At Get Results Fitness we like to view your health as one big melting pot, where everything you put in it will have an impact on the other. In your health melting pot you will have sleep, stress, exercise, daily activity levels, nutrition, hydration, fatigue levels and mental health.
We would say that no ingredient in that melting pot is more important than the other. Often people will focus in solely on one or two of these ingredients and not understand why they are struggling and not getting results. A few examples of this would be a person trying hard to diet, but they are in a sleep deficit. In these circumstances the chances of them sticking to a diet are very much limited as there is stacks of research out there saying a person who is not regularly getting 6-8 hours sleep per night is going to overeat and are more likely to be overweight. Another example might be a person who is overstressed and trying to exercise intensely, the chances are this person will not be performing to the best of their ability when they are in the gym as they are likely to be close to or in a state of burn out. There is also a greater chance of them getting injured as the body is not in its optimal state to aid recovery when it is overstressed.
So, what can you do to makes sure that all those ingredients in that melting pot are mixing nicely with each other?
Well the first thing you can do is acknowledge that everything is linked and start to take a bird’s eye view of your health. Being aware of this is a great starting point as so many people are blindly battering on with things, oblivious that something in their health is out of sync. Or they may be too focused and or stubborn to take a step back and say something is not quite right here and make the required changes.
At the start of each session our trainers will ask how everything is going, what we are really asking here is are all those ingredients in your melting pot mixing well this week. If the answer is no, we can adjust the session to suit. I will direct you here to a previous blog we wrote on this subject which might help you to understand this more here.
Finally it is best to note that this melting pot can change from day to day or week to week, so keep checking in with it and be honest with yourself and ask if everything is in balance at the moment (oh and don’t view it as a failure if it is not in balance as sometimes life just plays out in a way that does not allow for a perfect mix all the time. All you can do in these circumstances is acknowledge which ingredient is not quite right and maybe adapt a few things to account for this).
Paul
