Tag body transformations

Exercise, Self-Care, and Finding the Right Balance to Boost Your Overall Wellness

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Photo credit: Pixabay.com

Please check out this excellent article by Shiela Olson which explores the delicate balance between pushing yourself to the next level and nurturing yourself at the same time.

– By Sheila Olson of fitsheila.com

You’ve decided you’re ready to stop perpetuating a cycle of sleeping in on weekends, spending weeknights slumped over in your couch, and eating out at greasy burger joints every other meal. You’re ready to live a healthier and happier lifestyle, and you’ve known the answer all along — diet and exercise. Diets aren’t very effective when practiced every other week, and fitness requires you to keep up and even build up the intensity over time.

So, what’s the secret?

The Importance of Prolonging Good Fitness

When someone decides they are ready to start running every day, or some other form of exercise, they typically feel this fire within themselves to keep it up. You go in for your first day, and you feel exhausted, but you also still feel pretty good knowing that you’ve taken your first step at getting healthy. After a few more gym sessions, you notice that you aren’t just tired but also sore, and that goodwill for better living starts to feel a little less compelling.

It’s natural to give it your all the first few times before your mind and body start to naturally resist the transformation that is occurring. It’s the kind of transformation that people from all walks of life seek to make their lives better. It’s why so many recovering addicts start running and bodybuilding. Exercise not only changes how we look on the outside but how we feel on the inside. It reduces stress and boosts positive self-image and confidence.

The process of transformation can be difficult and uncomfortable at times, especially when you’re just starting out, which is why it is important to not overdo it. If you work too hard or put too much emphasis on your physical fitness, you run the risk of burning out and not making the kind of progress you are looking for.

The Meaning Behind Self-Care

Right now, the buzzword of the day seems to be self-care. People are starting to collectively realize that we don’t need to punish ourselves to live our best lives. Exercise shouldn’t be something you dread to do but something you look forward to. To remedy this natural resistance to living healthier and a fitness-oriented lifestyle, people are turning to self-care as a way to supplement diet and exercise and avoid burning out during the process.

One of the ways you can practice self-care is by leaving plenty of rest days in between workouts to give your body time to recover. Recovery is essential to practicing good physical fitness and ensuring you have enough energy to keep going back to grind week after week. Self-care also addresses showing yourself love in alternative ways. Exercise is important for our physical health, but we also need to consider our mental and emotional health as well. Beyond exercise, there are a number of activities you can do, such as meditation, reading a book, or pursuing a hobby, that can all fill a specific need you have in your life.

The Need for Balance in Your Life

When you approach your physical fitness as just one piece of the puzzle, then you can start looking at other ways to enhance your life, while not overdoing your diet and exercise. You won’t just be working hard, you’ll be working smart. You’ll know that there are many activities you can work on to improve your overall well-being. By balancing out these different self-care activities, you will always make yourself better while also keeping a very diverse routine. Some days, you will be focused on your physical fitness, but when you need to rest and recover, you can then switch gears and focus on your mental and emotional health as well.

Once you decide it’s time to make a change, you’ve already started your journey to improve your wellness. You may have attempted to change your life a few times now, but all of those past experiences were just the lead up to this one moment where you finally committed to achieving personal wellness and living your best life.

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

What Kind Of Body Do You Want This Summer?

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IMG_1963

Summer is almost upon us, which means that more skin-baring outfits will appear, and the pressure to look as good as possible will be greater than ever. So what do you do if you’ve been cozily hiding under a layer of winter storage fat for the last few months or years? There isn’t much time to strip that away, but it definitely IS possible to reveal a trimmer, more toned you for the warmer weather that is right around the corner.

The first and most important thing to do in order to build a body transformation strategy for the summer is to define your goals. Make sure that they fit the SMART criteria: SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE, RELEVANT and TIMELY. Let’s look at each aspect more closely.

SPECIFIC: The more specific you are in defining your summer transformation goals, the more likely you are to be successful in reaching them. A good specific goal could be losing body fat.

MEASURABLE: Let’s look more closely at the body fat reduction goal that I mentioned above. What if you set a goal of losing 5% of your body fat? By doing this, you have now made that goal measurable.

ACHIEVABLE: Make sure that you can actually reach the goals you put in front of you. For example, if you have an excessive amount of storage body fat, it would be unreasonable for you to try to lose 15% of body fat by the beginning of July. However, an achievable goal of 5% is much more reasonable and completely attainable.

RELEVANT: The goals you set should match up to your abilities and interests. For example, if you have been a complete couch potato for years, it would not be relevant to your lifestyle or skill set to aim to prep for an Ironman competition by July. A relevant goal that would still enable you to successfully reach a higher level of fitness would be to prep for a 5k walk/run in July.

TIMELY: In the above examples, I mentioned early July as a timeline marker. By setting a target date, you will establish a framework upon which you will build an action plan.

When I perform nutrition and fitness assessments, I always advise my clients and patients to follow the SMART acronym. Another thing I love to suggest is the development of a vision board. A vision board can be as simple as having a photo of a celebrity or other person who has the kind of physique that a client covets. In some cases, the photo may be of the client from earlier, leaner days. In either case, the photo serves as a perfect carrot to chase after. I always suggest placing the photo on a bathroom mirror or a refrigerator door. Another clever and very effective place for an inspiring photo is to use it as a computer or phone wallpaper design.

If you really want to get creative and inspired, you can create a larger vision board, either digitally or via old-school printed photos and inspiring quotes and messages. Just make sure that whatever you create, you believe 100% in what is on the board, and that you can attain it all.

My Cat Needs A Body Transformation

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For the first time in the thirty years that I have had cats, I share my home and my heart with an obese cat. My six year old European Burmese Kazu is of small stature, and her normal weight should be somewhere around nine pounds. She was nine pounds until just under a year ago, when her weight began creeping up. I noticed instead of walking down the stairs like she used to do, she hopped down the stairs, mainly as a result of her increasing belly girth and her short legs, both of which interfered with normal transit.

8.18.15 Kazu

One day in May, my roommate remarked that Kazu was rather stout, then began asking questions about her. Since my roommate was new to the household, she could clearly see that my cat was overweight. Was she constipated? Well, yes, Kazu has had bouts of constipation since kittenhood. Did Kazu drink enough water? Yes, I think she does. Does Kazu overeat? Honestly, I really don’t think so. Kazu doesn’t usually beg for food, and she normally doesn’t like moist cat food or people food. Out of concern for my little girl, I took her to the vet, who told me that my cat was fat and that there was nothing I could do about it. I then got a second opinion which was the same. I then addressed the constipation issue by trying glycerin suppositories, but there wasn’t much of a change in Kazu’s bowel habits, and neither of us enjoyed the process.

By early August, Kazu’s weight shot up to twelve pounds, which prompted me to take her to a third vet. Thankfully, that vet (Dr. Lavely at Limehouse Veterinary) was willing to take the time to chat at length about the problems which I had regarding switching the household to scheduled feeding times (erratic schedule, often not home, greedy male cat who eats everything, Kazu’s finicky palate). It’s been about a week since we visited Dr. Lavely, and the feeding has definitely been very erratic, which is why I still have dry food out at all times for the cats to eat. I keep trying to give Kazu people food and moist cat food, but her response is inconsistent. On some days, she readily accepts the food I put out for her, while on other days, she barely even sniffs the food before walking away. I am hoping that Kazu begins to accept the offerings I give her, because that is the only way she will lose weight. I even bought a very expensive moist cat food which has human grade ingredients in hopes that she transitions over to moist food. My goal is to get her to lose three pounds in a healthy way over the next year. Kazu is relatively active and plays with her siblings frequently. She also plays toys and is the only cat out of the three who knows how to play fetch and even initiates games of fetch on a regular basis.

I guess Kazu is my first feline body transformation client!