Do You Want to Get Fit or Healthy?

We are in full swing into the start of fall season.  This means, in a blink of an eye, it will be the New Year.  For many of us, we will commit to a New Year resolution.  My new year’s resolutions are often filled with something fitness related (run 2 half marathons), something health-wise (eat 2 servings of vegetables at every meal) and begin a (very vague) financial diet.  My resolutions to commit to running a race or setting an intention to eat more vegetables at each meal, for the most part, are successful.  It’s always the financial diet that is a failure and is constantly thrown into the buffet of my new year’s resolution.  Why is this the case?  Is running my race more important?  Do I feel there is more value in eating good food?  You can make a good case this is true.  What is really the barrier for not succeeding is the VAGUE goal I set.  Be better with my money is not specific enough.

When I speak to prospective clients, they often explain they would like to get healthy or they want to get in shape.  These are great goals but are not specific enough.  There are so many elements of each module.  Do you want to work on movement or have overall well-being? They definitely part each other’s universe but have different results.  Let’s figure out what it means to be healthy and what does it mean to be fit?

 The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “complete physical, mental, and social well-being – and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  Trying to define fitness was a harder task.  My favorite came from MyFitnessPal Blog, “Fitness is the ability to move well,” says Shana Verstegen, an Under Armour trainer and world champion log roller. “To move for a sustained period of time. And to move safely for as long as you live.” (side note… world champion log roller… What? What?  Amazing!)

Let’s start with, what is fitness.  Fitness has five components: Cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition.  Let’s get to the crème de la crème of what this means.  Cardiovascular fitness means how well your heart and lungs perform at circulating fluids and removing waste while enjoying things like swimming, jogging, spinning, etc.  Muscular strength is the most weight muscles can handle.  Muscular endurance is how long the muscle can work before fatiguing.  Muscle flexibility is how well the joints can move freely without pain. The final component is body composition.  This how much adipose tissue we have, that’s fat, on our bodies.  Someone who is fit can have the cardio endurance to run, lift heavy things, lift heavy things for a good amount of time, have the flexibility to squat, bend and then have no more than 20% body fat.  Sounds good… easy right?

To be healthy or live a healthy lifestyle is much more holistic. Health encompasses your sleep, stress, what you eat and how you move.  Although much more broad, they are all interconnected.  If you are eating nothing but processed foods, you are not going to feel great.  The body is unable to use this fuel optimally.    Since you are not feeling great, you have little motivation to get moving.  This leaves you tired at night but may keep you getting the restful sleep you need when daily exercise is not part of your life.  So now you are not moving since you aren’t eating well and tired. Now life is throwing a few curve balls because that’s life and you are stressed to the max. No Bueno.  This is not living a healthy life.

I love to move.  It’s good for my body and my mind. It is an important part of my life.  Since my training is important to me, I do my best that other parts of my life are on point so I don’t get sidelined by my eating, sleeping, and stress.   I do my best to eat whole foods (umm… it is often a struggle because I do love, love me some Ruffles Queso Chips, coconut ice cream, Riesens candy… I mean the list can go on and on).  I eat whole food so when I train, I don’t feel like dirt.  In order to keep my stress at bay, I meditate so I have the clarity to make my day a productive one.  And I try VERY hard to get at least 7 hours of sleep at night.  I try.  I understand by getting my sleep in, my body can recover. If your body recovers properly it is able to do its best.

I share this because although my goal is running a race. Just to clarify, not feeling like dirt when I participate in the race is my goal.  I have no ambitions of gold or PRs.  It takes being healthy to do that.  If I didn’t lock in the other factors of being healthy, I would not be able to put the work into the training.  If I don’t have the training, the day of the race will be miserable.  Believe me, I know since I tend to learn only be making massive mistakes.

So your ultimate goals should be getting “healthy” but if you want to get very specific on what aspect of health you want to achieve~your nutrition, sleep, hydration, or stress.  Once you start to lock down your goal, it will be easier to start to incorporate other health factors in your life.  But first, choose a goal you will thrive and getting healthy will come together as long as you put the intention out there.