Tag Archives: total fitness

Fitness, Intrinsic Vicissitude, Rewrite Your Life Story

Preparing for Better Health and Total Fitness in a New Year

A new year is like a fresh slate, at least in some ways, and it’s a great time to set some goals that help you start preparing for better health and total fitness.

Preparing for Better Health and Total Fitness in the New Year
Runner image courtesy of Pixabay

Preparing for Better Health and Total Fitness in the New Year

To get psyched for achieving the goal of better health and fitness, think about where you really want to end up, what you can safely achieve; and then take a look at your fitness gear, both comfortable clothes and shoes, as well as exercise equipment, because looking good when working out and being comfortable boost your morale so you earn even more success.

Convenience Makes it Easier to Succeed

For any goal you set, make it easy to succeed. This works whether you are talking about fitness, your finances, your career, or your relationships (thought relationships are obviously harder to plan success into because you have to account for the feelings of someone else who may have entirely different goals.)

In the case of better health, if you find anything lacking, look for great deals and one-stop shopping when you’re buying new gear, like you find in your local Target store or on the company website.

Mental Preparation for Total Fitness and Getting Healthier

Be sure to check with your doctor before starting a new fitness program, and also, like I mentioned above, go ahead and get yourself psyched.

Changing your lifestyle takes work because habits become so ingrained in our lifestyle, even a small change can take big effort, and a lot of the time, that work is 99% mental work – getting and staying psyched for success.

The Slow and Steady Tortoise Won that Race

Be emotionally prepared for the occasional setback, a little setback is not a failure, it can just be your subconscious telling you you’re jumping in too fast – that you need to ease into your lifestyle changes.

Just like in the fable about the tortoise and the hare, sometimes the fastest runner gets tired out and ends up losing to the one who puts forth a slow and steady effort.

Your goal may be to get swimsuit-ready by spring if you are using weight as the basis for your goal-setting, but if that means crash dieting, sure, you could probably achieve that goal, but it also probably won’t last and can even damage your long-term health goals.

Set Some Goals, and Then Achieve Them

If you’ve browsed around the site and seen my older posts, you probably already know that I don’t like setting New Year’s Resolutions because they are too easy to forget – and I have my own version of planning for each new year – and you’re welcome to try it in your own life if you feel inspired; instead of making resolutions, I set goals and then start figuring out what needs to be done first to achieve my new goals.

  • Know yourself: Your goals can be anything that will make you happy, and in all seriousness, I have found I always achieve the ones I keep to myself and I almost never achieve the ones I tell others about. I used to think being accountable to others was the key to succeeding, but for me, it’s a sure way to fail.

So, I suggest looking back at your life during this time of introspection and goal-setting – and if you have a similar pattern – keep your new goals to yourself and quietly begin the real work of creating a new life story for yourself, one that includes success, better health, and total fitness – it’s no one else’s business anyway.

I would like to extend a special thank you to my affiliate sponsor for this post, Target, and if you need anything to get started on your path to better health and fitness, I invite you to take advantage of the links in this short article to get a jump on getting anything you need for your healthy new lifestyle – oh – and be sure to come back and let me know how it’s going or sign up for my free newsletter (the sign-up box is over on the right side of the screen) so my positivity boost emails can be delivered right to your inbox.

By: Laure Justice

 

 

Fitness, Intrinsic Vicissitude, Rewrite Your Life Story

Can Visualization Really Help With Weight Loss?

While there is a lot more to weight loss than just visualization, visualization is a tool you can use to help you stay focused on your goals as you build healthy eating and fitness routines into your daily life.

Visualization and Weight Loss

Visualization and Weight Loss

“Changing the way you approach weight loss can help you be successful. Set goals and focus on lifestyle changes like being physically active instead of focusing on just weight loss itself.” – National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight can tell you how hard it can be; the challenge is that you still have to eat and you still have to deal with the same emotions and stressors that caused the weight gain in the first place.

I can’t even guess how many times I have latched on to one or two components of the weight loss process, like reducing calories or exercising a certain period of time, only to see initial success followed by disappointment – and I’m not alone – the $650.9 billion per year weight loss industry wouldn’t exist if I were the only person dealing with weight issues.

Visualization Helps You Change the Way You Think

One thing you can add to the mix to help you lose weight and gain a healthier lifestyle is visualization because it puts the unlimited power of your subconscious brain behind your weight loss efforts.

Alone, visualization won’t melt the pounds off your body, but it can help you build the confidence and self-esteem needed to make a physical change, and it can help you maintain your ongoing focus as you take the steps necessary for weight loss.

Weight Loss Visualization Tips

This is the easiest way to get started, but it costs a few dollars, and for many people the easy way is not always the most effective way – (you have to ‘know’ yourself) – you can buy or download weight loss meditation and visualization CDs or download them from the Internet, then listen to them several times throughout the day as you  relax or as a complementary part of meditation.

Another way that takes a bit more effort is to write your own affirmations about weight loss, total fitness, and your health, then memorize them and add them to your meditation time, or if you don’t meditate, repeat them when you wake up, mid-day, and just before you go to sleep.

Visualization alone won’t change your body, but adding it to a healthy eating and exercise plan as part of a healthy lifestyle can help get you where you want to be.

Fitness, Intrinsic Vicissitude, Rewrite Your Life Story

Meditation Music and Positivity During Workout Routines

The right music can help put you ‘in the zone’ for workouts, and if you’re trying to achieve a high level of total fitness, it’s helpful to add some meditation music that enhances your state of positivity to the stretching phases of your workout routines.

Meditation Music for Workout Routines

Meditation Music and Positivity During Workout Routines

Short Workout Routines

If you are planning a short fairly low-intensity workout, five minutes of stretching at the beginning and again at the end might be all you want to add to your fitness routine, and one easy and positive way to do that is to select five-minute tracks of meditation music for the stretching phases.

This applies to yoga stretches or basic stretches like you were taught in your high school gym class, the result is the same as long as you warm up and stretch out your muscles before and after your workout.

Longer Workout Routines

If you plan a longer, or high-intensity workout, increase the meditation music tracks to ten or fifteen minutes at the beginning and end to give you adequate time to warm up your muscles and then stretch and cool down to reduce soreness from an intense workout. (Running Times recommends twenty minutes for the cool down period after a hard run.)

For specifics on your ideal warm up time, you should always discuss your workout routines with your doctor or personal trainer before making changes – then choose positive, slow-paced meditation music to accommodate and enhance the beginning and end of your workout.

 

Fitness

What Is Total Fitness?

When we think of fitness, we often only think of physical fitness, however, to be really fit for life we need to be fit in mind, body, and spirit. Life presents us with many challenges and to meet these challenges well we need to be in tip top condition, be able to cope with stress, in control of our minds and have a connection to our inner wisdom.

What Is Total Fitness?

By Ali Wylie

How can we explain total fitness? Well to summarise it is a combination of being fit and well in mind, body and spirit. All three areas are of importance and interconnected.

When we think of exercise we often only think of physical exercise but what good is it if you are physically fit but you don’t use your brain. Use it or lose it so the expression goes. The diseases on the increase in our society are dementia related illnesses. Why is that? Do we stop using our brain as we get older? It would seem so. We have to look at the brain like a muscle, if we don’t use a muscle it shrinks and gets weaker, and so does the brain.

At the same time what is the point in having a fit mind if our physical body is too weak to do what we enjoy doing. As we get older we need to keep exercising as there are so many benefits. More energy, more oxygen circulating in the body, better immune system, our health is generally better.

We don’t have to be fitness freaks but we do need to exercise at least 3 times a week, and exercise well. It’s no good going to the swimming pool and spending most of the time hanging on the side chatting, the talking can happen after over a coffee but when you’re exercising stay focused on the job in hand.

The benefits of a regular exercise routine will soon start to show, firmer muscles, more energy, walking faster up those hills plus a general sense of well-being. Consistency is the key as with anything we want to achieve in life.

What about the spiritual side? A strong connection to the inner you gives you a lot more confidence in life as well as the ability to cope with stress and most of us have a lot of that in our lives. As we get older so do our family members and sooner or later we all have to deal with losing a loved one, a strong spiritual connection will help you deal with loss. Life after all goes on and we must learn how to adapt and remain strong and productive.

We should still be able to enjoy our own lives and a connection to the inner you will make this more possible. The inner you is wise and knows the next step you should be taking in life, often the signs we get from this font of wisdom are missed due to the busy nature of our lives. We must learn to listen to the whispers from our soul.

Life will always present us with problems the important thing is how we deal with them, being totally fit will give you all the tools you need to meet and overcome whatever challenges come your way.

Total fitness is a lifestyle, it is about taking control of your life and living it to the full. We are not just a body but a mind too and of course we have spiritual connections. We need to get all of who we are in order. Pop over and visit us at http://www.totalfitnessunited.com and let us help you get fit for life.

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