Category: Simple Advice Big Results

What are your Health Priorities?

    If your wanting to make some changes in your health this year, you did the right thing by reading this article.  1st off, I’ve been making and setting goals with gym goers for over 10 years and every New Year, I hear some of the same shit.  I need to do this and cut out that, OR I need to start doing this and do less of that.  If I commit to that and not that, I’ll change.  And for a few weeks it works,,,,,,,, So let’s stop right here!!!!

Just focus on the basics! Focus on basic health habits you learned a long time ago. Yes, they still work.  Its only the market place that has changed 50x and confused everyone.  What can you do better today? What can you learn and apply tomorrow? Don’t worry about it, just focus on today.  Win the Day with the basics.  If you can Win the Day, you can Win another Day and another after that.  If you can Win the Week, you most certainly can Win the Month. If you string a few months together you can Win the Year.  If you Win the Year, You are Winning your Life.

Now back to the basics.  The basics range from personal hygiene to getting to bed on time.  Eating the right foods for you more often than not and staying away from unhealthy behaviors such as regular fast food.  PS. Fast food does not give you basic health benefits.  Fast food places have one goal….Make massive profits, by giving you less then basic nutrition.

The basics are the simple things we all make difficult.  The basics are drinking enough water throughout the day and getting balanced macro & micro nutrients, from real food.

            Macronutrients are the structural and energy-giving caloric components of our foods that most of us are familiar with. They include carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

            Micronutrients are the vitamins, minerals, trace elements, phytochemicals, and antioxidants that are essential for good health.

The basics also include, moving with good posture and finding time to work on flexibility.  “Mobility is the difference maker in long term joint health.”

The basics are different for everyone, but yet they’re all kind of the same.  If your health is a top priority this year, you will still have ups and downs. With that said, what would you change with your health and fitness in 2018?  Hopefully a lot of  basics you do as a lifestyle, but if not maybe start their before you say your gonna do this or accomplish that.

If I was your coach, I would start you out with outlining your PRIORITIES 1ST. Making a list of your priorities first will narrow down what to get started with. From there, I would have you write a GOAL for each priority.  From the list of priorities and a goal to go with them, I then would have you write daily tasks to chip away at your goals.  These daily tasks are going to be different each day.  Your best results will come when you write down your tasks each day and cross them out as you complete them.  I call these the “WIN THE DAY” tasks.  If you just commit to your tasks each day based off your goals, based of the priorities that created them.  You can “WIN THE DAY” everyday.

Here are a few topics and questions to think about in regards to Health and Fitness priorities:

    Fitness Program: Do you have one?  Do you need one?  Do you do it consistently enough to say its a program? Is it improving you or maintaining you?  Is it boring or it’s always changing? And is that the reason why its not working? Do you lift? Do you run? Do you mix it all together? Do you not know what you should be doing? Are you pushing yourself? Do you have anyone to workout with?

    Nutrition Lifestyle: The foods you most often consume on a routinely basis. Again, macros and micros levels? How do you make up a meal? Do you base it around a meat or vegetables?  What are your cravings? Do you need to change? What is your Nutrition education level? Or do you know everything? Have you stuck with something long enough to make real changes in your body?  Or are you just getting by on whats convenient?  Go get your body fat measured and compare it to last year. Do you know that figure?  Bad meals add up more than you think and they also derail progress more than you think.

Immune system: Your ability to fight off colds and heal infections. Look closely at your micronutrients levels if you have issues.

    Cardiovascular Health: The 3 Energy systems for exercise intensity.  (see energy systems article) The heart and its circulatory health.  These must be exercised.  30 minutes of Elevated Heart Rate work per day is the leading prescription for cardiovascular diseases.  The leading cause of death in America.

    Digestive system: Poop! Your immune system is closely linked to your gut, your bodies 2nd brain.  Shoot for 20-30 grams of FIBER per day from plant based foods.

    Nervous System: Your brain transmits nerve impulses to the spine and organs, if you have neck and back problems, you have spine and nervous system problems.  Issues in various places of the spine can lead to bodily organs being effected/  Take care of your posture and spine to be thriving in nervous system health.  VERY IMPORTANT, ALWAYS OVERLOOKED.

Mental Health: You are in charge of you. What you choose to think about matters.

Remember: Priorities 1st, then write your goals for each priority.  Write the daily tasks for each Goal each day and WIN THE DAY, EVERYDAY.

P.L.D. – Pre. Lift. Dance.
A.L.D. – After. Lift. Dance.

We need to have fun in this life long journey of health and fitness.  It’s hard enough just watching what we eat on a daily basis, little lone making it to the gym consistently.   Whether you have big fitness goals or just maintaining your health, its still important to find satisfaction and happiness from physical activity.  If your having fun, it doesn’t seem like work.  If your routine needs an overhaul, get a hold of me or just play some better music while you workout. Haa but seriously.  If you’ve been doing the same routine since NAM, maybe its time to change things up.
When I coach, my question to whom I’m training is simple in regards to their program design.

Is it sustainable and can it be a lifestyle?
Do you get satisfaction and is it enjoyable?

The challenge from there will be getting results with the level of intensity needed to meet your goal.  Every fitness program should have sustainable elements of: F.I.T.T.
Frequency of days working out per week
Intensity of workouts and energy systems conditioned
Time under tension per workout and volume of work completed
Type of workouts (they should be FUN) Remember the gym is just a tool.

Have you ever dropped food on the floor and said “5 second rule” and picked it up and still ate it?  Ha, of course you have. But have you thought of what 5 seconds might really have done to that piece of food?  Probably nothing, but you can imagine if the floor was dirty you might get a hair in your mouth or worse yet you get sick from eating it. Gross!

Ok, now imagine if you took “the 5 second rule” approach to life.  What can 5 seconds really do?  What can 5 seconds of negativity do? Does it matter, your gonna deal with it anyway, right? How can you improve the situation in or after 5 seconds of something going wrong? Or what type of impact can you have in 5 seconds, is better question?  What type of spin can you put on a situation that starts off bad, just like that food that fell on the floor?  Imagine if you could teach yourself how to react positive in 5 seconds to every situation.  Think fast!!!!! This is a skill that is worth mastering.  Your true feelings can be expressed in 5 seconds and most importantly your character can be defined as well.

Try looking at “the 5 second rule” like this:  Life is food and its gonna fall on the floor every once and awhile.  It’s up to you, to pick it up or not.  Sometimes it’s worth it sometimes it’s not.  And sometimes you have to because you have no other option.  If you are hungry enough you’ll pick it up no matter what the cost.  Life is tough, but you decide what food you eat and what you don’t.  You can grab life off the floor and be optimistic.  I mean really, don’t be a “Gerber” and start crying about it, just make a positive decision and go with it, because you are either fighting disease or feeding it.
If your environment is clean and your world is set up in a positive culture, you can afford to eat something off the floor and not have major problems.  But if your floor and your environment is unhealthy, it’s going to make the 5 second rule a lot harder every time something falls.  Seriously, do yourself a favor and make the 5 second rule a skill for positive action.

Be 100% aware of your gratitude levels.  Know where you came from and be proud of it.  Be thankful that you have what you have.  If you stay true to being grateful, focus is easy.  Focus on keeping gratitude in all aspects your life.  Especially, health and fitness.  Chase your dreams and give your passion to the world.  Everyone that loves you, would be proud that you did.
It’s either “Hell Yeah” or Hell No”

If your not ALL-IN your ALL-OUT.