There More To Fitness Than Fat Loss

noun 

 1. the condition of being physically fit and healthy 

 2. the quality of being suitable to fulfil a particular role or task. 

In the description of what is fitness no where does it say about what size clothes you wear, your size or if you have a six pack and this is what I really want to get across, that fitness is not just about aesthetics. 

It's important to be healthy and look after your body yes, but it's also important to be happy and healthy mentally and have a balanced mindset towards fitness and healthy living. (more on this on another blog!) 

Fitness looks different to everybody, what one person classes as a workout another considers a warmup. Everybody has different goals when it comes to fitness whether that is fat loss for an event, to be stronger and faster for a performance goal or just to help with stress and mental health. 

 However, a fitness goal doesn’t have to just be sport or aesthetic related (which I think a lot of people believe it to be) you can want to be more flexible to be able to get to do your shoes up, be able to get up and down the stairs easier, get up off the floor without help, lower high blood pressure, keep active to be a bit more mobile or do it to just as a way to relax and unwind. You don’t need to be running and doing jumping jacks and burpees to achieve these goals which is the common misconception of “getting fit” and puts people off as it looks too hard or out of their comfort zone and unachievable for them. 

Fitness isn’t a one size fits all programme it is flexible and achievable to everybody no matter what your start point is there is something to suit everybody. It doesn’t discriminate against your size, your age, your ability or if you have a disability there is something out there to suit you, its just a case of finding the right thing for you. The main thing is to just start, be honest about what YOU want to achieve and what your end goal is. It doesn’t have to be run a marathon, walking upstairs without getting out of breath is just as good a goal to aim for as long as it is your goal.

I say it must be your goal as trying to copy another person’s isn’t going to work for you and is demotivating. You must go on this journey for you as if you’re trying to emulate someone else’s goal or follow their path you’re not going to be fired up to really strive towards it as it’s not really what you want to achieve. This will then cause you to feel demotivated and struggle and by playing the comparison game against something that isn’t a fair comparison as it’s not what you want or need therefore makes you feel demotivated, and as they say “comparison is the thief of joy” in this case it is so true. 

The key is in shifting your mindset from thinking of fitness as a punishment and something of dread and the feeling of it must be done to making it a part of your mental and physical wellbeing. As something you do to feel better about yourself and to help your day-to-day life be that bit easier and that anything that comes along with it (such as fat loss) is just an added bonus, but it’s the non-scale wins you want, the little things that you can’t measure on a scale or in clothes size but in how you feel about yourself. 

By shifting your mindset to being kind to yourself and focusing on being the best you for you and enjoying the journey that it takes you on is the healthiest way to be. Embrace yourself physically and mentally and remember there is more to it than losing fat, the size in your clothes and how you look.