Fitness is like Marriage

There are so many similarities between a marriage and living a fit and healthy lifestyle - if we can apply these points to both aspects of our lives we would be golden!

1. The more you work on your fitness, the better it becomes. The better YOU become. It is a daily choice you have to make, do you want to work towards your goals or do you want to sit and wallow in your pity and wonder why things aren't changing or why they are getting worse? I just recently went throught this, I haven't been doing as well as I know I should in regards to what I'm eating. I let a few weeks go by where I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants, it felt a little refreshing at first and my health and fitness didn't seem to be affected much, if at all. So I kept doing it. Well guess what? It caught up to me and I found myself wallowing in pity last week. It wasn't fun coming to the realization that I can't continue to eat what I want non-stop and not have to pay for it. So I made a decision over the weekend to STOP the cycle. I am a few days 'back on the wagon' if you will, and am already feeling liberated. The truth is we all fall off from time to time and I believe it's needed sometimes to push us to the next level. We have to be fed up and tired of living the way we are to make the needed changes.

2. To see changes and progress it takes being CONSISTENT - like the quote above says, you can't cheat yourself by not eating right and not working out and expect your body to magically drop weight or inches. It takes choosing the right foods to nourish your body with and the right fitness plan for YOU to get closer to your goals. And it takes doing this day in and day out.

3. Much like marriage, fitness can, and at some point or another WILL, be hard. That's where your mental strength must come in. That's when you must show up and put in the work. That's easy to do when you want to - not so much when you don't want to. Mental strength is a muscle just like any other muscle in your body, the more you use it and work it the stronger it gets.

4. Starting out is the toughest part. But as you stay consistent with your plan and with your goals in mind, you learn more about yourself - what works for you and what doesn't. What you are capable of, which most of the time you don't give yourself credit for. Once you get a routine down, it seems almost second nature. You eat right most of the time with a few indulgences here and there. You are excited about working out usually because you love challenging yourself and you love the way you feel afterwards, not to mention the way you are looking!

5. To really succeed in life, you must be married to your goals. You must make them a priority and work hard to get yourself closer to them. If you half-ass the work it takes to get to where you want to be, your outcome will be half-ass as well. Anything worth doing is worth doing right.