After high school and college, the real world starts to ramp up and your metabolism starts to slow down. Sometimes we forget the importance of exercise in not only our physical health but also mental and spiritual health. Working forty hours a week, having a family, and trying to see how to get fit is difficult for anybody, follow this guide on how to revitalize your spirit through sports like playing golf.
There are many benefits of being in shape, especially as an adult. The first is the health benefits of being in shape. Lower blood pressure and cholesterol help pump more oxygen to your brain and muscles. An oxygenated mind is clear and able to think faster.
Exercise working towards getting in shape helps you feel better and reduces soreness, muscle aches, and an enhanced immune system. There is a reason why healthy and in-shape people aren’t sick as much as unhealthy people.
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Exercise Works the Brain
Being in shape has many mental benefits as well other than oxygenating the blood and increasing circulation. As you get in better shape and start to lose weight and gain muscle, your confidence and body image will get better over time. Try using this exercise to keep yourself mentally sharp and focused on moving forward.
- Use a vision board to keep you moving forward.
- Make sure the board is in a place where you can see and pass by every day, this makes sure you are working towards your goal each and every day.
- Make sure the vision board has a target you are trying to hit, this could be a number of days working out in a row or running a 5k, no two personal goals need to be the same
Make your Goals About Health
Many people working out attempt to hyperfocus on one small aspect of health like weight or pants size. Throw that notion out the window. Being in shape is less a physical vision and more a state of mind. Health has more to do with what is on the inside than outside. For instance, if you are very thin but have high blood pressure and are anemic, you aren’t really healthy. Focus on targets that create long term decision changes instead of short term “fixes.”
Bring your Diet Under Control
Diet is probably the most important part of getting in shape and elevating your spirit. More research on how diet translates to happiness points to the importance of a balanced and healthy diet. Consider eating food high in sodium or flavor enhancers like MSG. Sodium causes the body to retain water leaving you feeling bloated and lethargic. Similar to MSG, it makes you sluggish and forces the body to slow down.
With diet control, taking supplements and vitamins must be made with precaution too. Back then, when you were a kid, you got a lot of Vitamins from A to Zinc, and in your adult years, you are not invulnerable. Vitamins, minerals, and supplements are a must to make your body stronger and healthier. There are also herbal supplements depending on your body and health goal. As an adult, diet can be uncontrollable, and some may have problems with their weight. Due to the busy schedule, it is very challenging to be active and lose some sweat.
Quick Diet Fixes
Fad diets and other new hot trends in health and fitness are hard to follow because they require sweeping changes to your lifestyle and create burnout. Instead, follow a much more simple structure to slowly make life changes to get you in shape.
- Swap the fries for a salad or vegetables
- Avoid eating out as much as possible. When you are eating at a restaurant, the sodium, fat, and calorie content is unknown.
- Cut out soda and other sugary drinks. These also include processed juices, some may even be branded healthy!
- Remove processed foods. A good rule of thumb, if you can’t pronounce the ingredient or don’t know where it comes from, it shouldn’t be in your body.
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Similar to a fad diet, if you went and made all these changes immediately to your diet and lifestyle they would likely be undone in a week or so. Instead of making giant sweeping changes, incorporate small health changes.
This can be done with workouts the same way. Day one you might walk for five minutes and add a minute each day eventually going running for five minutes. There are several great phone apps like Couch to 5k that give you timings on when to run and rest allowing you to ease into a full 5k running regiment.
Track Workouts with Easy to Use tech
Apps and technology have changed not only the way we exercise and train but how we monitor our training like you are monitoring your golf game. You don’t necessarily have to go out tomorrow and buy an expensive smartwatch but the concept of a push to train is more prevalent than ever. Something as simple as setting an alarm can change a lot of habits you have throughout the day and helps you on your goal of how to get fit.
For example, if your goal is to space out your meals evenly throughout the day to eat less, a simple series of alarms can be set to remind you when to eat. Same thing with exercising, if you want a subtle reminder when it’s time to hit the gym or start a workout, use your phone’s alarm function.
Started from the Bottom
The important aspect of getting in shape is to start somewhere. A great book called Atomic Habits talks about making small incremental changes in your life to achieve your goals. James Clear basically lays out if you make a 1% incremental change in your life each day for a year, you will have made a total change of 365% over a calendar year. Each of these small habits doesn’t have to be huge overhauls.
Start Small Grow Big
There are several benefits of targeting incremental gains instead of large milestones. One of the biggest advantages is that you will be able to and adjust progress at smaller intervals. For instance, if you run a mile in 10 minutes and try to get to 9:50 after two weeks, you can adjust your training regimen to see how long it takes you to get to that time. This way you can accelerate or decelerate your goals. Another major benefit is avoiding long periods of procrastination as it will affect your goal of how to get fit. If you want to lose 10 pounds in three months, putting it off until two weeks before will force you to miss your goal, become unmotivated or take on several unhealthy crash diets and exercise regimens.
You can also try getting into sports such as golf. Sports are an excellent way to lose some sweat and be active. Just make sure to get into it little by little. Also, consider adding some sports supplements so your body will not have a hard time to cope up with such activities. Since social distancing and work at home are encouraged, you can play golf at home using home golf simulators and move some muscles. But, once things go back to normal, walking on the course and a tee time with your colleagues and friends is highly recommended.
Dreams are Key to Longevity
Remember that doctors have always prescribed eight hours of sleep each night. Until recently, the study of sleep science was a small niche field for those with extra cash to spend. Sleep science is no longer a niche field and studies have shown sleep deprivation leads to less than desirable performance both physically and mentally.
Sleep is very difficult to makeup and the more hours of sleep debt you accumulate it is nearly impossible to recover. Consider how you feel when you wake up after three hours of sleep vs eight. If you are able to have a fitness tracker, many can tell you how you slept. If you see a continuous trend of poor sleep consider seeing a doctor or a sleep specialist help you get through those restless nights.
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A good night’s sleep allows not only your mind to recover but also facilitates the recovery of muscles, especially after workouts. Mattress technology has advanced greatly in the past decade. If there is one thing to spend big on for your health, skip the shake line, espressos, and protein and spend the savings on a mattress that makes you feel like you are on a cloud. Imagine waking up perfectly rested every day ready to tackle the day without reaching for that extra cup of coffee.
Target Long Term Stability
In health and fitness, a long term stable program is much more beneficial than large short term, unsustainable, gains. No matter what your health goals ultimately are, getting in shape as an adult helps uplift your spirit and gives you a more positive outlook on life. The total compounding benefits work to continue you down a positive trend.