Disguising Fitness
Disguising Fitness
Disguising Fitness is a term you will hear me use with my clients all the time and I firmly believe it must happen to create a fulfilling and active lifestyle. Disguising Fitness also goes into disguising cardio, disguising nutrition, and disguising self-discipline. If you can constantly work on your fitness without even thinking about it, then that is a huge win! This discussion is meant to provide you with some “low hanging fruit” that you can incorporate in your lifestyle routine!
The first way I love to disguise fitness is by disguising my cardio. I do not enjoy running for just the sake of running. I have always gotten my cardio through sports. It finally hit me after graduating college that if I didn’t have a sport to train for, my cardio levels plummeted. When I turned 25, I bought a mountain bike and life has been different ever since! For me mountain biking fulfills my training desires which include strength, endurance, balance, and superfast hand-eye coordination. And my workouts completely tie into those goals and areas I want to improve.
My advice is find a sport or activity that allows you to fall into the realm of play. Then you won’t even realize you are working out. This activity can be golf, pickle-ball, hiking 14er’s, biking, dancing or any other physical movement that will enable you to have purpose behind your training. And then when you find your sport cater your workouts and fitness goals towards excelling in that sport and I guarantee the cardio workouts become way easier.
Disguising nutrition is a lot easier than it sounds. If it comes from a single serve packaging it probably is not as nutritional as it appears and most of what you are buying is the packaging not the product. I am not saying you have to meal-prep every meal and every snack but count for one week how many times you open a package compared to cutting produce when your stomach rumbles. Write that ratio down on a calendar and then improve it by eating more fruits and natural based groceries.
Also understanding how our taste buds work can drastically improve how you combine foods and spices together. Fruits with high acidity levels will overpower flavors from leafy greens and vegetables. Using pineapple in your fruit smoothie can help you mix in spinach and carrots without tasting them. And adding strawberries to a salad with a homemade lemon-vinaigrette will make eating a salad more enjoyable!
The cheering section for being self-disciplined is small and often our efforts go unnoticed and no roses are given. This can make living a healthy lifestyle not as fulfilling as you thought it would be when you began your fitness journey. You must be prepared to be the only one in your corner. You can’t let being the only one an excuse to quit. You also must be the one who is there to say, “good job” and “thank you for being here and putting in the work”. Literally say these things to yourself, maybe when you are alone, so others don’t think you are crazy, but please say these things to yourself.
The biggest thing you will start to learn is some days you mean it more than others. You will learn when you are having a strong day or when you can push yourself a bit further. When you become self-aware of your own efforts and can honestly gauge your exertions you start becoming mentally fit. A mentally fit person can conquer any challenge!
I hope this article helps you disguise fitness in more ways than one in your lifestyle routine! Thank you for reading and I wish you my best!
-Jacob Hacker (Coach Jake)
