Cincy Chic - Sensible Fitness: Obtaining Health through Thanksgiving

Sensible Fitness: Obtaining Health through Thanksgiving

Written by Doug Gibson, on 22-11-2009 21:03

Sensible Fitness: Obtaining Health through Thanksgiving
Many relate Thanksgiving with large quantities of food and weight gain, but our fitness guru weighs in on how you can achieve a healthy lifestyle with thanksgiving.

The commercialization of Thanksgiving Day has many of us thinking more about food and football than offering thanks for the blessings that are bestowed upon us each and every day. In the same manner, fitness and weight loss have been unnecessarily commercialized, when all of your goals can be reached simply by incorporating thanksgiving into your lifestyle.

Thanksgiving is defined as "the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of blessings or favors, especially to God." And how do we traditionally show thanks on Thanksgiving Day? Well, we gluttonously stuff our face, often with huge portions of unhealthy foods. I am not sure if that is what God would call a grateful acknowledgement of your blessings. I once read in a very popular book that your "body is a temple." Aren't you supposed to treat a temple with honor and respect?

If you are thankful for the vessel of life you have been given — your body — and treat this vessel with honor and respect, all of your fitness goals will be reached. You are nuts to focus on battling treadmills and dinner tables, when your biggest fitness battle might just be against your own messed-up attitude. Your focus simply should be on doing what is best for the temple. The focus should be your health.

People want to be attractive, which sends them to the dietitian, the gym and the cosmetic surgeon. Vanity is a huge motivating factor for many fitness programs, but lately I have seen a subtle change in the motivation of many people. Instead of people saying, "I want to get rid of this gut," I am seeing more and more people coming to Sensible Fitness saying, "I want to be healthier," and this makes me smile. Finally, someone gets it!

When your focus is on being healthy, everything else falls into place. You exercise, not because you "have to" in order to lose weight but because it is the right thing to do. You eat nutritious food because of the positive impact it has on your health and not because you "have to" to lose that gut.

Entering into any aspect of an exercise or diet program because you "have to," brings negativity with it, and you are doomed. If you enter into it because life is short and you deserve better, because you are depressed and want to be happy, or because you are tired and want a higher quality of life, the positive energy this contains will fuel success. Your attitude can be the biggest hurdle to overcome with any challenge in life, including fitness goals.

Accept thanksgiving into your lifestyle and not just the fourth Thursday of November. Acknowledge your blessings by treating your temple with honor and respect every day. If you simply do this, you will lose weight, you will feel more energetic, you will be more confident, you will have higher self-esteem, and you will have curves in all the right places.

Doug Gibson
		About the author:
		Doug Gibson is a columnist for Cincy Chic and president of Sensible Fitness Personal Training Center in Blue Ash, Ohio, which specializes in women’s fitness programs. E-mail him at doug@sensiblefitness.com.
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