What is Health and Fitness?
Health – The state of being free from illness or injury: a person’s mental or physical condition.
Fitness – the condition of being physically fit and healthy: disease and lack of fitness are closely related; the quality of being suitable to fulfill a particular role or task. Fitness means being able to perform physical activity. It also means having the energy and strength to feel as good as possible. Getting more fit, even a little bit, can improve your health.
Information Overload?
There are a myriad amount of websites, blogs, youtube videos etc. that focus on health, fitness, cardio, strength training, diet, so-on and so-forth; but is the information relevant to individuals who are past their prime but want to have a good quality of “extended” life?
What information are you seeking? General overall health improvement? Strength training? Weight loss? Fat Loss? As you can see, you can pare your selections down to 1 or 2 items but will that get you where you need to go in order to push back the aging barrier? Every person is an individual, beginning in your 30’s physical and mental changes can be seen. Changes in hormonal levels, weight gain, stress from work, family dynamics etc. all of these things take their toll on you. It’s not enough to focus on 1 or 2 things in the hopes of improving your overall health.
Identifying your health and fitness goals are the keys to achieving them.
The average person who wants to lead a long and vigorous life can do simple things to improve their H&F that don’t require huge investments in gym memberships, supplements, personal trainers, protein powders, etc. What is the Ultimate Goal? A mind and body that can withstand the rigors of everyday life in such a manner so as to “Thrive” not merely “Survive.”
I’m sure most of you know about Dave Ramsey – Dave provides financial advice to people to help them get out of debt, stabilize their finances and save for major purchases and retirement. You’ve all probably heard of his “Baby Steps” approach to paying off debt and becoming financially independent. The same principles can be applied to your H&F approach.
H&F Baby Steps
“If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.” I wish it was as easy as providing the same process as Ramsey’s Baby Steps but there are a lot of things to consider when developing a plan of action for H&F baby steps. Let’s start with the following:
- Risk factors and current physical condition.
- What are your limitations?
- Ability to access health resources.
- Are you motivated enough to make a change?
- Do you have a support system?
Obviously this is a topic that needs more in-depth and detailed information, see the page on H&F Baby Steps.