A Little Caution...

A little caution avoids great regrets. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Keep fully insured physically and materially and keep hedged emotionally. Insurance is not for sale when you need it. Your health is personal. The old adage, “find an hour a day to exercise, or get ready for 24 hours a day of death,” is blunt, but mostly true. In its truest form exercise is meant to keep us healthy, both mentally and physically, providing us with a release from our daily tasks and commitments. The idea of changing your appearance, or modifying your image to compete in or complete a complex task is a whole other aspect of fitness training. When comparing the two we are confronted much more with the latter image of “fitness training.” The intense, extreme, and transformational are obviously more dramatic to sell. As consumers we want to believe the message, but doing so can set us up for frustration and failure. How you might ask? In short, to achieve phenomenal, mind blowing transformation in an unrealistically short period of time, requires an extreme time and energy commitment, drastically changing your lifestyle, effecting not just you, but everyone around you: family, friends, and coworkers included. You can only pull this energy from other areas of your life. Maturity, confidence and self-control are the biggest factors in staying consistent with your health and fitness. They are the behaviors that keep you insured. Through your chosen activity you hopefully begin to build a solid fitness foundation. Basic examples are squatting, pushing, and pulling. Including these movements with a consistent aerobic activity is your solution. Being patient with health is essential. Good habits take some time to develop and bad habits take even more time to get rid of. A little movement goes a long way. Forget about high intensity until you have a firm grasp of your fitness. The consequences of too much, too soon are very great and very real. Now take a long deep breath. Stand up, reach high above your head, bring your hands down in front of you and squat. Hips back, chest open, and bend your knees, breathe in as you go down, and breathe out as you come up. Listen to your body. Perform 10-20 repetitions. Three sets. Rest about a minute between sets. As you finish move around a little. Drink some water. See how easy that was? You took initiative and you started. No one can take that away from you. If you sit all day, this is how you break free from that monotony. Don’t forget… maturity, confidence, and self-control… these are your tools. Keep them sharp and carry with them everywhere you go. Someday you will be happy you took these steps to arm yourself for what lies ahead. Remember, insurance is not for sale when you need it.