What It Means To Be Healthy

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"You need to accept the fact that you’re probably never going to look like that. Instead, you must determine your own level of 'good enough.'"

It’s time to proactively synergize your core competencies toward an optimized fitness paradigm! Or something. Welcome to James Fell's Strategic Fitness series. Last week, Fell presented his fitness bucket list. This week, he breaks down what it really means to be healthy.

Much of the focus on fitness is on micro-details of sets, reps, nutrient timing, blasting bigger biceps and shredding that last gram of fat from your midsection. I don’t play there, but rise above it. I’m a certified strength and conditioning specialist with an MBA, and Strategic Fitness is about the Big Picture of fitness, health and physical performance. We’ll work on making you pretty from the neck down, too, in a way that takes your entire life into account.

My Definition Of Fit And Healthy

So many magazines with glossy photos, ripped abs, bulging biceps, boobs…Yeah, sometimes I look at the women’s fitness mags, too. Because, you know, boobs.

But after the drool comes the reality check. The reality is looking anything close to a fitness model is beyond hard and verging on impossible. There is so much crap going on behind the scenes, far beyond the intense exercise regimens and the highly restrictive diets. Things like horrific dehydration, waxing, tanning, Speedo-ing, great lighting, Photoshop.

You need to accept the fact that you’re probably never going to look like that. Instead, you must determine your own level of “good enough.” It’s important to find some sense of balance and accomplishment that you enjoy and can sustain. What’s the point of killing yourself to get a hint of abs for a fleeting moment when you nosedive into a bucket of KFC two minutes after the “after” photo?

The reality is, those models are paid to look that way. I’m guessing that whatever you do to make money is something different. You’ve got to set your life priorities so you don’t develop an obsessive-compulsive disorder about fitness and make too many sacrifices in your regular life because some magazine cover made you anxious about your midsection.

So screw that media hype of what you’re supposed to look and feel like. Figure out your own level of strong, healthy and attractive that is sustainable and reasonable for you, and push yourself as hard as you can. I’m big into setting ambitious goals and trying to achieve them. But know the difference between ambitious and unreasonable. To help you figure some of this stuff out, I’ve gone bullet-point crazy on what being fit and healthy means to me:

-It means finding my own personal “good enough.” I don’t pay attention to what the media says about the way I should look, get jealous of fitness models with rippling abs or bemoan the fact that I never won an Olympic medal. The only person I’m competing with is myself.

-It means harmonious instead of obsessive passion. I run because I love doing it, not because I have some number-crunching minimum of calories to burn.

-It’s about having a life that I enjoy. My diet doesn’t feel deprived, and I don’t feel like my time is eaten up by exercise. When I want pizza and beer, I have pizza and beer. When I don’t want to lift weights, I don’t lift weights. Conversely, when I’m in the mood to exercise, I relish going hard.

-It’s about finding out what I’m physically capable of.

-It’s about having kids who say things like, “Daddy, you’re really strong.”

-It’s about having a loving wife who thinks I look hot.

-It’s about not wanting to settle for living in a mediocre shell. My body is my most prized possession, and I’m stuck with it until the end of my days here on earth, so I want to make sure it’s as finely tuned as I can reasonably and rationally keep it so that I feel like a BMW on the Autobahn rather than a rusty clunker that might need a tow to the mechanic.

-It’s about actually wanting to eat healthy, because it feels like putting premium, high-octane fuel in my gas tank.

-It’s about not craving junk food because I know it sits like an unsettled glob in my stomach and makes me feel like crap.

-It’s about fighting a valiant battle against turning into a decrepit old man.

-It’s about falling asleep quickly every night, sleeping like a rock and waking up refreshed and ready to eat nails for breakfast. Well, I actually prefer three eggs and whole-wheat/whole-grain toast with butter, but you know what I mean.

-To me, being healthy isn’t just for my body, but my mind as well. It’s about not sweating unimportant things, focusing on finding solutions rather than dwelling on problems, being happy, having fun with my wife and kids, and creating a good work-life balance.

-Finally, being healthy is about embracing getting older, because it’s better than the alternative. I like the idea of being a fit old guy far more than an unfit young one.

This is what it means to me. What does it mean to you? Go figure it out and then start living it.