2626: When Health and Fitness Isn’t Really Healthy, and What to Do About It by Nia Shanks on Overall Wellbeing

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[00:01:11] and what to do about it? By Nia Shanks of niashanks.com. And I'm your host and narrator, Dr. Neal Malik. Hey there, happy middle of the week Wednesday and welcome back

[00:01:20] to Optimal Health Daily or OHD, where I read an article to you every day of the year and always with my commentary at the end. Now, every week on Wednesday, I like to share an inspirational

[00:01:32] quote with you. And since today is Wednesday, here we go. Quote, Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain. All right, now that we're in the right frame of mind, let's get right to today's post and start optimizing your life. When health

[00:01:55] and fitness isn't really healthy, and what to do about it? By Nia Shanks of niashanks.com. Health and fitness. Think about that phrase for a moment. Health and fitness. What does it mean?

[00:02:10] While the exact definition may vary from person to person, I think it expresses a sentiment of improving your quality of life by building a strong, resilient, functional body that ultimately serves you. The details such as exactly how that's accomplished, whether through strength training,

[00:02:27] organized exercise, sporting events, physically active hobbies and so on can be debated. One would think it's about establishing sustainable habits, so you not only reap short-term benefits but long-term benefits too, like a decreased risk of disease. And ultimately, a health and fitness

[00:02:46] regimen should enhance your life and not dominate it. However, if you thumb through some of the latest magazines and scroll through popular websites, that's not always the impression we're getting. Health and fitness. Some resources have turned it into a game of constantly striving

[00:03:02] to reach a lower body weight coupled with strict dieting methods and long, grueling workout routines. Often it looks like a race to see who can eat the least and workout the most. And sometimes the information is just downright degrading. Where health and fitness has gotten off track.

[00:03:20] Instead of focusing simply on eating better in a sustainable way, like eating mostly real, whole, natural foods, we opt instead for the latest rapid fat loss diet that has a list of forbidden foods that can often lead to binge eating and other disordered eating habits.

[00:03:36] Inevitably, we combine this dieting mentality with a rigorous workout routine that often leads to burnout, overuse injuries, and exhaustion. I'm no exception. I've been guilty of this before. For a period of time, I had lost sight of what truly mattered – building a stronger body that

[00:03:53] serves me while improving my overall health – and focused instead on trying to build a perfect-looking body. As a result, my self-worth was tied to a series of numbers, and I always felt like I was falling short. I could be leaner, I thought as I looked in the

[00:04:08] mirror. I could do an extra workout, I'd proclaim as I forced myself to wake up early for an additional cardio session. This is going to make me fat, I uttered as I ate a peanut butter and jelly

[00:04:19] sandwich. My health and fitness routine was causing excess anxiety as I constantly tried to chase the perfect body and compelled me to diet harder, workout longer, and push through exhaustion and mental fatigue. In retrospect, this is certainly not health and fitness. Thankfully, many years ago,

[00:04:40] I got back on track and rid my life of anxiety caused by health and fitness and returned to the simple basics that provided the majority of the results without the unnecessary stress. While looking good always has and likely always will be something I want to maintain,

[00:04:57] I'm now able to look beyond just the physical benefits I have achieved from choosing to eat well and workout consistently. I want my body to serve me and allow me to live an awesome life.

[00:05:09] It's important that I have a high level of overall health so I can participate in nearly any physical activities I want, be it hiking, kayaking, ski-boarding, bouldering, or anything else. Training smart to ensure I don't acquire another terrible injury has taken priority over getting

[00:05:26] strong, regardless of the consequences. I'm not afraid to listen to my body and back off when things don't feel quite right, instead of allowing my ego to take control and pushing through fatigue or a

[00:05:37] nagging injury. Perhaps you've gotten off track with your health and fitness routine. Maybe you're spending too much time dieting and working out and you'd like to put the health and fitness

[00:05:47] back into your regimen. How to get back on track? It's time to put the health and fitness back into our habits and routines and remember why we make an effort to eat well and workout. To begin, we would be wise to follow the sage advice from Brad Pilon.

[00:06:06] Beware the person selling suffering as dedication, exhaustion as virtue, and obsession as health. Allow that to sink in for a moment. Your health and fitness regimen should not require you to suffer or force you to revolve your life around a particular plan. Another way to apply this

[00:06:25] suggestion is to not read magazines, articles, books, or websites that make you feel bad about yourself, set grossly unrealistic standards, or try to force you into some preconceived ideal mold. And when it comes to examining or even changing your current health and fitness habits,

[00:06:41] ask yourself the single most important question, will I still be able to do this one month, six months, and one year from now? Though it's not the least bit sexy or exciting, it would behoove you or behoove all of us to adopt simple, flexible, sustainable guidelines

[00:06:59] that can be tailored to our lifestyle, preferences, and needs. And the goal? Well, that's ultimately up to you, but you can't go wrong with focusing on becoming the strongest, most awesome version

[00:07:10] of yourself. Not a new and improved you and not the images you see littered in the fitness magazines or memes floating around social media, but the best version of yourself. Be proud and love your body

[00:07:24] not just for how it looks, but for what it can do. The goal should be to build a body that serves you and improves your overall lifestyle. You would work toward applying a few simple guidelines

[00:07:35] that are as stress-free as possible that you can maintain long term. It's time for us to be reminded of what health and fitness truly means and to practice it in our everyday lives. You just

[00:07:52] listened to the post titled, When Health and Fitness Isn't Really Healthy and What to Do About It by Nia Shanks of niashanks.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neil here for my commentary.

[00:08:05] Whenever we start deviating from our goals, maybe it's because of some of the images we see on the web or memes just as Nia said in today's post. To help re-motivate ourselves to get going again,

[00:08:17] think about accomplishing little wins and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it's something like going for a 5 minute or 10 minute walk instead of worrying about squeezing in a 30 minute or hour long workout. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Maybe it's

[00:08:32] planning for just one meal this coming week. Don't worry about the whole week, just plan for one meal. Again, these may not sound like much but these small wins can help provide us with momentum

[00:08:44] to take on eventually the more challenging tasks we've been putting off and again more importantly get us back on track. We will always encounter setbacks. We will have days where we're not feeling our best, we're not feeling like our true selves but to get back on track,

[00:09:00] remember those little wins and that will often get us re-motivated to get back on that path. All right, that'll do it for another episode of Optimal Health Daily. Thank you so much for listening every day. Thank you for sharing this show with others.

[00:09:14] That's how we've been able to keep this going. So again, I thank you for doing that. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.