About Me

I have been a teacher of fitness and health for thirty years. In 1989 I was certified for personal training with the National Acadamy of Sports Medicine. I had a gym in Santa Barbara for eight years. Co-owned and created a spinning bike company which manufactured bikes for five years. Also I have worked with nutrition companies for twenty years. Along with many wonderful non famous people I have trained many celebrities, and members of the Royal Family. My own athletic past consists of long distance running, long distance cycling, cross country skiing, down hill skiing, rollerblading, hiking, sand running, track work, and weight training. I have authored two fitness columns in local papers, and have been writing this blog since January 2010.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Keeping Your Mind as Fit as Your Body


 
This is another reminder to make sure you are training your mind, as well as training your body.  If our thoughts are not in alignment with what we are wanting, such as a fit and healthy body, our goals may never be met.  If our minds are telling us that we are too tired, too busy, or too over whelmed to work out and eat right, our minds usually win.  When that happens, our goal of being healthy and fit can not be reached.




I have found that there is always something that we can use as an excuse to not work out or eat right.  Life will always present us with reasons why we should be doing something else other than taking care of ourselves.  In actuality, it is our underlying desire to not be uncomfortable and give the effort it takes to work out and eat properly.  It is always easy to grab fast food, or processed food, rather than make the effort to choose something healthy.  It is always easier to put off the workout for tomorrow because you may have a list of things to get done today.  It is a game that many of us play with ourselves constantly.








These are the times that it is important to remind yourself what is it that you really want out of this life.  If you want to feel good, be more productive, ward off disease, and look your best, than not doing your workouts and choosing to eat poorly are not good choices for you.  I realize that some people just do not care about their health, or how they feel.  Being inactive and eating badly support their goal of not being fit and healthy.  However, I believe that most people do want to feel and look their best, therefore this article is for that group of people, not for people who do not care how they feel, or how they look.




In the archives of this blog there are many articles about mindfulness and choosing your thoughts.  You can find them easily when you click on the individual months of each year in the blog archive category to the right of the blog.  I recommend that you go back and read them to reinforce "mind" training to benefit your choices and goals in life.





We choose every thought that we have in a day, over 60,000 of them to be exact.  Many are benign and are not thoughts that make huge differences in our life, such as a thought about the way a bird is flying, or how the hillsides look greener than usual.  The thoughts that we need to be a guardian over are the ones that shape and define who we are, or who we want to be.  Thoughts like, "I need to work out today, but I am too tired or busy to do it", or "I need to lose twenty pounds, but I'll start my diet tomorrow so I can have this cupcake today".  Those thoughts and choices do not support what it is you really want, yet they seem to have greater  power over the thoughts that will get you to your goals.









Begin to train your mind by becoming aware of the thoughts that you have that are sabotaging the outcome of what it is that you want.  You can not blame anyone but yourself when you make choices that do not jive with your goals.  Think of yourself as a ship at sea, and you are the captain of this ship.  Your ship is on a journey to certain destinations and ports.  If the captain does not make the right choices, the ship can never reach the right destination of its plotted course.  Your life is a course that you plot.  Without "You" the captain mapping out the right decisions to get you to the ports that you want to get to, you could end up never reaching the destination that you want to be at.  That is how many of us live our lives, not mapping out any course, but just wandering around in a big ocean not knowing where we are going.





Remember that you have the power to reach what ever destination that you want to, if you take charge of your thoughts and actions to plot the right course.  Can you imagine a captain of a big ocean liner waking up in the morning and saying, "I am too tired today to deal with the navigation of this ship today.  I'll do it tomorrow".  Tomorrow the ship would be so off course that a greater deal of work would have to be done to correct its course.  That is the same thing that happens to us when we allow our thoughts and choices to take us off course.  It becomes harder and harder to get back on track.







Become the captain that takes charge of its ship and destination.  Become the guardian of your own thoughts  and the course that they take.  Don't let yourself wander around at sea without the navigation that will get you to the ports that you want to be at.  It is all up to you....it is always a choice....a choice that you make each and every day of your life.  Train your mind as you train your body with daily and consistent workouts.  Keep vigil on how you are thinking and how you are putting those thoughts into action.  Do not be a victim of your own thoughts.  Be in charge!  Take control!  Sail into the life you want with thoughts and actions to get you there.







Till Monday,
Queenie


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