Fitness means different things to different people. For some, fitness is about slimming down to a particular dress or pant size. For others, it’s about developing a six-pack or bulging biceps. And for many, fitness is viewed narrowly as going to the gym to work out. But proper, sustainable fitness requires a more holistic approach.
Fitness Involves More Than Exercise
When we think about “getting fit,” most people automatically picture intense exercise like running, weights, boot camp classes, CrossFit, etc. While exercise is essential for physical and mental health, it’s not the whole picture. Other key lifestyle factors are critical to achieving proper fitness and well-being, including:
Nutrition
The adage “you are what you eat” still holds. No amount of exercise can override a poor diet full of processed foods, refined sugars and carbs, and chemical additives. Without proper nutrition at the cellular level, our bodies cannot perform or feel their best. This means getting enough micronutrients from vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, and healthy fats. It may also mean supplements to fill nutritional gaps.
Sleep Quality
Skimping on sleep impairs nearly all systems in the body and brain. Lack of sleep leads to decreased energy, focus, motivation, and immunity and even impacts hormone regulation for optimal health. Adults require 7-8 hours per night. Improving sleep quantity and quality helps facilitate recovery from exercise while enhancing overall health.
Stress Management
High stress puts the body into fight-or-flight mode, releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, chronic stress can suppress the immune system, impair cognition, and even encourage weight gain or difficulty losing fat. Stress management tools like yoga, meditation, journaling, and deep breathing counteract these effects. Learning to give the nervous system a break is key.
Other Lifestyle Components of Fitness
While nutrition, sleep, and stress certainly top the list of lifestyle factors impacting fitness, there are other pieces to the puzzle, including:
Hydration
Water is life. Every cell and bodily function requires adequate hydration. Waiting until you’re thirsty means you’re likely already dehydrated. Sipping water throughout the day keeps energy levels from crashing while allowing your body to perform optimally during exercise and daily living. Many experts suggest drinking half your body weight (in pounds) in ounces of water daily.
Supplements & Vitamins
Even the most diligent eaters likely have some nutritional gaps in their diet. High-quality supplements help fill these gaps by providing extra antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, digestive enzymes, adaptogens, and more. Popular options include a multivitamin, fish oil, probiotics, magnesium, vitamin D3, turmeric/curcumin blends, adaptogens like ashwagandha, matcha green tea, and shroom tech for focus/energy.
Self-Care & Life Balance
Hustle culture in overdrive leads to neglected self-care and lopsided life priorities. Taking time for enjoyable hobbies, social connection, media detoxes, loving touch/intimacy, laughter and optimism, nature immersion, vacations, therapy, and personal growth all nurture body, mind, and soul to enhance wellness from the inside out. Fulfillment in life generates fitness dividends.
Mindset, Goals & Intrinsic Motivation
Research confirms that mindset and inner motivation greatly influence the consistent actions needed for fitness gains. Feeling inspired, focused, hopeful, and energized leads people to stick with healthy habits over the long haul versus quick fixes, guilt, shame, or relying solely on external validation. Clarifying values and connecting fitness goals to a bigger life purpose fuels passion and grit on the journey.
Fitness As a Lifestyle
Sustainable fitness must include exercise, but it must continue. Too many people struggle through yo-yo dieting, extreme workout plans that lead to burnout, and continually playing catch-up from stress-related illnesses. But human bodies thrive under more holistic models for long-term health, not merely aesthetic changes.
Systems Thinking Perspective
The human body operates not as isolated parts but as an integrated network working in unison. The whole system hangs together. Boosting overall lifestyle factors enhances exercise capacity while minimizing disease risk across bodily systems. Sweating it out at the gym plays just one role in nurturing overall homeostasis and energy balance.
Dynamic Homeostasis for Flexibility
Bodies continually regulate physiological processes to maintain ideal set points despite changing demands and stressors. Supporting this natural dynamic homeostasis through balanced lifestyle input creates more excellent fitness resilience day-to-day and year after year. When nurturing whole-self fitness flexibility, people feel less fatigue, injuries, illness, burnout or performance plateau.
Intuitive Self-Care Not Perfection
A narrow focus on ideal body standards or performance numbers generates stress hormones, which backfire by diminishing wellness. However, tuning into intuitive signals for eating, resting, and self-nurturing activities returns us to healthier set points naturally vs forcing outcomes. Sustainable fitness unfolds by letting go of perfectionism to access body wisdom and contentment at each step of the journey at the gym in Coolangatta.
The takeaway message is that fitness cannot be reduced solely to body shape, size or output metrics on a chart. Nor can exercise exist in a vacuum as the magic fitness pill. Proper whole-self-fitness stems from honoring lifestyle balance, self-care, and happiness as much as sweating, strength figures or calorie burns. By broadening the fitness lens, people access motivation, resilience, and optimal wellbeing for the long haul.
