Sometimes we need help in our efforts to exercise. That might mean external (working out with others) or internal (providing a reward for an exercise session) motivation. What motivates you to stay fit?
Share why if you wish.
Category: Exercise
How Do You Stay Healthy?
Once you understand what it means to be healthy, you can change your lifestyle accordingly. But how do you maintain it?
One of the sad facts about aging is that it gets more difficult to recover from setbacks. Losing weight is harder. Recuperation from injury takes longer. Muscle mass is slower to build, and faster to be lost. It is more difficult to perform at a high level if you don’t eat or drink properly.
But even beyond aging, maintaining a certain level of health or fitness is a different skill set than achieving it in the first place.
Can you share the things you do to stay healthy?
How do you stick to a healthy diet, when there are so many unhealthy options all around us?
What exercises do you find best for maintenance? And how do you continue an exercise plan, when it is all too easy to take a day off, sleep in, or skip the gym?
Perhaps the most challenging of all, how do you stay mentally fit? What do you do to stay motivated, hopeful, and curious, rather than lethargic, distraught, and rigid-minded? You might be able to lift weights or do reps to keep your body in shape, but there is no equivalent way to keep your mind sharp. So what do you do?
In short, how do you stay healthy?
Related questions: What does it mean to be healthy? Are you aging well? How are your body and mind intertwined? How do you exercise?
Strength Training Or Cardio?
When you exercise, are you more likely to work on strength training, or increase your heart rate?
Share why if you wish.
Strength Training Or Cardio?
What Do You Think About When Your Mind Is Not Preoccupied?
For many of us, life is very full. At any given waking moment, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of things to be preoccupied with.
Most of what we think about from moment to moment tends to be concerned with immediate needs or problems: What should I wear today? Did I pay that bill? I’ve got an early meeting at work that I can’t be late for. What should I eat? …and on and on.
If you were to remove these sorts of thoughts from your mind, what is left?
To answer this question, there are some concrete steps you can take. There are different strategies for taking your mind off of these bustling, nagging thoughts.
One method is meditation. Meditation has grown in popularity over the last several years, and there are some suggestions that it can help to alleviate stress and reduce anxiety. There is no one sure-fire recipe to learn to meditate, although most methods involve focusing on something tangible, like breathing, to avoid preoccupation.
Another route to a peaceful mind is to surround yourself with a serene environment, like walking through a remote stretch of woods. If you remove reminders of your everyday life from your experience, you are less likely to think about it.
Yet another way is through intense physical exertion like exercise. Often your mind is able to let go of thoughts when your muscles are in action. This might be due to reduced oxygen available to your brain, or perhaps because of endorphins that are released during exertion.
Whatever method you use, one of these or something else altogether, what thoughts remain after the others are removed? Do you think of nothing? Or perhaps abstract thoughts become easier? Or maybe you become tuned in to the details of the world in front of your eyes.
What do you think about when your mind is not preoccupied?
Related questions: What do you think about when out for a walk? Are we too busy? Meditate or medicate? How do you find peace when you need it?
Exercise Or Eat Healthy?
Just about every fitness or weight loss regimen includes two things: exercise and eating healthy foods. Certainly, both are good things. But is one more important than the other?
For instance, are you more likely to lose weight by exercising constantly but eating terrible food, or changing your diet but being mostly sedentary?
Finally, do you prefer one over the other? You may enjoy eating fresh, green food. Or you may like the endorphin rush from working out.
Share why if you wish.
Exercise Or Eat Healthy?