Learning to love a healthy lifestyle

Q: I took my gym renewal for all it was worth in January. But, unfortunately I’ve slacked off in the past month. My gym membership is going to waste and all the good habits I started have fallen by the wayside.

A: Like most relationships, involvement with a new program, a new gym or a fresh start to training begins with a flush of excitement. At first, there is magic to the activity, everything is new and the possibilities are endless. The motivation is easy and you are willing to create your life around your training. Inevitably, however, it begins to lose that super-special gloss, the routine seems less interesting, and there are conflicts with the rest of life for your energy and time. This is normal, so do not feel that something is wrong with you.

Just about anyone can fall into a brief love affair with working out, but what you want to do is commit to sustainable healthy habits. The best commitment comes from finding enjoyment and satisfaction in the regular aspects of training and healthful living, accompanied by a measure of discipline and conscious effort. Start with a little organization and willpower. Set out a reasonable plan for training given your (real) life demands, and determine to stick to it. This is not sexy, but it is necessary to kick in the good habits.

Focus on developing your appreciation and enjoyment of the routine and ordinary aspects of training—the movement, the glow, the challenge, the stress relief, the social contact and so on. Nurture the little feelings of satisfaction that come from being active and treating yourself well. Take quiet pride in the fact that you keep up regular fitness and health habits when so many others fall by the wayside. 

The big highs and special times will come now and then, but it is the consistent satisfaction of the more normal aspects of a healthy lifestyle that will maintain your motivation and sustain your good habits.

Keep your fitness active all year

Q: I’m struggling once more to get out of my winter doldrums and back into decent shape. Every year it’s the same grind, fighting the battle only to lose fitness and balloon up again at holiday time. How can I get myself restarted and keep it going throughout the year?

A: Cycles are a natural part of life. The problem for many of us comes from our unrealistic expectations that we should always be getting better and should never drop off. Even the greatest athletes have times of relatively low fitness in off-periods. If this is your starting time each year, go at it with optimism and the certainty of nature bursting forth each spring.

At the same time, seasonal demands and winter conditions often ruin otherwise good habits, and we find ourselves much farther out of shape than is desirable. It can be frustrating and a little depressing. One good approach is making plans to remove just a reasonable portion of the dip, rather than expecting a "perfect" training year. Think back over this past winter and consider a couple of small, relatively easy things that you could have done that would have made a difference in your fitness. Not 100 percent perfect, but maybe 10 percent to 20 percent better than you did. For example, would you be happier if you had just done one exercise session per week in that month where you did nothing? What about just one or two meals a week that could have been healthier? Look for the doable things that you know would make you feel better.

Write those thoughts down in the November or December pages of your diary for this year. Instead of a deep spiral, you may just find that you maintain reasonably well through next winter season.

A question of balance

Q: I did a relaxation class recently. It was nice enough, but I felt like it was time that could have been used for a more productive workout. The instructor says it’s good for us, but is there really a reason for doing more relaxation practice?

A: Most any form of relaxation or meditation can provide benefits to your health and well-being. Energetic workouts feel most productive, but there are good reasons to include some form of systematic quieting practice in your fitness schedule. Here are three important reasons:

Countering stress—The relaxation response
Our bodies are designed for a wide range of circumstances from comfortable sleeping, to normal activity, to panic and the struggle of life and death. In a simpler age, there were moments of high activity, but humans spent most of the time doing light work or nothing much in particular (studies of existing primitive tribes support this contention). The human body is therefore built for a balance consisting of some stress, with a great deal of light to moderate activity and rest.

Our modern lifestyles tend to change this balance to a great deal of stress with some moderate activity and a little rest. There is a constant demand to drive for results and to watch for and deal with potential threats. The majority of this stress is psychological, but the body reacts as much as the mind. Based on our high-intensity lifestyles, most of us have a well-developed ability to be on alert, and we overuse our natural "fight-or-flight" stress response in daily life. What was naturally designed to be an emergency survival system is now our normal mode of operation. 

To get balance back into our lives, we need to practice shutting down the stress response and operating at a more natural, sustainable level. For complete health and well-being we need to take time engaging in what Harvard cardiologist, Dr Herbert Benson has termed the "relaxation response." Opposite of the stress response, the relaxation response is a naturally rejuvenating state that can be elicited through meditation and relaxation practices. The relaxation response is the "yin" of the stress response’s "yang." If you physically or psychologically stress yourself, you also need to find balance by "letting go." And, if you really want to learn how to let go, a relaxation practice is ideal.

Recovery
Relaxation techniques are terrific for physical and mental recovery fro hard work. The principle of Progressive Overload describes the process by which your body will get fit by gradually increasing your workout demands. Yet, it only works if you also provide your body with good nutrition and plenty of rest. The workout provides the stress, but your body grows stronger during the rest time.

Think of relaxation periods as growth power time between training sessions. Relax to let the body do what it knows how to do in order to rejuvenate and develop. Imagine the cells and all the physiological systems adapting to operate at higher levels. And enjoy the peace between the stresses.

Mental control
Persistent work with relaxation practices can greatly improve your concentration and mental control. Because we are constantly thinking, constantly on the go, we are good at having "busy" minds. In fact, most of us have minds so busy that we have trouble getting them to quiet down. Thoughts, sensations, emotions, worries, plans and reactions all swirl around in our heads uncontrollably.

Relaxation practices help train you to quiet the mind and take back a degree of control. The discipline is well worth cultivating. It can be hard at first to settle the mental swirl, and even to tolerate the internal silence. The reward, though, is clearer thinking, better awareness and the benefits of letting the mind enjoy a rest.