SUSTAINABILITY IS A hot topic nowadays. From renewable energy to responsible food harvesting, there are many methods that people are learning to be better stewards of our resources.
One topic that isn’t discussed all that often is the concept of sustainable fitness. Like other resources that have limited availability, your mental and physical state also have limits. Our US-based Super-A, Kim (#kimyoungatanyage), explains more.
“So, I was in Chicago last weekend and had lunch with my sororeity sister and I could tell she had lost some weight; clavicles were popping, face was clear, she was looking good. She said she had been doing what I had said to lose the weight: eating off a saucer, cutting her meals in half and just doing things that were sustainable for her. I told her that I thought that those things were just common sense and she said they weren’t.
So, we are both in our 50s and trying to lose weight and trying to get healthier and fitter, not just lose the weight, not obsessing about the scales. But we are looking for a sustainable lifestyle, as everyone should be, so the origin of this article comes from that conversation over lunch with my sororeity sister.
I want to talk about sustainability. If you are looking to join a gym or get fit or join a bikini challenge and they say, “Oh, join this gym, join this challenge, we are going to help you but you have to do these 5 cardio classes a day, eat these egg whites and spinach…..” You are going to lose the weight – who wouldn’t on all that, unless you are knocking down whole pizzas and carb load, but is it sustainable? Probably not. If you are looking to join a gym and it’s a state of the art, beautiful gym way across town, I would advise you not to joint that gym, because you are probably not going to go! I did that once, trust me – I did that. I joined a state of the art gym that was not near my house and – I’m a gym person, but did I go – probably just a few times a year. It just was not sustainable for my lifestyle.
This applies to more than just the gym and healthy eating, it applies to everything. I remember, back in the day, when Halle Berry was fresh on the scene and she came out with that cute little pixie cut – it was fly. And all the women were rushing out to get that haircut and then life happened, and then the scarves came off, and then a week later people were checking their hair, saying “I don’t have those curls anymore that I had when it was first done!”. Because that’s not sustainable – for many people. Some people can, but for many it is not.
Do the things that you know you can maintain, that you can keep up – don’t start something you won’t finish. People are always asking me “Do you work out every day, when do you take a rest day?” I don’t schedule a rest day – I never have, I never will. I take a rest day when my body tells me to, or I have to accommodate my schedule for something else. Do what is sustainable. What works for me is working out when I want to, when I can, and taking a rest day when my body, my schedule, my time, says “we can’t today”. That’s what works for me.
So, the moral of this story is do what works for you, do what is sustainable – what you can maintain. Do what you can, and grow.
#kimyoungatanyage
