Practical Fitness Tips

…There are precisely 368,994,103 fitness tips in existence.  Here are a few more:

— You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.  If that includes exercise and healthy eating, you will eventually be in a lot of pain and probably die prematurely.  Everyone has their own ideas about pastime.

— If you are chronically stressed, it is an emergency.  Fix it.  First priority.  It makes no difference what you have to give up in order to do so.  (Note: Doing what you are already doing, only more frantically, will not fix it).

— Obesity is not a disability.  It is a treatable condition.  If food addiction is causing the obesity, that is also a treatable condition.

— Find a physical activity you enjoy and do it as often as possible.  If you hate running, don’t run.  If you hate gyms, don’t go to one.  If you like flying kites, do that.  If you don’t know what a kite is, stop looking at your phone.

— Make yourself do something that is challenging at least once per week.  Pushups, lap swimming, Zumba.  Pick one.

— If do you go to a gym, don’t drive around the parking lot looking for a spot closest to the door to avoid excess walking in order to enter a building in which you are going to get on a machine and walk.

— Stop eating fruit flavored candy.  Fruit tastes just like fruit.

— If you do today what you did yesterday, you will feel just like you did yesterday.

— If you do tomorrow what you did today, you can finish this sentence and put it on a stock photo of a person climbing a mountain.  Or vomiting into a mall trash can.  Depends on what you plan to do tomorrow.

— Stop obsessing about every little health detail that may add an extra 14 hours to the end of your life.  Obsessing about it cancels out any perceived benefit.  (RE: Stress + exhausting all of your friends).

— If you’re 52, stop hanging on to 22.  If you’re 22, stop calling Nirvana “classic rock.”

— If you are expecting that the preceding tips will make you look like a fitness magazine cover, they won’t.  But these things will:

Deadlifts…heavy.  Sprints…until death seems preferable.  Planks, sit-ups, crunches, leg lifts…laughing isn’t worth the pain anymore.  Pushups…all of them.  Pull-ups…until it feels like cardio.  Chicken, avocado, spinach…always.  Cake…never.  Happy hour…nope.  Twinkies…yes, if you fill them with razor blades.

Everything exists on a spectrum.