The most important asset we have is not our social status or even our personal monetary fortunes. We can live only as well as our health and wellness allow us. Having been on the road the last four years my admittedly average physique has sagged in recent years and I have fallen from whatever good shape I once had. Now that the wife and I have settled back down on the east coast a comprehensive fitness plan has been one of the biggest stressors on both of our minds.
My wife has actually done a fair job of keeping herself in shape with her DVDs and whatever occasion to use fitness facilities afforded us on the road. I have not though and as a result have had to take a more stern approach to my fitness training. The following is my fitness regime I’ve implemented in order to get myself back into the shape I once enjoyed.
1) Monitor caloric intake: One of the biggest problems for many people with losing weight, myself included, is breaking bad habits. One of the most obvious problems for those struggling with fitness is that we eat too much. Even if you exercise all the live long day you can’t take in more calories than you expend. So the first thing I had to do was cut out all those empty calories. You know, fast food lunch, 20 oz soda, grab a snickers for snack, Grande latte or three; all these things are a result of bad eating habits. One thing my mom did when trying to lose weight was she wrote down everything she ate. Everything. Having to take the time to write it down sure makes you think twice about grabbing that handful of chips or popcorn. Bad behaviors are tough to break; some of it may be things you’d never even thought about before or considered getting rid of in your diet. A good fitness plan begins with changing your eating habits.
2) More H2O: While we’re on the subject of better eating, we should talk about drinking more water. The recommended daily allowance of water is 64 oz per day. That’s 8 eight ounce glasses of water and those are for days you’re at rest. But really when was the last time you drank 64 oz of water in one day? Water is 0 calories. So that should be one of if not the only thing you’re drinking all day.
3) Exercise That Works for You: Are you more energetic at the end of the day? Do you always feel like you want to get up and dance when your friends or spouses just want to cuddle? You need to do workouts that work for you. Whatever that is; elliptical at the gym, swimming, cardio classes, racquetball, karate, line dancing; you pick the workout that gets your heart rate going and then do it. It doesn’t have to be one thing but for the purposes of my fitness plan it is. I like running. I’m always better to leap out of bed, stretch, and hit the street. Sometimes I bring my iPod; usually the early morning chatter of the birds is good for me. I like to work out at the same time every day and have a threshold of a distance I have to meet. I get up, get dressed, stretch, drink usually between 8 and 16 oz of water (not too much; you don’t want the water jangling around in your belly) and then hit my courses. Because of where I live I have literally my choice of places to go. I’m just next to a park, I can run up Broadway into the Marble Hill section of the Bronx, I can cross 200th Street and head into our adjacent borough that way, I can run down the West Side Highway with the Palisades to my right; I can even cross the George Washington Bridge and run into New Jersey if I wanted to. I haven’t done that last one just yet but I could see jogging into Jersey before the end of the year. My threshold which I have to meet is 3 miles. I run every other day; rain or shine. I like running in the morning because there is a stillness to the day; possibility and discovery await. But like I said you need to do what works for you.
4) Track Your Progress: One of the biggest pitfalls to fitness; for me anyway; has always been that lack of instant gratification. You don’t see the results right away so you give up. One way you can keep things going is by tracking your progress. Write down the workout you do on your workout days; on the calendar, in a journal; whatever. And if you have a “goal weight” you need to weigh yourself. It might be painful at first but you’ve got to do it at least once a month. You want to be sure that what you’re doing is working for you; you wouldn’t contribute blindly to an investment portfolio all your life without at least looking at your quarterly statements. If the exercise you’ve chosen for yourself isn’t getting you the results you want, you’ve got to try something different.
5) Healthy Living: My wife and I are committed to healthily living. With all the fried food, fast food, and fatty food we’ve endured these last years, living healthy is very important to the both of us. Of course we both may stray but it’s the job of the other to help keep us on track.
Living well and living healthy is all up to you. We may not all have personal trainers and dieticians in our families to help us on the way but good fitness starts with smart choices. Know what you’re eating, begin a fitness plan, have a goal, track your progress, and embark on your fitness with someone you can share your progress with. The only time I hear from one of my cousins on Facebook is when her mileage total for how long she’s run today comes up in my newsfeed. And it comes up every day. That’s her way of keeping track. Finding exercise you can do regularly and can stick with is important for a long and happy life.