Health: The foundation of your road to success

How does physical fitness affect success? When you exercise, your heart pumps about five quarts of blood throughout your body. The increase in blood flow to the brain helps you to stay sharp and alert.

Developing good habits used to improve one’s health can also be applied to embracing the discipline needed to reach financial goals. The habit of sticking to goals, whether physical or financial, allows for consistent progress.

Better physical fitness also improves one’s immunity and reduces risks of other health problems. In the workplace, this means less sick days, missed opportunities, and unwanted hospital expenses. Chronic absenteeism due to poor health can pose a real drag on one’s long-term earning power.

Before you think that it’s expensive to get fit, remember that there are many ways to work on one's health—with balanced nutrition and exercise—without breaking the bank. The proposal is to adopt the mindset: Train your inner athlete; invest in yourself.

The basic indicator used by most health professionals in assessing one’s health is the ideal body weight. Studies have shown that achieving one’s ideal body weight is 80% food and 20% exercise. Why? This is because we burn far fewer calories during a workout compared to the rate that we can consume calories through food. So if want to shake off the excess weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume, and you’ll lose excess weight. And you don't even have to lose lots of cash to do it. One local food blogger helped debunk this crafting and sharing a meal plan at P150/day.

While healthy eating need not be expensive, it is often less convenient. This means that you need to plan your meals ahead so you stay within your budget when you go to the market (at least once a week to buy those fresh veggies and fruits). While researching and preparing recipes for a healthy meal plan may take more time and effort, here are quick tips to get you started on eating healthier:

• Prepare a healthy baon to work. Not only do you save money from unexpected food cravings, you also avoid getting stuck with unhealthy food options that are easily available.
  
  
• Have small, frequent meals. Make sure that the size of your meals get smaller throughout the day, with your dinner being the lightest meal. Avoid carbs at dinner, too. Why? Because there is a high chance that you might not be able to burn the extra calories from dinner as you head to sleep. Unburned calories from carbs turn to fat.
  
  
• Eat fresh. Processed, fried, high in sugar, and heavily seasoned food do more harm than good. Avoid them as much as you can. Always look for the healthier options. It will be good for your hair, skin, and energy level.
  
  
• Embrace a healthy eating habit, where eating the right kind and correct amount of food are the goals. A gradual approach to weight loss is not only good as it instills patience, but also as it allows the body to catch up with the changes with more ease.

Various trendy fitness activities and centers offering classes have recently sprouted, offering exciting and fun alternatives whether you’re an enthusiast, athlete, or newbie. Participation and membership to these places come with a hefty price tag, which can surely leave a dent on your monthly budget. And sustaining anything expensive is always extra challenging.

So when push comes to shove, these costly activities are the first to go. How do you make sure you stay on track in achieving long-term health and fitness goals? This is where a fitness plan comes into play. Some steps to consider:

• Before signing up to any fitness facility : Know your health condition.
  
  
  • Your physician can assess your current health and identify any issues that may prohibit you from certain activities.
     
  • Seek the help of a licensed physical trainer to conduct a physical fitness test, designed to measure strength, agility, flexibility, and endurance. Like we all learned in PE 101 – walk before you run. Establish a clear baseline of your physical fitness. Knowing your strengths, weakness, and limitations are key to building a fitness plan made of realistic goals.
     
• The facility should be a reasonable distance from your work or home.
  
  
• Pick a gym that is spacious enough to comfortably accommodate its clients even on peak hours. Gold’s Gym is an ideal choice with its 30 branches in the Philippines and reputation as an authority in fitness. They frequently offer promos on their membership rates, including discounts for corporate partners.
   

If you’re not ready to commit to spend for fitness, there are many free ways to get physically fit. Jogging or walking is an easy way to inject more activity into your day. Seven thousand five hundred steps each day is equivalent to burning 375 calories—an achievable goal to get you started on your fitness journey. You can monitor this goal, among others, using mobile fitness tracking apps like Vitality Active, which is built to help you set weekly fitness targets, track your progress, and rewards you for committing to fitness.