Fit for Life: Habits - Out With the Old, in With the New

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Matt Espeut, GoLocalWorcester Health +Lifestyle Contributor

Success is reaching the pinnacle of whatever goals you set out to accomplish. But before you achieve success, a chain of events must happen. You need to be consistently improving. The only way to improve is to always be striving for a better solution. You need to follow a blue print with a specific task in mind. Every step must be planned and achieved with consistency. This will only happen when you create habits that are positive. These tasks need to be fulfilled daily in order to be considered a habit. Similar to training a muscle, the more consistently you train it, the stronger it gets. Once you replace bad habits with good ones you will create a path to success.

Mindset.

The first thing you need to do is create a positive mindset and program yourself to habitually follow patterns that will result in positive actions. Not until this is done will you be able to create a positive outcome. Let me tell you what I mean by giving you an example that I’m working on right now. This is a “habit” that’s been eluding me for a while. The habit I need to form is meditation.

It came to me while I was on an early morning bike ride. I had just come back from a business trip on the west coast and my head was in turmoil. My administrative assistant had just quit and I was left with a pile of loose ends. I have one of the biggest transformation challenges at my gym coming up in a few days and I want it to run perfectly. I am trying to balance my time between GSD and training a new assistant, as well as keeping myself physically healthy.

My sleep was off, and I was feeling exhausted. So, I turned to nature and went for a ride on my newly tuned mountain bike only to find it wasn't tuned properly. Rather than throw it in the water, I sat on a rock and decided to disconnect for five minutes. While sitting there I stared into the water and realized that there was a lot going on beneath the surface. Things were living and breathing, and life was good.

Then for some reason my thoughts drifted to the movie “The Martian” that I recently watched. Weird, huh? But the situation that the lead character was in was critical. Every move, every action he took had to be meticulous and planned, or disaster would occur. Then I started thinking back to earth – to reality. That's not the case here. I thought deeper and realized that things aren't that bad, and what I'm stressed about was not out of my control. I have a thriving business, my clients are happy, and they’re getting great results by getting fit and healthy, and I am just a few moves away from creating the kind of success I want for myself. I don't live in an atmosphere where a pin hole in my spacesuit will cause death, and I'm not on the brink of starvation, and my family is alive and well. So what's the worst that can happen?

I have now decided that making a habit of sitting down and clearing my head will be a great addition to my physical health and fitness lifestyle, because positive mental focus is also a key element to success and wellbeing. Rather than worry about what could go wrong, I need to set my mind on what's right. Yes, things could always go wrong and problems are always going to arise, but I will expend the energy, and deal with them when they happen, rather than stress about them or predict them before they arise. For me, learning how to stop – to meditate – to “take five” is an essential new habit – and I’m hell bent on mastering it.

Do yourself a favor, and think of a habit you can incorporate, today, that will help you improve on one level. Not two or three levels, but one. If you don't exercise regularly, create the habit. If you eat poorly, or smoke, or stay up too late, change your habits. When you master it and have it engrained in your daily routine, then move to the next one.

Remember you will not reach the pinnacle of success until you develop enough good habits to take you there. And it starts by doing one good habit at a time.

Matt Espeut, GoLocal's Health & Lifestyle Contributor has been a personal trainer and health & fitnesss consultant for over 25 years. He is the owner of Fitness Profiles, a one on one, and small group personal training company, as well as Providence Fit Body Boot Camp, located at 1284 North Main St., on the Providence/Pawtucket line. You can reach Matt at (401) 453-3200; on Facebook at "Matt Espeut", and on Twitter at @MattEspeut. "We’re all in this life together – let’s make it a healthy one!

Related Slideshow: The 7 Best Health and Fitness Apps

Here is a list of some of the most obsession worthy health apps.

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MapMyRun

MapMyRun is the number one selling running app for a reason: it is easy to use, offers community support if you want it, and tracks and stores your exact routes for you. If you are training for a race or a serious runner, users say that the extra perks in the upgraded paid version are well worth it.

Made for iPhone, Android and Blackberry

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MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal seems to be the clear favorite amongst everyone polled. It is helpful not only for the fitness tracking aspect, but everyone polled mentioned how much they loved the food/diet aspect as well. From carb counting for diabetics to recipe ideas to complement your fitness goals, users love this app.

Made for iPhone and Android

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JeFit

JeFit is another fitness app that has rave reviews. It not only tracks progress for you, but offers a huge database of workouts. While many apps offer community support, JeFit allows you to sync workouts with friends who use the app, offering a (real) virtual buddy system.

Made for iPhone and Android

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Strava

Strava gets the highest mark of all the cycling apps. While it is also great for runners, the cyclers seem particularly inclined towards the fierce competition that can be ignited by this app. You can track all of your rides via GPS, then you can compare your efforts to those logged by others in the community on the same stretch of road. You can also join ongoing challenges that can net you great prizes (in addition to bragging rights).

Made for iPhone and Android

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YogaStudio

YogaStudio gets the top vote for Yoga apps. It has a lengthy collection of full class-length videos available at your fingertips. Unlike many other apps, this one also allows you to customize your own video yoga class. All of the poses are done by qualified yoga instructors, and you can find classes suitable for all levels of yogis.

Made for iPhone only

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SimplyBeing

SimplyBeing meditation app offers the best of both worlds. You can choose to run this app as a background for your meditation with soothing music or natural sounds that run for a set amount of time. Conversely, for those of you who have trouble focusing during meditation, you can choose a soothing voice-guided meditation.

Made for iPhone and Android

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Fooducate

Fooducate is an app all about educating people so that they make healthier food choices. Although not perfect, this app is easy to use (you can even take pictures of bar codes to instantly find foods in their database). It gives food a letter grade, tells you the pluses and minuses, and gives you better ranked alternatives. You can also use it as a weight loss tool by tracking your daily calories.

Made for iPhone and Android