How old are you? Did the number you
just stated scare you? Do you feel as if life is passing you by? I have some
optimistic advice if you’re willing to accept it. Although you may think time
is dwindling or maybe you aren’t that old and you feel as if you’re drowning in
the redundancy that seems to be every day life, there is hope to greatly change
and improve your life. The best part is it is not that difficult. Sure, it
seems as if though I am blatantly stating how easy something so seemingly
difficult is to accomplish. Well that is because I personally think most people
overthink things when it comes to actively improving your life. Key word actively. It is a never-ending battle
yet you get to say you are improving your life, that’s the loophole if you
will. It is a continuous struggle, however the reward is present each and every
day if you allow it to be.
Improving
your life does not have to be an impossible or even strenuous activity. Just by
focusing on one small subject in your everyday life and somehow improving it
from its current state means you are actively improving your life. Examples can
range from waking up a bit earlier to eating a bit less throughout the day. So
where do you start? Well I will provide you with a how to of sorts on where to
begin and you can use this as a template if you ever consider improving your
life in this manner.
Lets start
with the internal workings of your body and how starting your improvement there
is your best bet. What do I mean by internal workings? Well, if you haven’t
already guessed it based on my blog posts I’m quite the advocate of living a
somewhat healthy lifestyle. I say somewhat because I am most certainly an avid
lifter as well as clean eater, however, I am also an avid foodie along with
quite the party animal (please do not judge too harshly, I’m still adjusting to
the freshly 21 year old life). So while I do definitely advocate a healthy
lifestyle, I do not intend to overemphasize healthy as in some cases those who
believe they are leading healthy lifestyles at times are actually torturing
their bodies by incorporating extreme measures.
In order to improve your life in
the most basic form you must ensure all properties directly affecting your
health both mentally and physically are at maximum efficiency. Starting with
the body can directly affect the mind, which is why I chose to focus on
implementation of an active lifestyle. So what kind of fitness/dietary plan
should you pursue in order to achieve this goal? Well the easiest place to
start is to generously ask yourself what it is that you do not like about your
physical appearance. I say generously because you do not want to go overboard
and list everything you hate about yourself physically but rather touch on
things that you seek to improve. Is it that you feel a bit too overweight? Or
is it that you feel a bit too underweight? Would you just like to improve your
overall physique in general? After you have deduced what your intended goal is,
it is now time to move on to how you will go about achieving said goal.
Starting a healthy lifestyle may in
fact be the easiest yet most convoluted step there is. It seems like such a
complex task but in actuality all you do is jump in. Therefore, the best way to
start an active lifestyle is to get active. Devise a simple yet effective
workout regimen that you can begin with but one that allows for a great deal of
change as my best method was to create a simple guideline and over the years
perfect it by adding to it based on my level of expertise. Next comes the
nutrition aspect. The easiest way to gain wait or lose wait all comes down to
calorie intake and unless you are seeking to compete professionally, don’t let
anyone tell you anything different. What this means is if you wish to gain
wait, you simply need to eat more calories than your maintenance amount (amount
that you need to sustain a weight that neither increases nor decreases). If you
would like to lose wait, you consume less calories than your maintenance. Knowing
these two basics you are actually ready to begin, it now all comes down to
discipline. Be disciplined. Know that just by slowly working at both of these
activities will ensure an improvement in your life.
Now you may be questioning how this
will improve your overall life. Well, there is a lot of science correlating an
active lifestyle with overall positivity that I will most certainly not be
sharing because science is not my forte however it is all out there if you
would like to fact check. I will however provide you with the off hand personal
experience that I have through incorporating an active lifestyle. For starters
you just generally begin to feel a lot better about yourself, which in turn
increases confidence. As someone who has always struggled with body image
issues this was a major benefit of choosing to lead an active lifestyle. A
benefit to a workout routine specifically would be the overall cognitive
affects. You feel happier as there is a natural way to release the endorphins
in your brain. While I did not emphasize eating clean and instead stuck to a
simpler train of thought in reducing calories, actually sticking to cleaner
foods (lean meats, healthy fats, greens etc.) will result in a better
functioning brain.
Although the last bit of advice I’m
going to give you that pairs in with both eating right as well as a workout
routine is of the utmost importance, I figured extensive elaboration on the
subject would be rather hypocritical coming from a current undergrad who rarely
gets enough of it: GET SLEEP. Sleep is
extremely important if you’re trying to improve your life in any way as a
well-rested mind can do the body wonders. If you need a bit of motivation while pushing on with your active lifestyle, check out this water bottle as it has our newfound favorite word on it!
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