The long road to fitness

Fitness and long term health is an outcome based journey. 

A few things should have jumped out at you from that sentence. First off, fitness AND long term health go hand in hand. Fitness is a person's ability to meet the demands placed on them by external forces. There are many different ways that we can be fit.

We can be physically fit, emotionally fit, spiritually fit, psychologically fit and I'm sure many other types of "fit." But no matter the fitness you are developing, you are able to meet the demands placed on you. 

I have learned since getting married about emotional fitness. This was something I was unfit and unprepared to handle. I was physically fit for the stressors of daily living, but I was emotionally unfit to handle the stressors of being married to my wife.

And no matter how bad I wanted to be emotionally fit, and no matter how fast I wanted it to happen, I wasn't going to undo the past 20 years of emotional indifference and lethargy. I have been married for over a little over 2 years now, and I am STILL improving my emotional fitness. But progress is being made, just ask her.

Hopefully this helps to illustrate the point I am trying to make. Improving fitness is a long-term investment. It does not happen overnight. Sure you can read a book or two and get some new information that may make improving your fitness a bit more streamlined by helping you to refocus your goals. But the benefit in improving your fitness is not once you are fit, it comes during the journey.

Just as I have learned in my relationship with my wife - I am not trying to get to the point of happiness and joy. Instead, my happiness and joy come from the process of learning about my wife and emotionally connecting with her.

There are many things you can do daily to improve your health and fitness. Many are the same things you've heard me say in the past - Eat more fruit, stretch frequently, drink more water, eat more vegetables, get good quality sleep. But doing one thing to improve your health daily will prolong the journey and make sure the quality of your life is much, much higher.

When you can finish each day and say, "I got better, I did my best, I am moving forward," it is at that point that your fitness is improving.And no matter which type of fitness it is, it will improve your overall quality of life. .