by Dana Gore
If you watch television, flip through glossy magazines and pay
attention to billboards, perhaps you’ve noticed what I’ve seen over the years.
We are being spoon fed the idea of what it means to be
beautiful.
Beauty advertised this way revolves around attaining a lean
and toned body chock full of rippling muscles and virtually no imperfections.
Everyone wants to feel admired, loved and accepted. It also
hurts like hell to have others criticize our looks. Whether they don’t want to
date us or hire us – or if they spew out some hurtful comments and looks that
give us the impression that we’re ugly and don’t fit into society…it isn’t uncommon to take measures into our own hands to try to fix our weight and image problems
as quickly as possible. While some opt to go under the plastic surgeon’s knife,
others turn to diets and exercise to shed the ponds and tone the body.
Every day, we see television shows that promote diets and exercise
regimens that promise to help you shed vast amounts of weight in a short period of time. Many of use stay up until the
wee hours of the morning viewing infomercials that promise us a new body in
only 60 days if we whip out our credit cards, order their program and engage in
high-intensity exercise programs that aren’t designed for beginners.
But when emotional turmoil is present - when you’re in such
intense pain because you hate your body (and yourself), you’ll try any means necessary to fix your problems as quickly as
possible because you can’t stand your life as it is for one more minute. The reason this matters is because when this state of mind prevails, all
caution, critical thinking and discernment go out the window.
No one stops to think about how to go about their diet/exercise
regimen in a safe and structured way. This is
a problem because when it comes to health and fitness, injuries can and DO
happen. Most of them are preventable. But it takes awareness and a different
approach to making sure your fitness
program geared toward wellness.
Exercise Safety
– Why It Matters
The reason I painted this picture for you is to help you to
understand how our emotions dictate our decisions. When we approach something
while we’re engaging in internal conflict, we’re immediately on the defensive. We feel we’re being attacked by society in
addition to our own thoughts. Coming from this place, we don’t approach a
solution from a sound mental standpoint.
We overlook important details that could render our diet and exercise
practices either rewarding or detrimental. A rewarding program offers numerous
benefits that can last a lifetime. A detrimental one, however, can ruin our
lives and jeopardize our health and possibly even our lives. How many times have you read about an
unfortunate soul who dropped dead while either dieting or exercising? It happens more often that you’d think.
I followed several popular diet and exercise programs on the
market for quite some time until I enrolled at Fitness Institute International,
Inc. School for Personal Training in Boca Raton, Fl. As I sat through 360 hours
of academic and practical hands-on education, I quickly learned there was more
to the fitness industry than I had realized. The truth is, there are several
things to take into consideration before engaging in a weight loss program. Far from being a simple one-size-fits-all
environment, the science of fitness includes a number of different disciplines
including:
1.
Fitness Testing
2.
Strength and Conditioning
3.
Nutrition and Weight Management
4.
Functional Training
5.
Pre-existing health conditions
People want results, and they
want them quickly.
The idea that you can get “six pack abs” becomes less
important than whether you should be screened
medically before taking a boot camp class; or if exercising with gum in your
mouth could be deadly.
·
Do you know how to tell a well-qualified
personal trainer from a quack?
·
Are you aware that your family’s medical history
matters regarding your own exercise
program?
·
Do you know why warming up and cooling down are a
must?
·
Have you thought about how dangerous it is to
enter into an extreme fitness program if you’re a beginner – or if you’ve taken
a hiatus from exercise for a while?
·
Do you know the difference between “good and bad” exercise pain?
·
Do you know whose nutrition advice you should
follow (if any)?
·
Do you fit into the “special populations”
category? Do you even know what that means?
These are important questions – but almost no one asks them. I didn’t either. It took going through the curriculum at
Fitness Institute to realize they deserved attention.
Dr. Anthony Abbott, the president and chief educator at
Fitness Institute, would tell us some of
the stories about how people died from things such as skipping a proper cool down
or choking on their chewing gum while exercising.
I sat there and thought:“How on Earth will anyone know about this? How can I let
them know?”
I soon started writing about health and fitness. At first I focused on popular topics such as
how to eat healthy, why strength training is an essential part of a fitness
program and why healthy weight loss takes time.
I then decided it was time to write a book (a lifelong desire of mine)
and got started.
What was originally slated to
be a weight loss book turned into a guidebook on exercise safety, because once
I realized how long the chapter on safety was going to be, I understood there
was nobody out there bringing attention to this subject. So it just made sense
to dedicate an entire book on how to stay safe in a program designed to inspire
well-being.
“A Simple Guide to
Exercise Safety” was born out of this concept. The term “simple” in my case means that you won’t find any technical language in its 101 pages. There are also no diets to follow or exercise
programs to engage in. To learn more about Dana's book, click here.
What the book presents are easy to follow tips on how to go about improving your wellbeing
while keeping you safe. You’ll discover life-saving
tips you’ve probably given little (if any) thought
to. If nothing else, you’ll be in a position to prevent unnecessary
injury.
The chapter on “assuming personal responsibility for our
role in society” is a particularly important one
because it talks about how to own yourself, stare
your emotions in the face and deliberately decide to take charge of your
well-being in a clear and well-thought out manner.
Doing Things
the Right Way
The idea behind creating a lifestyle based on healthy living
is to combine all aspects of wellness into your life instead of just focusing
on the physical. Emotional, spiritual
and mental well-being is as important as physical health. All 3 of these
components need to support one another to enable you to live a happy, healthy
life.
When you are no longer running away from a problem, but
instead seek to become the solution in and of itself, your actions become
intentional and are geared toward doing things
in a clear and concise manner. By making healthy living your overall goal,
you’ll end up losing the weight because it’ll be a natural by-product of a way
of life.
~ You’ll choose foods designed to provide optimal health.
~ You’ll work with health
and fitness professionals who care about your safety.
~ You’ll engage in a fitness program that is suited for your
level of fitness, but will encourage you to work harder at the right time, for
the right reasons and using the appropriate levels of progression.
You'll also approach
the entire process from a place that encourages mindfulness and research.
You’ll do this because you’re no longer desperate. You’ll
find activities you’ll stick with for a lifetime because it’ll become your
truth. You’ll no longer compare yourself
with unrealistic images and stereotypes because you’ll create your best body by
simply being a healthy individual.
This is how you do things “the right way.”
I’m currently writing a new book that will elaborate on this
very subject matter, entitled “Weight Loss and Well-Being
Done Right.”
It’s about shifting to a new paradigm. If we want to
experience different results in life, we have to be willing to create them from
a place of balance and awareness.
