Happy Groundhog Day! No, it isn't Feb. 2; rather, it is like the Bill Murray movie where he repeats the same day over and over in order to learn a great lesson about himself. Trainer X lives Groundhog Day every single day, without fail, and I need to help you do the same.
Think about it: excellence doesn't just happen. It is a habit. My habits, while they may seem boring to some ("You eat that same thing every day?") and insane to others ("Waking up at 2:30 a.m. is just bloody crazy!"), are what make me excellent at what I do.
Let's uncover a few health and fitness habits you can implement in order to change from happenstance to happening.
Start every day the same way. Three hundred and sixty five great mornings will more than likely lead you to a great year, right? The reason I wake up "so early" is I need to exercise before work in order to ensure I don't put it off. My work day starts earlier than yours, that's all! I start each day the same as I want you t by exercising, no excuses!
Wherever you work, make that your watering hole. My main man Mike Westerling and I often joke that we get paid to drink iced coffee and hang around the gym. What I want you to do is make sure you always have water at your desk or in the daylong meetings that make up your "career." Think about it: you wake up and exercise before work, and then you go there and drink water all day long. Your body is mostly water, and you need to drink loads of it each day. No scientific explanation necessary, just do it.
Two great habits down, one more to go.
Make sure you eat four to six times a day. This is really smaller habits added up into one big habit. If you continue to eat as everyone around you does (one to three "square" meals per day), and you live in the most obese country in the world, guess what? You're part of the problem! Eating six smaller, healthier "meals" per day instead of two or three bigger ones leads to better digestion, less "eating because you're starving," and puts vital protein (after water, it is what everything in your body is made from) in you every two or three hours. Once you master this habit, you are going to see major changes.
Aristotle said it best when he said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." When you have two brilliant dudes like Aristotle and Trainer X on your side, how can you go wrong? Now get to it, repeatedly!
Darin St. George is a personal fitness coach at Gold's Gym in Natick. Visit his Web site at www.myspace.com/darinstgeorge.
author: Darin St. George