Be Grateful!

     Welcome to afitnewyou!  This week I would like to inspire you to keep up with your fitness goals with a reminder...to be grateful for what you have.  While I can tell you many things that one should be grateful for, which often get overlooked or taken for granted, in my little space here, I will remind you to be grateful for your health.  If you are doing something today to point your diet and/or exercise routine towards healthy goals, even if its simply thinking about those goals, than you are in a place that you should be grateful for.  In life, it is often said that "everything is relative."  And, that saying can pertain to so many things.  If you are ever discouraged about anything, you can usually find a silver lining if you look hard enough, or some reason to be grateful.  The same is true for your health.  Although you have a fitness goal that you haven't reached yet, maybe it is a body weight you want to be at, a dress size you want to fit in, or an amount of weight you want to make your new personal best, you have to still be grateful for the health that you have today.  This is because you never know when your health may take a turn for the worse.  I have seen many people and clients who had only started to live a more healthy lifestyle after a health scare.  Lets avoid the tragedy needed to sometimes learn a lesson.  Lets be grateful for the health we have today!

     Jason is someone who comes into the gym on a regular basis...these days.  He is in his sixties now, and after he suffered a heart attack when he was 45 years old.  Before the heart attack he didn't exercise regularly, and just as bad, he smoked cigarettes and drank hard liquor regularly.  It wasn't until this life threatening event that he decided he needed to make some major changes in his lifestyle.  Immediately after leaving the hospital, and being thankful to be alive, he gave up tobacco products, cut down his alcohol consumption, and started exercising everyday.  He knew he was lucky to be alive, and grateful for that second chance at maintaining his health.

has been on an exercise routine for the last twenty years.  Unfortunately, he wasn't very active prior to that, and even more unfortunate than that was that he only started taking care of his health
     JT is a client of mine who had a similar lesson of taking his health for granted.  JT is in his seventies, and is pretty active for his age, regularly playing golf and tennis in the warmer months, and hitting the gym in the colder months.  JT was always very active and a self proclaimed "jock" from a very early age.  Its this continued active lifestyle that many people need to follow.  But JT had a freak accident where one of his retinas partially tore.  Unlike Jason, JT's mishap was completely unavoidable.  But, along the same lines, it wasn't until his vision was severely diminished that he fully appreciated how healthy he was before this accident...even if he had the regular aches and pains of someone his age, or any weekend warrior for that matter.  And as his vision improved, his spirits picked up more and more because he was able to play tennis again, where immediately after the injury he was told there was a chance he never would.

     As I said earlier, don't wait for a tragedy to happen for you to appreciate the level of health you have today.  Yes, we are all striving to achieve a better state of health; and yes, we all have fitness goals that we want to achieve.  That's fantastic, and I am sure a good part of that is what got you to your current state of health that you are in now.  And even though you can and should work towards your goals, and an even healthier state of living, its important to acknowledge and appreciate that health you have today.  And when you do, this value of your own health should fuel you to keep moving towards your health goals.  Its a positive cycle.

     We are often to busy, too concerned with what we haven't achieved, what we still need to do, and the flaws that make us all human.  But we all have some level of health that shouldn't be taken for granted.  We all should be very grateful for the level of health we currently have.  As we age, we all now that its harder and harder to stay healthy.  So by being grateful of the health you have today, no matter how much further you want to take it, let that value of your health motivate you to do everything you can to stay that healthy and more importantly reach your health and fitness goals.  Reflecting on the goodness of your current state of health is an introspective way to reach a fit new you!