IT’S A LIFETIME ENDEAVOR
If constant advertising on television, social media and elsewhere is any indication, weight control and fitness in general are issues of significant concern in the United States. The Center for Disease Control gives us helpful exercise guidelines as show below.
Pre-school children (3-5 years)
- Physical activity throughout the day, with a variety of play activities
Children and adolescents (6-17 years)
- 60 minutes or more of vigorous daily activity, such as running or soccer. Strengthening muscles and bones is essential, with activities such as climbing or rope jumping.
Adults (18-64 years)
- At least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week, such as brisk walking – and at least 2 days each week of strength training.
Older adults (65 years and older)
- The same two activities shown above, plus exercises that improve balance, such as standing on one foot
But, how are we doing as a nation? Sadly, not too well. Forbes.com, with brutal honesty, tells us that only 28% of Americans are meeting the CDC guidelines shown above. Forbes even breaks it down further, informing us that the most active states are Colorado (32.5%), Idaho (31.4%) and New Hampshire (30.7%). The least active are Mississippi (13.5 %), Kentucky (14.6 %) and South Carolina (14.8%).
It gets worse. Our lack of fitness has severely affected our U.S. military. Active duty service members comprise only 1% of our population. Of young adults between the ages of 17 and 24, over one in three is too heavy to serve in the military even if they wanted to. Frontiers in Public Health tells us that obesity is a major health problem in the U.S., that two of three adults and one of three children are overweight or obese. Obesity is on the rise, despite the many efforts to let us know of the health dangers.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
I have been significantly overweight at times during parts of my 40s and 50s. Before then, I was fit during high school and college sports activities. I have been involved with weight training for most of my life, even when I was overweight. I may have followed the fallacy that weight training or other exercise would permit me to eat at night with no control. I clearly remember being happy that my weight was only 230 lbs. as I was playing in a tennis tournament.
I now keep my weight between 180 and 184 pounds. At times, I creep down to 179 lbs., which is too light and seems not healthy for me. My journey has neither been a straight line nor has it really been too difficult.
What worked for me has been the following:
- Positive habits
- Intermittent fasting
- Daily accountability
When I combined these three disciplines, weight loss and continued fitness became relatively easy, which is not to suggest that it didn’t require my constant attention. Let me break it down.
Positive habits
We may tend to think that motivation is the key to fitness disciplines. Often true, but motivation can vary from day to day. Positive habit formation breaks through a lack of motivation. Habits are automatic responses. Not much thinking is involved. Be careful – negative habits are just as powerful as the positive ones.
It may take up to a couple of months to establish a habit. The habit must be feasible, convenient to implement and practiced consistently. It may help to give ourselves a reward as we see positive results. Once again, the beauty of positive habit formation lies in the automatic response. For example, I use my turn signal when driving, even as I enter my own garage with no other car nearby. More to the point, I do a workout every morning before breakfast without fail. I have not missed such a workout in many years.
Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting is more about when you eat than what you eat. This fasting prolongs the time during which your body has already burned the calories you consumed during yout most recent meal. You are now burning fat.
Neuroscientist Mark Mattson, Ph.D., has done extensive study on intermittent fasting and he knows our bodies have evolved to withstand long periods of fasting, even for a few days. We were hunters and gatherers. It took time to find food or to gather berries or nuts.
I began intermittent fasting accidentally. My morning workouts were taking up to two hours and my breakfast meal was often not until 11:00. When I learned more about the value of intemittent fasting, I settled on a general schedule of eating only between 11:00 AM and 5:00 PM. This gave me a fast of 18 hours per day at least.
The benefits of intermittent fasting include the following:
- Improved thinking and memory
- Better heart health, with improved blood pressure and resting heart rate,
- More fat loss and better cardio endurance.
- Prevention of diabetes and obesity.
- Reduction of tissue damage in surgery or otherwise.
Dr. Mattson also speaks of a longer life, sharper mind and leaner body. This has worked very well for me, but check with your physician before making an abrupt change.
Daily accountability
Tracking our fitness activity only makes sense. We can make assessments of the progress we are making and be more aware of the areas where we need improvement. Significantly, we are able to be inspired when we see positive progress.
Would we spend money without checking our bank accounts? Would we make guesses about our weight or blood pressure?
My practice is to make daily records of my weight to the tenth of a pound, my blood pressure and pulse, my number of workout sets and reps, my minutes of cardio activity and my calories consumed per each meal. Is this excessive? I don’t think so. It take less than 5 minutes per day. More importantly, it keeps me on track and anxious to post favorable numbers. It’s an ingrained habit.
AFFILIATE MARKETING AND AMAZON
Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a third party (or affiliate) promotes the products or services of a business and uses unique links to help create the sale and share in the profit. See in my upper menu – BECOME AN AFFILIATE MARKETER – for full information. Also, the simple diagram below will illustrate tjhis process.
Amazon is an ideal partner in this business model, since they have just about any product that may apply to our needs – at a fair price with excellent delivery and service in general.
Here is a list of items relevant to today’s post and available from Amazon. Each link will show pictures, essential information, prices and other similar or complementary items. Starting with books……
Atomic Habits – An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones
Intermittent Fasting – For Optimal Health and Weight Loss
Intermittent Fasting – For Women Over 50
Intermittent Fasting – For Men Over 60
Intermittent Fasting – For Seniors
Fitness Journal– Track progress, achieve goals
Walking – Daily record for walkers
Track Your Fitness and Nutrition – For men and women
Weight Loss Tracker – Daily log book
Fitbit Versa 4 Fitness Smartwatch
Fitbit Charge 6 Fitness Tracker
FINAL THOUGHTS
My attempt today is to candidly show our physical fitness concerns in the United States and to present what I have done – both in error and in pursuit of better fitness. The CDC guidelines seem easy enough to follow, but our performance as a nation seems shockingly insufficient.
It seems to me that we must have a plan for fitness, a systematic approach. But first we must care. If we do a 30 minute workout daily, we are using up only 2% of our daily 24 hours. We have 98% of the day for everything else. Can’t we see the value and simplicity of such an investment of our time?
Let’s consider fitness and good health as fundamental requisites!
