Health & Fitness verses Diet

I recently committed to a health and fitness mission for myself. I am strongly opposed to “diets”, that is diets in the way that is commonly thought of these days. And no this has nothing to do with a new years resolution. Resolutions are rarely honored for more than a few weeks and just like fad diets they have little long term success.

The new year is in fact a great time to renew and restart so I know many of you have made a commitment to losing weight and trying to be your very best. Many of us, my self included have fought the battle of the bulge. I believe what will be more helpful is if we look at the battle a little differently. Instead of thinking of your weight and how you look. Focus on health and fitness. I know this is difficult because focusing on a number on a scale has been engrained in us.

The goal should be to be the best you, that you can be. The focus should be to be the healthiest you, you can be. If you focus on a healthy lifestyle the weight you are supposed to be will take care of itself. Here are some points to consider when committing to your own personal health and fitness;

Diet

We must retrain our bring to understand what diet means. Diet, definition, is food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health. The definition does say, deprive yourself of food. It doesn’t say just if this food, or don’t eat this food so you’ll lose weight. Your diet s what ever you eat and brink on a consistent basis. Make your diet a healthy lifestyle diet. The key is to focus on eating and drinking for health, not necessarily for weight loss. Some healthy lifestyle diets I suggest you research are The Zone and the Paleo diet. I am starting to read the new book by Tom Brady, The TB 12 method. I’m interested in learning his healthy lifestyle diet. What’s important is that you are intentional in learning what your diet needs to be, that works best for you.

Commit

We have got to commit to a relentless pursuit of health and fitness. Its easy to start working out and eating healthy, what’s hard is sustaining our commitment for the long haul, for life. It takes a commitment to re-committing everyday. Remind your self every morning what your goals are. Ask your self when you pick up foods you know you shouldn’t eat, is this going to improve my health or hurt my health? Is this food taking me closer to my goal and honoring my commitment or taking me further away from my goal?

When you don’t want to exercise, I face this issue all the time as I have committed to get up at 4:30 am to exercise, thanks Jocko Wilink. Its tough to get up that early and get going right away. When I hesitate and try to rationalize why I don’t need to get moving, I use questions that make me question my commitment to what I want to be and achieve. Questions like, what would a healthy person do? What would a champion do? I know somewhere, there are healthy people and champions out there getting their butts out of bed working at being the best they can be. And that’s who I want to be.

You can be the best you, you can be by focus and commitment. Focus on being healthy and fit and the pounds will take care of themselves. Take consistent action and re-commit each day.