sing or play the flute to improve your breathing? Did you really run across town trying to elude those bright colors during holi? Did you harvest your crops to earn that pongal? Why have we reduced the significance of every celebration to merely what we eat?

Ever since my husband Krishnaraj and I started Maverick fitness studios, we have a private gym at home and we ardently hope we can gift our guests a day when you can run on the treadmill as part of the festivity and then join us for a delicious healthy meal. In fact I must confess that I am more comfortable in our home gym than the kitchen, for cooking is not one of the skills I pride!

Every home in India prides a puja room – the place you connect to your source of faith. The Indian tradition also refers to this body as the temple that enshrines the divine soul. Isn’t it time to keep the temple clean and healthy and not merely perform rituals that probably are a mere habit? How wonderful is our culture that they designed a tradition called yoga which teaches one to enshrine your meditative spirit in the beautiful ambience of a well maintained body temple! Is it too much to dedicate a small space for your bodily health in the confines of your home that can help you exercise everyday to keep you healthy and fit?

You don’t need too many equipments or great amount of space to become more active. All you need is discipline. We at Maverick offer a home based package where with the help of our smart phone app (available for free download as ‘Maverick Fitness’ on google play and soon on iStore), and the help of our online connect that is an internet based mentoring and monitoring system, you can learn from the experts from the confines of your home. Call us (+91 9962005100) to know more…

Written by Gita Krishna Raj  |  Published in Food & Health in June 2013