Skip to main content

Getting Healthy isn't Complicated so Quit Making it that Way.

I feel very sorry for people who get hung up on fad exercise and diets. I watch you flail and fail and try again with the next fad. Never getting where you want to be. Never getting to know what it feels like to be healthy. Never understanding what fitness is and how it changes every aspect of your life. You never get there because the fads get in your way. 

If you really want to get healthy I'll tell you how. It is plain. It's simple. I can't write an entire book or books about it and I can't dedicate an entire website to it. There just isn't that much to say about it. Remember, this is coming from a guy who was 50 lbs over weight and growing, smoked 2 packs a day, guzzled Coke like you can't even imagine and ate pizza more days a week than not.  Here is it, don't blink because you'll miss it. Move more, eat less and eat better.  That's all.

OK, fine a little explanation. Just to prove it really is that simple because I know you think there has to be more to it than that.

Moving is the really simple part. Just move your body. We spend way to much time sitting and laying. Way to much time watching TV and surfing the Internet. Instead go walk, run, bike, elliptical or swim. Don't complicate it more than that just make sure you get your heart rate up, your breathing faster and your body fatigued doing it. 20 minutes minimum but really you should go for more than that.

The diet isn't that much more complicated. Eat simple, single ingredient foods. If you do this you don't need to worry about paleo, vegan, low carb, low fat, blah, blah, blah. Just figure out how much you need to eat and then focus on getting most of your daily calories from things like vegetables, fruits, eggs, lean meat like chicken breast etc. You know, real food. Quit shoving junk in your face and drinking more calories than you should even be eating.

By doing these two simple things you will see phenomenal gains in health and fitness. Sure, at first you will miss the salt, fat, and sugar but trust me after a while you won't.  It's not that we eat what we like it's that we like what we eat. At first you may not like the exercise. Don't worry, it will grow on you just give it time.

There may come a time that you plateau on this simple program. For most people, when you do, you will be a very good place and if you just focus on maintaining you'll be in better shape than 95% of the people in this country. If you get here and you want to progress further you may have to complicate things and do more specific training and eat in a special way. But for the majority of Americans who have a very unhealthy baseline, this will get you to a much better spot and because it is so simple you won't burn out, fade away or confuse yourself in the process. Instead, you will finally know what it feels like to achieve your goal and be healthy and fit.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Running Goals or Running Goal; What is it That I Want?

The other day I got all caught up in setting running goals for myself for the rest of the year. After the goals were set, I found myself starting to worry about how I was going to reach them. Wondering if there would be time to sufficiently prepare for them all. My goals were to run a 5k in under 20 minutes, to run a half marathon in 1:25 minutes and qualify for and run in the Boston marathon in 2014. At first, I thought that setting and meeting these goals would make me a more serious runner. In fact, I thought that to be the "serious" runner I want to be that I needed these goals. However, while I was running the other morning I realized that first of all, I was thinking about how to shift my training to meet my 5k goal. Then I began thinking about the right approach to a 1:25 half while training to qualify for Boston in a full marathon a month later. That is when I realized that the ancillary goals were starting to consume my focus and quite possibly i...

2015 Valpo Half Marathon Race Report

This was my big tune-up race for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. I always run a half-marathon at this point in the build up to the Monumental to get a final big fitness boost, a reality check on where I am at fitness-wise and, if all goes well, probably the most important aspect is the confidence boost that I get. I got one heck of a confidence boost yesterday, 10/25/2015, at the Valpohalf Half-marathon in Valparaiso IN. Valparaiso is about 2 hours from home which is kind of right there on the line of driving on race morning or staying in a hotel the night before. This time we decided to get up and drive. Valparaiso is on central time which puts it an hour behind us. Meaning the 8:30 AM start was really a 9:30 AM start for me.  Making the decision to drive that much easier. I have been dealing with some issues on the top of my right foot, which is probably extensor tendinitis, for the last couple of weeks. I saw my soft-tissue guy last Friday. He worked on it some and got...

My AMDG Run: An Answered Prayer.

I have never been a person to pray for specific favors. It never felt right to me. My prayers generally are for strength, guidance, an acceptance of what comes my way. That is always how I "felt" right praying. To pray for a specific favor like a good grade, to do well in some competition and things like that just always felt a little wrong and to pray for physical healing was something I never would have considered. I am not saying this was any kind of selflessness. I am not sure exactly what it was. A fear of seeming childish or perhaps it was out of fear that my faith would be shaken if the prayer wasn't answered. Regardless, this is how I generally pray. And that is not to say that I don't or didn't think that God doesn't concretely answer prayers. I believe that He does. For instance I have always prayed when overwhelmed something like "God, I cannot do this all alone, please help me" and I will somehow, someway find my way through whatever it...