Life Over Looks

Hit a brick wall as far as progress goes? Having trouble breaking through that plateau? Can't stay consistent long enough to make any progress to begin with? Consider that it might not be WHAT your doing is wrong… maybe it’s WHY you’re doing it.

One of the biggest things that interferes with our ability to reach our goals - be they fitness, health and wellness related, or even your career… is whether or not we are coming from the right place to start. It's not always whether or not our end goal is out of reach or something that we can achieve but the reason that it is what we are striving for to begin with.

When we talk about our health it is often conflated with the idea of being ripped, lean, aesthetically pleasing jacked or any of the other superlatives that we associate with good health. But many of them aren't associated with good health, even oftentimes quite the opposite.

In our pursuit to be thinner, bigger, stronger we often-times find ourselves listening to influences that would help us achieve these symptoms of better health without ever actually being healthier.

One thing that the Fat Acceptance Movement does get right is that we have a toxic diet culture that is convincing people to value their appearance over their own health. We have been listening to and watching advertisements for years telling us how to shed pounds look better feel better.. these statements go together so often that they are conflated as the same thing. It convinces us to take ineffective supplements with money we don't necessarily have to spare, starve ourselves in the hopes that society will find us more palatable somehow and even unfortunately get involved in behaviors like performance enhancing drugs that can seriously damage your health and shorten your life.

Let's get something straight - being thin is not in and of itself healthy. Being obese certainly is not healthy either. This shouldn’t HAVE to be said, but here we are.  Being active and of an appropriate body composition in relation to our height, age etc is healthy. Having enough energy to get through the day, fuel our brains along with having the cardiovascular capacity to see to the daily tasks that need to be accomplished without winding ourselves for the crime of walking up a flight of stairs.

Making major lifestyle changes is necessary to significantly change our body. If you are approaching those changes from a place and the motivation to simply look better, you're more likely to fail. Always present in the back of our minds will be the idea it looks are temporary anyway. If you are lucky enough to achieve the aesthetic that you desire through whatever means necessary you will quickly find that it is not so life changing and soul healing as you thought it was going to be. Yes, fit and good looking people have an easier time in life that's a damn fact . But it doesn't make your life longer or better.

One of my early mentors, and the man who helped me get this whole thing started Alan Roberts often says: “You get one body, you don't have a spare. Act like it.” A lot of folks out there are treating their bodies like a weekend rental car that they can just turn in and let me somebody elses problem when they're finished with it. But it's not the case, this is the body you carry throughout your life. It is the vehicle that will determine the quality of that life.

It is far more important to have a healthy relationship with food and activity, a consistent relationship that builds your body up; not spend it up and leave you with nothing to enjoy your later years.

The tools are out there to establish a better relationship with food and activity. Some of them you can find here but this is by far not the only place that you can find them. I heartily encourage you to educate yourself without bias, prejudice or rose colored glasses. Getting healthy is simple, but it is not easy . It requires dedication, commitment and most importantly consistency.

But every last one of you out there can do it. There's not a single person can't close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

Go Fit Yourself