Greetings to all on this beautiful holiday.
To start, a special thanks to all who have served and continue to serve this great country.
God bless you and this great land.
The freedoms we enjoy and opportunities that abound are a result from those willing to give of themselves so generously. Our sincere appreciation to you.
As we so often discuss here at the gym and with members and clients, true health and fitness requires attention to diet, exercise, and lifestyle. All three work in unison to contribute to vitality.
On the same note, neglecting one of the three can greatly hinder your ability to lead a healthy life. With that regard, let’s simply discuss a little about all three.
Diet
SLOW…DOWN
We live in an age that is go, go, go all the time.
If we’re not running around to work, ball games, meetings, errands…we probably wouldn’t know what to do.
This has trickled over into our eating habits.
The majority of meals are eaten in mere minutes. This is much too fast for the brain to recognize that we’re full, and thus many of us blow right past the feeling of satiety and enter full on stuffed mode.
A second important factor, aside from eating less and still being full, is that digestion is compromised by our rapid eating habits.
Digestion begins in the mouth, both with the breaking down of food and the release of enzymes in our saliva to aid in the digestive process. Not only will we eat fewer calories by slowing down, but we’ll better break down that food and make for a happier GI tract.
Simply put? Make the time for eating. Remove distractions like TV and eating while in the car. Chew your food thoroughly. Taste each bite. Gather around the table with family or friends. This simple habit, when put into practice, can help anyone improve their health, regardless of “diet” they’re following. Begin today.
Exercise
First off, make time for moving every single day. (notice an underlying theme here?)
As little as 7 minutes of exercise can produce powerful results within the body. Don’t get me wrong, you’re probably not going to shed that extra weight quickly or improve your strength much on just seven minutes. However, it can positively affect your mood and hormones. AND I would go so far to say that most people could carve out 7 minutes each day to get the heart rate up and maybe even break a sweat.
Do more if you can (work up to more over time), but again, the habit of performing some exercise every day is what we’re after.
Don’t think 7 minutes a day will make any impact? Check out The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy or The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. Those will also improve your life.
Lifestyle
We’ve touched on a good amount that will already improve your lifestyle in simply our eating and exercise habits.
Actually, simply looking at our current habits is a great way to assess our lifestyle and if it’s leading us in a positive or negative direction (or perhaps worse yet, in NO direction, letting life throw us wherever it wants).
Owning your time and how you fill it will greatly determine the direction your life takes.
Write our your priorities and values and goals. Then write out your current habits and honestly assess if they line up. Which ones should you get rid of or reduce? Which ones should you do more of? Are there habits that you should begin and have replace old, unproductive ones?
Take a little bit of time and think about these things.
I forget who said it, but your past can be a great teacher, but a terrible landlord. DON’T LIVE THERE!
Wherever you are, be there -Jim Rohn
Your future is what you make of it by the actions and plans and thoughts you have today. Make the time to move yourself forward, and you and all those you come into contact with everyday will benefit.
Be blessed on this great day!
SL
Great post. Happy Memorial day to you. You are always welcome to come by. Game 7 tonight.