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written on 2005-01-07
by pelse2 : John P
What Resolution? 2
"Five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!". The time of the year has passed where we spread the yule tide glee and so has passed is our resolution to "get fit". Instead of going another 11 months to recite the same resolutions, try a more manageable approach to long term health. If you are like most americans whom make the resolution to get in better shape, the first week of the new year probably included a visit to your choice exercise facility; but would your money have been better spent on a purchase sporting equipment? In either case, the action of taking a proactive approach for better health is a great first step, but all to often we become bored, fatigued, and/or just loose the drive to proceed. Perhaps we never really even took the time to evaluate our level of fitness, or more more importantly, our main source of motivation.
Oh to often people continue with the same resolutions as the latter year, the resolution to get fit. And yet, 66.3 percent of adults age 20 years and over are either overweight or obese. Why is their such a failure rate in our goals to achieve better health? Our aspirations and initial motivating factors are good, perhaps we just do not see the changes quick enough or at all. It's no doubt the physical and mental stress plays a role in ones ability to loose excess bodyfat, but could that be the reason? Could the majority of americans have more pressing issues than body fat percentage? Could mental stress from being overworked at ones job play a significant role? It could be combinations of these reasons, but after your long work day, you will need a hell of alot of motivation to work ( Go to the gym ) again. After all, have you not done enough work already for the day? That's just it isn't it? Its just too much work! We need to either cut our hours at work or find a way to make what we are doing to be easy and fun.
This year, the month of January will account for 12% of monthly gym signups, but within six months 50% of those members who have signed up will no longer attend. Out of the total amount of members, the average attendence is less than 1.5 times a week ( IHRSA/ASD Health Club Trend Report ). According to SGMA International the total number of U.S. members of health clubs rose from 32.8 million to 33.8 million from 2000 to 2001 and is said to be at 51.4 million by 2010. With these kind of numbers, there is no doubt that health clubs have a bright future, but what about those members that make up the 50% that drop out. Could they have quit because they met their goals? I think not..
We may join a gym with the mindset of training, perhaps like we never had before, in order to loose weight. Maybe we start a diet to shed the weight, but with the lack of knowledge, proper planning, and motivation your goals are heading toward failure. Getting fit is a balancing act of diet and nutrition, exercise, proper rest, motivation, and managing your level of stress.
Your current eating habits, whatever they may be, provide all the energy and nutrition that your body has been accustomed to. And while making an drastic overnight change is not necessarily the best solution, replacing fast food with a sack-lunch is a great start. If you eat 4 times a day regularly but crave chips at night time, chances are you need to eat a 5th meal. The majority of the time, our bodies crave junk food because we have not provided it adequate energy throughout the day. Your meal doesn't have to be difficult to prepare either. A meal could consist of an something simple like an energy bar, small bag of peanuts and apple juice, or a spinach salad with cheese and light dressing. Eat as many natural foods as you can within your meals: meats, vegetables, and fruit avoiding bread products and processed sugars when you can.
Perhaps at this point, your body and mind would fare out better if you took smaller steps toward your exercise and fitness. Ease the process of taking care of your body, its the only one you will ever have! Working out beyond your capabilities is not healthy, nor is it a long term approach to wellness. What you should be doing is making a lifestyle change, not a 1 to 6 month failure program. You have enough stresses in your life already, no need to overwhelm yourself with more than you are ready to handle. If you lead a sedendary lifestyle, why not start out walking... Walk around your block after work, around the office building during your lunch break, or around a local park. If you can, try to get a friend to join you on your walks, but realize that his/her flucations in motivation should not affect yours. If after a week, you want to add a little more than add try stretching out for 15 minutes before your walks. When you are ready, after a week or a month, try getting you heart rate up to 120 bpm for over a 20 minutes or 30 minutes 4 or 5 times a week. Around 120 - 140 bpm in an aerobic state ( with oxygen ), your body training for endurance and is at the ideal range to metabolize fat for energy, while above that range in a anaerobic state ( without oxygen ) where a body is training for high intensity short intervals that tend to build muscle. An easy way to achieve an aerobic state is lightly jogging in intervals or even cycling, whereas anaerobic exercise can be achieved in short sprints or weight training. For those looking to shed weight, stick toward the aerobic state, and whatever activies you take up, try to make it fun and interesting.
Not enough can be said about benefits of getting the proper rest, but you can bet that without the proper rest any goal you set your sights on is headed toward failure. Studies show that getting proper rest can aid in weight-loss, mental focus, and proper decision making as well as countless others. More importantly for those that want to increase or tone muscle , rest is a critical. A weightlifter, for example, has to rest his/her muscles several days or even a week before training the same muscle group again; otherwise his torn muscles would not properly reheal. If you cannot get proper rest, your stress level is likely to high, you are not eating the right foods, or you are suffering from burnout ( A point at which you suffer from physical stress, mental stress, or motivation ). Burnout can also occur from overworking your muscles to the point in which causes them to have a difficulty in repairing, thereby reducing motivation, and causing difficulty in sleeping.
A personal motivator, Anthony Robbins, said that the key to achieving goals in life is finding out how achieving your goals satisfies the 6 human needs: Certainty/Comfort, Uncertainty/Variety, Significance, Connection/Love, Growth, and Contribution. Achieving your goal toward fitness, when you think about it, has a direct connection with satisfying the 6 human needs but it also has a direct connection to pain; the pain involved in actually achieving your goal. Our natural human behavior is to avoid pain, but ask yourself the question, "What carries the greater pain, the pain of working toward your goal or the realization that, if you do not start today, in a year, 2 years, 5 years, or even a decade that you will never feel the rewards of achievement?".
When we consider what is involved in acheiving our goals and what we are missing out on, the greater pain is always associated with non-achievement. Getting back into shape is not a race of crash diets, drop sets, and complete physical exhaustion; rather it should be smart changes that support a healthier lifestyle. Often, we jump because we want immediate results even when we know that its not a long term solution. I think the key is really about finding out what we want to achieve, why we want it, and understand that it is only in our own hands. With the proper mindset and direction, you can get fit, feel better, and finally get past that long awaited resolution.