Act Now. Save Yourself Later.

I’d like to propose a paradigm shift about the word choice to describe what it is I am so passionate about.
If there is one there is only one thing that I’d like you to remember in what you read here, let it be this:
Healthy bodies create better solutions for their future.
The one proven natural, dynamic piece that statistically shows to create positive changes in how we feel physically, emotionally, mentally and how we fit into the spirit of this world really, is MOVEMENT. And that is where the shift begins with that word because every single system in our body benefits.
Let me open up the ‘fitness scope’ a little wider and share with you what it means to move more today and every day that has nothing to do with “exercise”.
The state of the fitness industry from the view that I share with other like minded professionals in this broad industry, is blown beyond proportion of what the roots of health, wellness and physical education actually are and can be for you.
Often we are hear the same repeated stuff, the same buzz, telling you what you need to do and showing those apparently ‘glamorous results’. We are flooded with advice, articles, ‘new studies’, formulas, & solutions from many sources including personal trainers that supposedly get you results, rather than you getting your own.
The end product of promoting movement that includes feeling good about yourself, your body and successfully aging is that you as a healthy and aware body emerge from a relationship with your environment, not as a separate thing that you do to your body.
A large step toward creating this future is bringing awareness, mindfulness and meaningfulness into what you are choosing to do with regards to creating a sustainable future of health & wellness..
Perhaps the primary reason that exercise is so powerfully therapeutic is simply because it moves our metabolic juices. It’s kind of like using our muscles to pump the system, our system(s) to keep it juiced and fresh.
Without being all technical, here is a share of the 5 major systems that are directly affected by movement:
1. Immune/Lymphatic system: protects and cleanses
2. Neuro-Muscular System: controls and directs movement
3. Musculo-Skeletal System: provides form, stability & movement
4. Cardio-Vascular System: our pump & circulation
5. Digestive & Elimination System: absorbing what we need and get out the waste.
What’s not to love about that? We move and we affect these 5 systems?
Some larger, reputable organizations are beginning to refocus the national message on PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, which truly can have a much larger impact on everyone than getting fit to lose weight or for aesthetic reasons.
We are born with bodies to move and along the way we often times stop or lessen our activity or go completely gangbusters and compete in all sorts of contests. Some of us have found we’ve established a long term relationship with our couch, while others are beginning triathlons at age 55.
Whatever happened to the ‘middle distance’ or the middle ground?
One of the most practical solutions to fitness is to find your middle ground and become what is called an adaptable being. This provides 2 things:
1) the wearing away at one end is less likely = you won’t suffer from being a couch potato and your super human workout addiction will less likely lead to an pained body from over doing it often.
2) For the sake of your health, you’ll become a more resilient person as you seek the middle.
What would be a great take away is to remember that movement and free-form play is your key to health, wellness and longevity.
MOVEMENT confirms that we are alive and that alone can make us feel healthy!
Let’s approach that from its opposing end: loss of movement.
Losing our ability to move makes a huge statement about our health and it allows that possibility to creep in that we may experience a permanent change towards being less mobile and that our health many never return.
This is a very dramatic statement about the frightening possibility that could doom us, and yet so many of us choose to simply not move.
As a physical educator, the message is simple here.
STOP doing what makes you stuck, stressed, drained and sick and…
START doing what nourishes, strengthens, cleans and encourages the body to do what does best.
Okay, let’s zoom into this message with an idea of calling it a fitness inoculation.
Use exercise and movement to help prevent disease and give yourself a fitness vaccination. Many people are readily available for that shot of chemicals that will vaccinate them from the flu…it’s passive, they need not do anything, and they’re told it will help.
BUT… how about if you exposed your body to all sorts of movements that are every which way but tight and boring? And then later, when that sort of exercise or memory of movement comes up your body has ‘seen it’ and you have a better chance of moving through it; rather than it biting you.
THAT is the adaptable body.
THAT is the middle ground
And that could be the antidote to what you need in your life.
Build Your Reserves. Act now and save yourself later.
You are the only one that can bring that about for yourself.
You have a choice to change the culture of your fitness and engage with your world in a whole new way. When you change our bodies, we change the world and how we live in it.
In Part II, I’ll post a short video that will give you plenty of ideas to move more today!