It has little to do with how you look in the mirror. Let’s just start there. The “Quarantine 19,” or the 19 pounds you’ve gained during the pandemic, isn’t a layer of protection for when this thing potentially creeps back in the fall. It’s the exact opposite.
Living with unintentional habits creates unintentional results. Obviously you didn’t intend to lose your way. Not everyone hoped for a global virus to put the planet on lockdown so they could park it on the couch for two months . . . but it happened.
How do you make a comeback now? Depending on what you’re tuned into, your road to recovery might look quite different from what I’d suggest. You might be wondering why I have an opinion on the matter. It’s because I’m a former couch potato—one who was overweight and, when combined with the stressors of life, was unhappy with myself and generally just depressed. I changed that for myself though. Now I change the lives of others.
In the world of gyms today, all types exist and many promise the same things—results through minimal time and effort invested. It’s a lie. No magic pill exists. We live in a day and age where you can have your fat literally removed from your body! Unfortunately, if your habits don’t change, the cycle will repeat itself and you’ll end up back where you started—or worse.
The desire to look better is only fulfilled by successfully feeling better. The combination of self improvement via mind and body completes that task. You might now be wondering where to start, so here are three simple rules to get the ball rolling:
1. PRIORITIZE MOVEMENT
If you find yourself sedentary due to the current times or due to your regular line of work, you’ll have to make an effort to change your own circumstances. You can do this by taking a 10-minute walk after breakfast, lunch and dinner. Those three walks add up to 30 minutes a day that you’re now on the move! Not only are you prioritizing movement but you’re aiding the processes of your body post-meal by moving after fuel consumption. This takes us to rule number two.
2. BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT YOUR NUTRITION
If you’re not planning ahead as to what you’ll be consuming at your next meal, you’re not being intentional. Not being intentional leads to poor choices: poor choices in the store when you’re shopping, and poor choices in the drive-thru when you’ve not prepared a lunch. Those poor choices eventually add up to poor condition, poor health. Now you’re at higher risk for impaired health during this pandemic due to your poor habits, and that’s rule number three.
3. HEALTHY HABITS MUST BE DAILY HABITS
For example, you’re on a “diet” but only adhere to it Monday through Thursday because the weekend rolls around and you’ve got to do your thing. You’re now on a diet for 57% of the week. At this point I’d tell you not to waste your time. Your habits aren’t consistent enough to get real results and you’re not committed to having them anyway. You’re waffling back and forth between want and need. Everyone needs to be healthy, but our choices, the ones that become habits, rarely reflect daily that health is what we want.
More and more statistics are coming out about the dangers of being unhealthy and the risk factors related to living a life unfocused on fitness. Fitness isn’t obtained under a knife. It’s not starved via a fad diet and it’s not sucking in your gut while taking a selfie in the gym locker room to post on social media.
Fitness is hard work. It takes effort and intention, a commitment to hours each week of focused nutrition and prioritizing movement. When someone is genuinely fit, you’ll know. They don’t have the same weekend habits others do. They don’t stay up late and it’ll be hard to catch them at a fast food drive-thru. They’ll tell you being fit and healthy isn’t all that hard because they’ve spent years cultivating the habits that make it simple. It wasn’t easy for them to get there but now they have a system, one that keeps them out of the doctor’s office and off the couch, living the life they want with less fear than most do when it comes the state of the world.
A high level of fitness is the closest thing we have to a shield against the known and the unknown. Go find your fitness.
