Love Yourself

How improving health habits can help.

Every gym has this guy - you know, the guy staring intensely at his reflection in the mirror as he curls the olympic bar with 45 pound plates on both ends. You are impressed for a second, until you see how skinny his legs are, how much he is straining his lower back, and how flabby his chest looks (not to mention the orange skin and bleach-blonde hair). What can you learn from this image? That fitness is about loving yourself, and loving yourself is about overall health, not just narcissism and big guns. 

There are six major components of fitness: strength, agility, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, power, and muscle endurance. In order to really love your body and actually feel good from hitting weights at the gym, you need to have the flexibility to work the weights through the full range of motion without straining your muscles. Without the proper cardiovascular, agility, and power fitness levels, you may end up sitting on the weight bench more than you are actually performing those power cleans. The bottom line is that, unlike Mr. Biceps above, real fitness revolves around balancing these components of fitness. Loving your body involves balancing fitness needs, such as power and flexibility. 

There are two key aspects to maintaining requisite fitness levels for all components. First, a healthy diet is necessary. This does not mean that you eat 500 grams of protein a day (hint hint Mr. Biceps), but rather, that you eat fresh, raw foods, Again, balance is the name of the game, and a proper balance will require nutrients not found in steak, e.g., folic acid in spinach (Pop-Eye notwithstanding).

Second, a fitness guru who loves themself will know themselves; an athlete that has a healthy sports mindset, i.e., I want to exercise in order to feel good, and will not attempt a 315 pound bench press in order to feel macho or impress everyone watching. An athlete who loves themself will be satisfied with repping around %80 percent of their body weight, 3 sets of 10 (and they will look and feel better as a result).