I believe in sharing everything that helps me with everyone else, so that more people can benefit from the information that inspired me or have helped to further my knowledge of up keeping a healthy lifestyle. Thankfully, I’ve never had any serious health issues and consider myself more or less health conscious. However, recently I’ve started to become more interested about the specific things that one can do to ensure a truly balanced and healthy lifestyle. With that determination, comes lots of research on topics that interest me. I believe, that if they interest me and I can gain something out of it – then I’m positive there are more people out there who are wondering the same things and perhaps could also learn something new from my discoveries.
Unfortunately, I’ve never been involved in any competitive sports. Over the years, I’ve tried different workout routines, but never really gave my 100% commitment to working out regularly. I’ve tried signing up for the gym, and even that didn’t do the trick. There is something about those big, “scary” looking machines and the fluorescent lighting that just doesn’t appeal to me. Instead I’ve always found myself more interested in the classes, rather than those big and unfriendly looking things that are supposed to help me… I might also add that I’ve never been particularly in love with the actual process of working out – I guess it’s because I haven’t really been into any specific sports since childhood. If I had to pick my favourites though, it would have to be Aerobics, Yoga & Pilates. In the past, I would last for a couple of weeks and would quit for various reasons. Of course, I always had a good excuse, like: I have no time for it, it’s too time consuming, I’m not good at anything active, It doesn’t really work, I’m not seeing any results, etc, etc, etc. Come on, you know you’re guilty of it too…
Finally though, I’ve had enough of my own silly excuses and made a promise to myself that starting in January 2009 (and no it wasn’t a New Years Resolution…I don’t believe you have to wait for a New Year to roll around to make positive changes, just the timing worked out like that) I will stay committed to working out at least 3-4 times a week. I’ve decided that I will research routines targeting different body parts and depending on the effectiveness of each one, will combine them to create my own set of exercises that I will do regularly.
Well, I am happy to report that it’s now been almost 6 months that I have stuck by it (excluding maybe 3-4 weeks of vacation time and some personal sad time that I will blog about eventually that I didn’t work out). Although it’s not a huge deal I know, I am quite proud of myself for keeping my word to myself. I have to confess of course, on some days it’s awfully hard to get started, and other days I can’t wait to get sweaty and feel my muscles ache afterwards! I know it is going to sound like a complete cliché – BUT! – it truly does come down to being consistent! And of course, it’s true for everything else in life as well. If you want to see results, then you’ve got to dedicate yourself to that goal wholeheartedly, and I promise, eventually you will start to see results.
No matter how busy our days are, “we have got to put ourselves back on our priority list” (like Oprah recently said) and dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to being active. I know it can be hard, but once you make a decision inside that you want to be healthy and live a long and happy life, that is all it takes. So I have a proposition – Lets do it together! I will share with you my discoveries about the Health & Fitness and in the near future I hope to put together a few Workout Videos that I’ve felt have been effective, so that you can benefit from them as well.
Photo Source: www.bfeedme.com, www.getfitsource.com, www.personalsolutions.com.au, www.womansday.com
Im looking very forward to your future posts.
Can’t wait to see those work out videos, preferable if you’ve got any ab work outs. My abs are my weakest target area.
Great article. And I agree that it is all about commitment and being consistent. When I had both school and work it was really hard for me to stick to it and there would be times when I would just stop working out cuz of exams… But for the past year or probably even longer than that I have been very consistent with my workouts. I also keep a log of every work that I have done like how many sets I have done and what weight I used and what areas I targeted. That way you can look at your progress whether in the number of repetitions or the weight. However, I admit to being lazy on the w-ends and I just cant bring myself to work out..lol… its much easier for me to do it during the work week.