“You take the good, you take the bad, you take ‘em all and there you have, the facts of life. The faaaccts of liiiffe”. Ok, I’ll stop singing now. Do you remember the TV show, The Facts of Life? It focused on a boarding school with Edna Garrett teaching her girls important life lessons, usually occurring after some hilarious shenanigan. Let’s talk about the facts of fitness.
Fact 1: You can’t turn muscle into fat.
You can, however, lose fat mass and build muscle. One does not convert directly to the other though, they are two different tissues. So how can you lose weight? By reducing the calories you eat, expending more calories, or a little of both. There are several websites out there that can help you do this, refer to this blog post for some ideas. As for building or maintaining muscle… you need to give your muscles some resistance. This can be through weights, resistance bands, body weight, sandbags, etc. Try to work all the major muscle groups with 8-10 different exercises, for 8-12 repetitions at least 2 days a week.
Fact 2: You can’t create more time in the day.
You can, however, feel more energetic throughout your day by adding in some exercise! The stronger and fitter you become, the less energy it zaps from your body doing day-to-day tasks like picking up your kids or mowing the lawn.
Fact 3: You can’t expect everything to go perfectly all the time.
You can, however, learn to adapt and work with what your day throws at you. Let’s say you planned to get up and walk for an hour before work but your child was sick and kept you up all night, what can you do now? Sleep the extra hour but make up that walking throughout the day: 15 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at lunch, and 15 minutes after dinner - you got in your hour of walking! Or maybe you had planned on eating healthy all day but splurged on pizza at lunch. Stop beating yourself up and get right back on track by eating lean protein and veggies for dinner.
Those are just a few of my facts of fitness! Did you ever watch The Facts of Life? What facts do you live by when it comes to your health?