Enjoy and Simplify Your Fitness

Q: Why does staying healthy and fit have to be a work?

A: Getting healthy takes work, time and dedication.  Staying fit is relatively easy.

The good news is that the concepts of good health and fitness are relatively simple.  We just make them more complicated that necessary.  In fact, the overabundance of information that is supposed to be helpful for people wanting to improve their health is exactly what makes it so confusing.  And in the course of training for triathlons, training for marathons, lifting weights, doing yoga and studying a wide variety of "diet" plans,  I've amassed a fair amount of knowledge about the subject how to train and eat.  This does not make me an expert by any stretch.  Sure, all of this knowledge has helped me but you don't need to know what I know or pay exorbitant amounts of money to get fit.

The single best resource I've ever read on the subject was a book called "Body For Life" written by Bill Phillips in 2007.  For the average person, the routines proposed in this book, will make you stronger, more muscular and significantly improve your cardio vascular capability.  Is it perfect? No.  But it is one of, if not the best place to begin a path to better health and fitness.  I highly recommend reading it but I'll give you basics here.

DISCLAIMER:  I'm not an Instagram model or Doctor of any kind and don't have the body of  Greek God.  I'm just a guy who generally eats simple diet and stays in pretty good shape using the basic concepts found in "Body For Life"

The framework that Bill Phillips laid out in his book "Body For Life" is this:

• Strength Training 3 times per week
• Cardio Interval Training 3 times per week
• Eat a serving of protein, carbohydrates and fruit/vegetables with each meal

It takes 45-60 minutes for each strength workout and the cardio workouts are 20 minutes.

If you lack time or if you don't yet feel capable of working out 6 days a week, then do less until you can do more. 

If you happen to be a casual runner, this next bit is for you.....Do not underestimate the power of strength training and cardio interval training as found in "Body For Life."  In 2018, I had let myself go quite a bit   I was mostly eating a paleo diet but had stopped exercising for the most part.  I felt sluggish, soft and did not like what I saw in the mirror when I stepped out of the shower.  So I decided to just work out for me with no race or specific event in mind.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays became my strength days.  One week, I would do upper body, legs & abs, upper body.  Then the next week, I would do legs & abs, upper body, legs & abs.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, became my cardio days.

Now as a "runner" I never thought that this would get me into running shape.  But somewhere along the way, I realized that I was looking and feeling much better.  A friend at the time knew that I had been getting back into shape and asked if I wanted to run a 10k race.  Sure, why not? I thought I'd take it easy by walking a little and running a little.  I continued my training plan but on my next two Saturday runs, I put in a 6 miler and a 4.5 miler.  To my surprise, they were both pretty easy.  Three weeks after signing up, I ran a relatively quick and easy 10k on race day.  I was shocked.

Moral of the story:  Just do it.