What the heck is "fitness" anyway?!

As far as the dictionary is concerned, fitness can quite simply be defined in one word, health. The first synonym listed in the thesaurus? Strength. Interestingly enough there is no mention of six pack abs, waist circumference, BMI or an obligatory number on the scale. To be fit is to be healthy and strong.

I have long had my own definition of fitness as well. I believe fitness is your ability to participate at a high level in the activities that you love, for as long as you choose. I believe fitness is the degree to which your life is enhanced by doing what makes you happy. Perhaps it is participating in your favorite outdoor activity or competing in your favorite sport. Maybe it is playing with your kids, grandkids or pets. Whatever it is that puts a smile on your face, you should be able to enjoy it until you decide otherwise.

In my opinion, the road to fitness (and thereby health) begins and ends with strength. The moment you begin to lose your strength is the moment you begin the gradual slide towards an over-embellished bed six feet underground. In order to become and remain strong requires that a person move and movement, my friends, is life. When we stop moving, we start dying. Period. End of story. Turn out the lights, the party's over.

Fitness = Health

Health = Strength

Strength = Movement

Movement = LIFE

There you have it, the meaning of life. Bet you didn't think you'd receive the answer to the most prolific question of all time just by reading this blog about fitness, now did you?! You're welcome. ;)

Seriously though, once you stop moving it's all down hill from there. Never stop learning AND never stop moving. This will significantly increase not only the years of your life, but the life in your years. Keep your body moving and your mind learning and you will live longer and live better. 

If you do one thing today, stand up, go outside and take a walk. Get some sun on your face and breath in some fresh air. Even if you only make it around the block I can guarantee you'll feel a little bit better then you did before. If you want to take it to the next level, before you leave, grab a book and half way through your walk, pull up a bench and read for 10-15 minutes. 

10-20 minutes out of your day CAN and WILL profoundly effect the quality of your life. Sounds simple, right? It is. Move a little. Learn a little. Live a lot!

Since this is a blog about fitness, and I aim to please, drop and give me 20! There, now you're healthier, smarter AND stronger. Now, you are fit!

I don’t know, but I do know … you know?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you thought you didn’t know what to do next? What direction to take or what move to make? You were confused, scared, worried or maybe all of the above. Funny thing is, in your heart you knew exactly what you needed to do. Then you second-guessed yourself and what should have been a definitive action instead ended with inaction.

Life often is not nearly as complicated as we have the tendency to make it. More times then not you know what needs to be done, but you make the decision not to follow through.

“Even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice” RUSH ~ Freewill

It has been said that the mind is the devil’s playground and when it comes to making the tough decisions (and sometimes even the easy ones) it is common to over think what needs to be done and instead, do nothing.

In most cases doing something is always superior to doing nothing. I promise that you will accomplish much more by trusting your initial gut feeling and going for it. You can always make mid-course corrections, but you can never get back the time you lost thinking about how and when to get started or make a change.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should quit your job or get divorced tomorrow … but maybe you should. ;) If you know something to be true in your heart of hearts, but you have been skillfully avoiding the issue by lying to yourself or convincing yourself that the time just isn’t right maybe it’s time to jump.

Life can be challenging, but rarely is it as complicated as we make it out to be in our minds. Life is a wonderful journey full of experiences, both bad and good, that make us who we are. So the next time you don’t know, but in fact you do know, take a stand, do what needs to be done and move on. There is always today … but no guarantee of tomorrow. Don’t waste the present moment worrying and over thinking every little thing. Trust your gut and get on with it! You know?

Are you all in?

What does it mean to be all in? Many times in life we stop short of giving our best effort. We go as far as it feels comfortable and just as the magic is about to happen, we pull back or quit altogether. Why? Because it became challenging. It was getting hard and the possibility that we might fail crept up. So rather then push forward we stayed in our comfort zone and we quit.

This brings me to my initial question of what it means to be all in. If you are truly all in there is no pulling back, there is no quitting, because being all in means that you have given yourself no choice. There is no emergency exit. There is no parachute. You are in the captains chair and you are either going to succeed or go down in an epic ball of flames. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Yoda, “There is no try. There is only do or do not.”

I am someone that thrives on pressure. If you want me to move then you had better light a fire under my ass because otherwise I’m not going anywhere. I am someone that needs to be all in, everything on the line. There can be no surrender and no retreat. I am a dreamer, a creator. I have wild ideas and even wilder plans, goals and aspirations.

I don’t care to live my life on the fringe, in the obscurity (and protection) of the shadows. I want to be front and center, experiencing everything this wild and crazy life has to offer. If I am not living my life in this fashion then I become depressed and my spirit struggles to find a sense of direction.

I am guessing that this is more common then not and most of us, even if we don’t like to admit it, wish that we could do more, see more and BE more. I believe that most of us are living a life that is not entirely of our choosing and we feel powerless to make a change. This is NOT the case. You have the power to change anything and everything at any time that you deem appropriate. The moment you decide to go all in is the moment that there is no turning back. No surrender. No retreat.

What do you want from your life? Are you living your passion or are you slowly inching your way towards death on a daily basis living a life that does not fulfill you? STOP. Take responsibility for the fact that your reality is such because of the choices that you have made, and understand that you have the power to make a different choice today. Make today the day you decide get comfortable being uncomfortable and go ALL IN!

Today I write ...

not because I want to, but because I must. I’m not even sure what I’m going to write about, but alas I must write, so I am writing. I am a writer, a creator, a poet who must prose. When I write I open the door to what is going on in my mind and share the emotions whirling around in my soul. When I am not writing, I am not sharing, and all of those thoughts, feelings and emotions go largely uncommunicated.

Communication has never been my strongest of skill sets and I have for as long as I can remember been a much better writer then speaker. Communication has been a sticking point in the relationships of my life, both personal and professional. I am in fact often told that people have no idea where I stand or what I am thinking. I think I’m a relatively engaging fellow with a lot to say if you take the time to know me, but more times then not I am told that I am intimidating because I am quiet. You can almost chew on the irony in this.

I am, by my nature, the strong silent type. I don’t say much of my own accord and I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve in most instances. It is the select few who have been allowed through my iron gates to see and experience the “real” me, unless … I am writing.

And so I begin this journey, this expedition into writing, to share myself with the world at large. To share who I am. To share what I am about. To share what makes me tick and the tornado of thoughts that is my brain. As an adjunct, I am a writer and therefore, I must write, both to become a better writer and to fulfill my purpose by utilizing the gifts I have been given.

And so I write … to be continued.