 You,
Yourself & Irene - The Mental Game of Fitness - Part 3
By Ray Burton of Building Bodies FitnessIf only
it was true that looking great was the answer to happiness and self-esteem!
Fitness is a destination with many paths that must be travelled before you
arrive home. What’s home? Home is a the place where your well-balanced and
happy self lives! Let’s take a look inside and start working on the mental
side of fitness.
Self Image: You’re Not What You See - Self-image can build you up or break
you down. When you harness the power of feeling positive, nothing can stand
in your way. However, when you see only negatives your body becomes your own
worst enemy. The power of belief, love and acceptance in yourself are the
driving forces behind all great personal accomplishments in life.
Self-doubt, pessimism and poor self-image are all forms of personal sabotage
that can take great things and turn them into unrealized dreams. To live,
love and feel comfortable in the warmth of another’s arms are a few of
life’s greatest comforts. Losing gifts like these by setting physical
perfection as the location of happiness is missing out on the whole point of
fitness and life.
The point? To enjoy it. Don’t obsess, worry or preoccupy yourself 24/7 with
the petty nonsense of a couple of pounds. Stop being scared to wear certain
clothes because of the “media clouded images” that are displayed as normal
levels of fitness and can cause you to give up all together. You are a
beautiful person as you are. Your beauty is not connected to your outward
appearance. Fitness is for health and quality of life, your appearance is a
by-product. Always be proud of where you are now and the fact that you are
trying to improve day-by- day. This in itself is victory.
Keeping Your Fitness Lifestyle Balanced - There are times for
improvement and times for maintenance. You cannot devote yourself to
anything 100% without another area of your life taking a second place role.
Do one thing at a time. In the “off-season” eat healthy and train sanely.
When its time to improve or change, kick it into high gear! Don’t try to
stay at 6-8% body fat for a whole year. It can be done, but not if you want
to live a “normal” full life.
To lose, love or to hurt others emotions for an extra pound of muscle or a
percentage of body fat, day in and day out, is absurd and totally selfish.
There is a time for focus and self-improvement and a time for caring and
sharing. Pick your times and give each 100% effort.
Here are some of the things that if I could have done over, I would have
done quite different:
- Religiously getting eight hours of sleep per night...Do you realize how
many get-togethers, movies and dates are missed if you always get your eight
hours of sleep? Now I’m not saying to stay out late every night. That
doesn’t work either. But once in a while there are really cool things to do
that may never happen in your lifetime again!
- Eating every three hours...I used to miss movies with friends because I
knew the drive plus movie time would take more than three hours. If I did
convince myself to go, I snuck food in with me because theatre food is
garbage. The key to keeping fit is to do the right things the “majority” of
the time.
- Turning down desert...This is one of the worst. I’ve hurt good friends
feelings by not eating deserts that were prepared with love and effort. Did
anyone notice any difference in my abs the next day? No. But I did hurt
someone’s feelings? Yes.
The fitness 22/2 split is a good method for the fitness lifestyle. Workout
and cardio should take a maximum of two hours per day and you should spend
the rest of the 22 hours enjoying life. Fitness is a not a final destination
but a place you live at and call home, make it comfortable. Eat clean, train
hard, and the only other time dedicated to fitness should be your two hours
at the gym.
Don’t Fear Being Better - Fear, the emotion that stirs the
ocean of our souls. Stop for a moment and think of all the things that you
have ever desired in your life but never achieved or acquired because of
this one emotion. Fear wears many masks; it can display itself as an
internal voice (you can’t do this!); other times it disguises itself as
procrastination (the “I will start tomorrow”) or even arrogance (ever ignore
the cute hottie across the room?) The point is that fear can debilitate if
not understood.
What if you embraced fear instead of running from it? What if every time you
felt fear, you ran towards the object of your fear with even more
determination instead of cowering in your personal space? I’ll tell you; you
wouldn’t have a case of the “what if’s”. The “what if’s” are the things you
remember and wish you would have done differently. They are the missed
opportunities and the chances not taken. More importantly, they are the
rungs in the ladder of life that you have never climbed and they are the
reason you’re not at the top right now enjoying the view. This applies to
all areas of your life, not just to your body and the gym. I believe that a
truly fit person has balance in all areas of life; the mind, the body and
the spirit. All parts of this musketeer trio must be taken care of to be
truly happy and successful.
Your past is the past and your future starts today. There is nothing you
have done to your body that could ever dim the hope of self-improvement,
because improvement starts exactly where you are now. Change is inevitable
with concentrated hope. In order to take advantage of hope, it must be
accompanied by action. You never have to be great at anything to start. But
you must start in order to ever become great.
Learn to use your tools to the best of your abilities and go create a
masterpiece!
Ray Burton is a fitness writer & owner of the Calgary personal
training company Building Bodies Fitness. Visit
www.buildingbodies.ca
for guidance on all matters of fitness. |
