by Jenny Gaal, Fitness Director
Life is Full….. family, social, work, health & fitness and spiritual. How do we begin to even divide the time you needed to delegate to each? Everybody’s priorities will look different, but everyone should have time and goals dedicated to each one. If you take a look at the big picture, you may have more success to sticking to your goals in a specific area. If your priorities aren’t balanced correctly to support your goals then you will have a harder time being successful.
For example your health and fitness goals need to prioritize enough time allocated in that bucket in order for you to achieve your goals. If your goal is to work out three times a week for 45 minutes, but you only allocated 10% of your time to fitness, this might be hard to achieve. It is important that the goals are measureable, realistic and achievable. This is one part of being balanced. The other aspect involves integrating both fitness and diet into health goals.
If your goal is to lose weight then you must address diet along with working out. You don’t have to go on a diet per se, but consider more of a lifestyle change watching how much and what you eat daily. If it is easier for you to follow a specific plan then do that, if not I suggest you track what you eat by using one of the online tracking apps that are out there. Today you can download the app right to your phone. Your workout plan should include both cardio and strength. You need the cardio to burn the fat and the strength to tone the muscles and have the body process the fuel more efficiently.
Everything in life is about creating balance. Part of eating right is finding balance, everything in moderation and proper portion size. When you work out, you are training your body just to achieve balance through strength, stretch and cardio. You need to think about your health and fitness like you do your family and work life. If your priorities are out of balance your goals and quality of life will suffer. So do yourself the favor and be sure to look at the whole picture and how you are going to achieve balance and achieve your goals.