Tag: wellness

Finding your right Activity!

Let’s get real…

Most people do not want to engage in something they don’t enjoy. Especially when they are committing their free time to it. By nature we all want to have fun and live a happy life.Then we are expexted to maintain our bodies.

Exercise is obviously very important to longevity and well-being, but the traditional gym workouts aren’t for everyone. That doesn’t mean lifting weights and spending hours on the treadmill is the only way to do it.

How do we target this problem?

We have to be innovative. Be honest with ourselves with what it is we want to do.

I personally really dislike doing gym based cardio. A couple years ago it became evident that I need to increase my cardio to control my weight (Diets are harder for me to adjust 🙈). So I decided to start hiking. To be honest, it helped that I liked the views to take cool pictures for the gram.

Over the summer I startes hiking every weekend. I went consistently that it became a habbit and within a few months the habbit had become a lifestyle.

I was enjoying it! Cardio, didn’t feel like cardio. My restinf heart rate began to decrease, endurance increased and I was happy.

As I started to do more challenging hikes I realized that my weekly adventures were not cutting it for bringing me to the next step.

I was MOTIVATED.

In order for me to reach a new hiking expertise, I decided I had to train. Going to the gym and doing elliptical, stairclimber and treadmill had a purpose. Once I had a goal to be able to take less breaks on hikes and complete more difficult ones, the gym cardio became easy.

Before I knew it, I began doing additional cardio session 2 – 3 times per week. My body adapted well, and the benefits came along with it.

  • My sleep improved
  • Endurance increased
  • Mental Wellness improved
  • My body fat decreased
  • My heart became strong
  • My mind became sharp

I started to crave the challenge and continue to improve. I now seek out this extra sessions to get better and fulfill my need.

The point here is,

We have to give meaning to everything we do. If being healthy is enough drive, then awesome! To have long term adherence we need to find something we enjoy and want to get better at.

Finding a new activity and creating a habbit takes time and commitment. It gets easier!

Find your function!

Practice it. The rest will follow.

Goodluck!

CB

What is ‘Fitness’?

The first thing the probably comes to mind when you hear this question is an image of people who are really lean with have high muscle definition. How accurate is this?

In other fields, such as biology, fitness defined is a species ability to reproduce (so I guess all humans are pretty fit).

Looking at exercise physiology and their definition of fitness and comparing it to what people assume it is (having a six pack, giant biceps and chiseled chest) you begin to realize that our image of fitness is not correct. And what is advertised as fitness in the media – is really ‘Gym Fit’.

The true definition of fitness when looking at exercise physiology is “How well a person can perform a task” ie, how fast are they, how high can they jump, how long can they run, how much can they lift, are all simple examples of tasks that can show how fit an individual is.

Compare a world class sprinter to a world class marathon runner. First thing you notice is how their bodies are completely different. On top of that, their physiology is way different. The sprinter has more muscle mass composed of fast twitch fibers with a high alactic anaerobic ability, while the marathon runner has high aerobic ability. Two completely different energy systems being used, yet these people are both the most fit in their respective sports.

My point I am trying to get at is that fitness should be compared to your goals. If you goal is to look chiseled and have high muscle definition, then that is fantastic. If your goal is to be fit in a particular sport, or event, then that is great too. Know that just because you don’t look a certain way, it doesn’t mean you arent fit at what you do.

Hope you enjoyed!

CB