Fitness is a everyday thing. Not a one time thing.
Most of us have fitness goals that sound like – I want to lose 10 kgs or I want to fit into my 32 size jeans.
Such goals lead to action items that look like – I will work out for 1 hour everyday and be on a diet of a certain type until the goal is achieved. I have had such goals for several years and have failed every time.
My success with such efforts have always been partial. I lose about 4 kgs after what feels like a huge effort and with lot of personal sacrifices and then nothing happens after that. Either I got complacent after the 4 kg loss or could not adhere to the routine, because it felt like I was sacrificing a lot. The reason for the failure was never my lack of determination or my half-hearted efforts. I think the reason was due to the over-emphasis on doing something in a particular way. I felt that the workout was a very difficult task and the diet was a huge sacrifice of personal favourite good choices.
A few years back I enrolled with Wild fit that introduced me to a new way of thinking about food – the hunter gatherer way. It meant that I stick to only meat, vegetables, fruits and everything that can be cooked at home. You should read up about wildfit to know more about it. That food philosophy benefitted me a lot. I have not eaten pizzas, burgers, donuts, baked items or carbonated drinks for 4 years and have zero cravings for them. Wild Fit helped me discipline my food habits to a great extent.
During lock down, when my favourite restaurants were closed and I could not order from my favorite take-aways, and I had to cook my own food – I realised that I was cooking and eating what I truly liked and my cooking was always to my taste. In two months, my craving for restaurant food had dropped to zero. Plus with the additional time at home, I adopted new fitness routines – routines that are effective for my age and body type. And, I am now regular with my workout.
It has now dawned on me, that staying fit is a combination of may be 80% eating right and 20% working out, not the other way round.
Being fit is a way of being and not a way of doing something temporarily.
Having realized this, I am hoping that for me, going forward, eating right and working out right will be a lifetime endeavour – a way of being. With time, the weight loss and inch loss will anyway happen.
I encourage everyone to also relook at their fitness goals and reset them to more meaningful ones. Focus on the being rather than the doing.
About the Author:
Sandhya Reddy is a PCC Accredited Executive Coach and Leadership coach based in Bangalore, India. She is the Founder and Principal Coach at Chapter Two Coaching, a coaching consultancy that specializes in leadership development. She is a certified Hogan Assessor and Coach. She has over 750+ hours of experience with coaching senior professionals. She has enabled personal transformation for over 1500+ individuals through coaching interventions, workshops, webinars and mentoring.
Chapter Two helps leaders in middle levels and senior levels engage better with their teams, peers and senior stakeholders. We help teams develop a growth and performance mindset, align better with the organizational culture and values and function more cohesively. We are also passionate about women’s leadership development and have developed a practice around it. We enable leadership development through 1:1 coaching interventions and through a set of curated leadership and personal transformational workshops.