You, Yourself And Irene – The Mental Game Of Fitness
If only looking great was the answer to health and happiness! Fitness is a destination with many paths that must be traveled before you arrive home. Lets take a look inside and start working on the mental side of fitness.
Self-image can build you up or break you down. When people harness the power of feeling positive, nothing can stand in their way. Others see only negatives and their body becomes their own worst enemy. The power of belief, love, and acceptance in yourself are the driving forces behind all great personal accomplishments in life. Self-doubt, pessimisms, and poor self-image are all forms of personal sabotage that can take great things and turn them into unrealized dreams. To live, love and to feel comfortable in the warmth of another’s arms are a few of life’s greatest comforts. Losing gifts like these by setting physical perfection as a goal is missing out on the whole point of fitness and life. The point? To enjoy it. To obsess, worry and preoccupy yourself 24/7 with the petty nonsense of a couple of pounds or, being scared to wear certain clothes because of the “media clouded images” that are displayed as normal levels of fitness can cause you to give up all together. You are a beautiful person as you are. Fitness is for health and quality of life, your appearance is a by-product. Always be proud of where you are now and that fact that you are trying to improve day by day. This in itself is victory.
There are times for improvement and times for maintenance. Do one thing at a time. Off-season eat healthy and train sanely. When its time to improve or change, kick it into high gear! Don’t try to stay at 6-8% body fat for a whole year. It can be done, but not if you want to live a “normal” life.
To lose love or to hurt others emotions for an extra pound of muscle or a percentage of body fat is absurd.
Here are some of the things that if I could do it over, I would have done different.
· Religiously getting eight hours of sleep per night. Do you realize how many get togethers, movies and dates are missed if you always get your eight hours of sleep? Now I’m not saying to stay out late every night that doesn’t work either, but once in a while there are really cool things to do!
· Eating every three hours- I used to miss movies with friends because I knew the drive plus movie would take more than three hours. If I did convince myself to go, I snuck food in with me because theatre food is garbage. The key to keeping fit is to the right things the “majority” of the time.
· Turning down desert- this is one of the worst. I’ve hurt good friends feelings by not eating deserts that were prepared with a lot of love and effort. Did anyone notice any difference in my abs the next day? No. But I did hurt someone’s feelings? Yes.
The fitness 22/2 split is a good method for the fitness lifestyle. Workout and cardio should take a max of two hours per day and you should spend the rest of the 22 hours enjoying life .
Fitness is a not a destination but a place you call home, make it comfortable. Eat clean, train hard, and the only other time dedicated to fitness should be your 2 hours at the gym. Don’t become so narrow focused that you can’t carry on a normal conversation without saying “interval cardio is heaven”
Fear, the emotion that stirs the ocean of our souls. Stop for a moment and think of all the things that you have ever desired in your life but never achieved or acquired because of this one emotion. Fear wears many masks, it can display itself as an internal voice (you cant do this!); other times it disguises itself as procrastination (the “I will start tomorrow”) or even arrogance (ever ignore the cute hottie across the room?). The point is that fear can debilitate if not understood.
What if you embraced fear instead of running from it? What if every time you felt fear, you ran towards the object of your fear with even more determination instead of cowering in your personal space? I’ll tell you; you wouldn’t have a case of the “what ifs”. The “what ifs” are the things you remember and wish you would have done differently. They are the missed opportunities and the chances not taken. More importantly, they are the rungs in the ladder of life that you have never climbed and they are the reason you’re not at the top right now enjoying the view. This applies to all areas of your life, not just to your body and the gym . I believe that a truly fit person has balance in all areas of life. The mind, the body and the spirit. All parts of this trinity must be taken care of to be truly happy and successful.
I want everyone to know that the past is the past and the future starts today. There is nothing you have done to your body that could ever dim the hope of self-improvement. Change is inevitable with concentrated hope.
In order to take advantage of hope, it must be accompanied by action. You never have to be great at anything to start. But you must start in order to ever become great.
Well now you have a ton of fitness information to get yourself going, so the last thing I will do to help you stay motivated and get started is to offer you my monthly “Fit Tips” newsletter for free, (the sign up box in over on the right hand side of the page.) Once you sign up, you will be able to download a free workout routine and then you are ready to go! Now go and get that body you crave!
If you find this type of information to be helpfull in your fitness goals, please check out my workout book
“Begin At The Gym”