SO YOU WANT TO GET IN SHAPE?

It’s hard to believe we are entering into the last few months of 2010. Whether you have been exercising on a regular basis or are trying to get in shape after a summer break, today is a great day to reflect on your personal wellness and set some new fitness goals for you and your family.

The term “wellness” is quite the buzz word these days. The media has taken a great interest in “wellness” as result of the rising levels of obesity and diseases that are directly related to our sedentary lifestyles and poor eating habits.

What is wellness exactly? Webster’s provides two definitions:

1) Services focused on the promotion or maintenance of GOOD HEALTH versus the CORRECTION OF POOR HEALTH

2) A dimension of health beyond the absence of disease including social, emotional, physical and spiritual health.

Focusing on health maintenance is the ideal interpretation of wellness. In our country, however, correcting poor health (which is often directly related to poor preventative wellness planning) is the trend.

Personally, I am tired of hearing about how lazy and fat we are, and that the young people in our nation are fatter than their preceding generations. It is time to do something about this growing epidemic!

Here are three great tips to help you achieve real, lasting wellness results:

1) Make a simple commitment to your exercise program.
Don’t buy into fad diets and diet pills–instead, buy a calendar/journal! Take your calendar out right now and choose 10 days this month where you will commit to exercising for at least 45 minutes. Commit to eating 4-5 small meals per day. Write down what you eat for 30 days.

2) Vary your routine.
Have you ever met someone who says they exercise week after week, year after year and aren’t getting any new results? Our bodies adapt to stimulation over time and in order to continue to improve, we must progress and change our routines. If you are spending the time exercising, make sure you are getting the most bang for your buck! Change up your routine, and change it up frequently.

3) Be accountable.
This is my most important tip. Check out these research statistics:
Researchers divided people starting a walking program into 2 groups. Every week, each person in one group received a phone call asking how their walking program was going, the other group received no phone calls throughout the program. Guess what? Forty-five percent who received the phone calls were still walking compared to 2 percent of those who did not get a phone call! This study suggests that accountability increases the likelihood of sticking to your exercise program by 2,200 percent!

The moral of the story here is that a strong support system equals stronger results. Enlist your family to participate in your exercise program, encourage a friend to join a fitness center with you or get a coach to encourage personal accountability!

I challenge you this fall to commit not only to your own personal wellness routine, but to also serve as a positive wellness role model within our community.

Use the three secrets above to fuel your fire. Being fit will positively affect everything in your life: your health, your sex life, your mood, your relationships, and your financial success…yes, EVERYTHING! So what are you waiting for?