CrossFit states that Fitness and Sickness are simply a measure of the same thing, Health.
But what is Health, and how do we optimize it?
There are three elements you control and one element you don’t when it comes to your overall health. The three we controls — exercise, nutrition, and outdoor activities to achieve and maintain the healthiest version of ourselves. Genetics is the element you don’t control, but you might be surprised at how much ANYone can overcome with a little education, motivation, and accountability.
We believe in longevity, training for the years and decades ahead. Make these 4 commitments to yourself to establish a lifestyle that will optimize your health and ensure you are healthy now AND in the future.
Plan – Create a plan on a weekly basis, don’t start a week “hoping” to eat healthy. Make a plan to give yourself a chance. Even if you pencil in things like Chipotle for lunch. You will have more success and make better decisions if you have something to fall back on.
Prep – Spend a few hours each weekend creating some pre-packaged meals and snacks. Know where you struggle and focus your prep time there. By committing your time and resources you
Track – If you don’t log what you eat, you run two major risks. If you get results, you need your log so you can replicate what you have done. If your results aren’t coming quickly, you will need to make adjustments, and you can’t do that without a food log. My Fitness Pal is the best tool on the market, and the best news… Its free! Calibrate the settings for YOUR calories, and the 30/30/40 macro breakdown. I recommend you don’t enter exercise or use the default settings.
Be Active – Activity levels are critical to health and wellness. Get to the gym 3 time per week, be sure to include strength training, and interval work (high intensity periods of work combined with timed rest) for the best results. Get outside 2-3 times per week, being a gym rat is great – but your brain will function better and you will lose weight faster if you get outdoors on a regular basis!
Remember to do these things habitually. Do you check your bank account, balance your checkbook, and plan your retirement on a regular basis? Your health needs the same type of routine maintenance, meal planning, prep, and tracking are not extreme behaviors for elite athletes and body builders. In fact, they are less important for those populations. These are the things we need to learn and practice to navigate our culture successfully and sustain our health in todays society.
