Lifestyle
If you want to be
healthy
Is it possible not to eat meat and stay physically active? Are the dietary supplements harmful or useful? How to stay fit? As they say, there are so many people, so many opinions. Let’s find out about some of them.
К “Eat me!”
Kremlin diet, separate nutrition, interval fasting, physi‑ otherapy, yoga, fitness… So many ways to stay healthy, it’s easy to get confused. It would be good to turn a blind eye to it and live “somehow”, but the coronavirus is not dozing off: it is looking for a new victim with low immunity. And we do not want to get sick, and there are so many things to do…The question arises: how to keep up health in the conditions of global hypodynamia and epi‑ demics that replace each other? When at every corner of the city delicious fast food is on sale and on the shelves of pharmacies there are rows of beautiful jars of dietary supplements, in which the complex of vitamins and trace elements is the most balanced. The Internet does not give clear instructions for action. More precisely, it offers as many options on the topic “you want to be healthy”, as there are pages in search services, i. e. a lot. So I decided to turn to a the safe and proven method: to talk live with those who in my subjective opinion look like a “healthy person”, look good and inspire trust. And then to “average” for myself, to form a personal point of view on this subject.
Healthy lifestyle-consultant, Sergey Pustyulga:
“Don’t run to extremes” For 40 years he’s been committed to a healthy lifestyle. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke. He served in the Armed Forces for 17 years, trained guys at the Institute of National Security for 13 years: he taught general physi‑ cal training and hand-to-hand combat. Later, Sergey Pustyulga, having withdrawn from military business, “set on the feet” one of the leading Minsk clubs for a healthy lifestyle, worked there as a fitness director. — Sergey Nikolayevich, what is fitness? The concept is borrowed from American culture…
34
беларусь. belarus 2020
— That’s right. I don’t like the word “fitness” very much, as I grew up on the Soviet traditions, where there were notions of “physical culture and sport”, “fitness and health-improvement ac‑ tivities”. What is the principal difference? The approach. In our country physical culture is seen as an element of harmonious personal development, in America and Western Europe it is the preparation of a person for work. It is important to be an active, healthy social element that will not “stand idle”. After the collapse of the USSR, our integral system of approach to physical culture collapsed as well. Each specialist, trainer began to bring something different, introduce new elements in physical training, based on a personal understanding of how it should be. This is how fitness began to penetrate into our culture. Now we are at a stage when two systems coexist: according to an old tradition, we have physi‑ cal training at kindergartens, school, university, army. And after it? To go to a sports group which trains for specific sports, just like it used to be before. And if I don’t want to do some particular sport? That’s where fitness comes to help: zumba, less mills, pilates… But its level is not yet European, let’s say. In Soviet times there was a public coach — a person who was interested in his work, knew a lot, was certified. And now, to be a fitness instructor, it’s enough to graduate from an economic, technical university. What can such a coach teach? Except to make money on a clientele. But first of all, there must be a question of health of the person you train. You have to understand that exercise is a cure. If you give an overdose — you can get a negative effect. Less — no effect. In Europe, a trainer is also a kinesiologist (he studies health status by the tone of differ‑ ent muscle groups — Auth.) In the American system you need to get many different certificates. And while you go through all the stages, invest financially, you will think through carefully whether you want to do it. This is a system that’s just starting to work for us. For example, to promote someone’s individual method, you need to be a member of the club of this author, which means to be trained by him or her and get a certificate, which must be verified every year. Therefore, before you go to the nearest to your home gym, I advise you to find out what education and what certificates your coach has.
