Be a Witness to Fitness

Have you ever been a couch-dweller? You know - the person who rolls out of bed after the third snooze alarm goes off, shuffles into work with a triple shot latte in hand, sits a desk most of the day for work, grabs a quick bite at a local fast food restaurant for lunch, then heads straight home for an evening in front of the television to catch up on sitcoms?

If you are a couch dweller, the thought of changing those behaviors can be daunting! How can people get up feeling so spunky in the morning and actually get to the gym to do more than sit in the hot tub or steam room?
And who has time to plan for a healthy lunch and a healthy dinner? Workout after work? No way!

If you’re the over-worked parent who’s every free moment is taken by shuttling kids to soccer, piano lessons or scouts, you may feel a lot like the couch-dweller but have no time to actually make it to the couch!

So what do you do? You know that eating right and exercise are important to your health – not just for today, but for life. How can you possibly make reasonably easy, but effective changes that actually matter?

SOS….Start Out Small! Andy Core, a Nationally recognized motivational speaker has these four tips:

• Thou shall walk 30 minutes, three days a week
• Thou shall drink one bottle of water, before and after 3p.m.
• Thou shall eat two pieces of fruit a day
• Thou shall eat two veggies a day

That doesn’t sound so hard, does it? If you need to, break up that 30 minutes into three 10-minute session. And no, french fries don’t count as a veggie!

Sometimes making change is a hard thing to do alone. Why not get a fitness partner? Grab a co-worker for a quick walk at lunch, or try out a health food restaurant. Ask your spouse or kids to join you for an after dinner walk. Find a local fun run to participate in with friends or your family.

Be a witness to fitness! Ask the active people around you what they are doing for their health and try to pick up ideas that will work for you. You don’t have to join a gym to be active, and you don’t have to spend a fortune on food to eat healthy. It’s most important to find activity that you enjoy and will stick with, and to find healthy foods that are easy to prepare. View some of the tips that are posted on our website, or take a look at Livestrong.com.

Once you get started on making changes, plan to stick to it for at least six weeks to insure that the new behaviors become habit. Before you know it, you will no longer be a couch-dweller but a person full of energy, in control of stress, well rested, and an inspiration to others who want to be a witness to fitness.