As technology advances, the world is moving at a faster and faster pace – pretty much any piece of information you want you can grab within seconds by reaching into your pocket. You might even not need to use your hands now that lots of things are becoming voice activated. The whole world wants instant gratification.
You might be old enough to remember phones that had numbers on a dial – spin the dial round until the number you wanted hit the centre and let it go to unwind. If you wanted a 0 or 9 you had to spin the wheel almost all the way round and then wait for it to get all the way back! Things didn’t come quickly – but it made it very hard to accidentally dial 999 without meaning to!
Nowadays you can tell your mobile phone to call someone without even touching it and you can continue cooking, driving or playing with your kids! And people get frustrated when bits of technology like this don’t work the first time – that’s the equivalent of being on the 8th digit of a phone number on a rotary phone and getting it wrong then having to start all over again.
It’s normal to get frustrated when we don’t get what we want straight away – it’s human nature. We want to get connected with as little work as possible.
Human nature also dictates that we want the same kind of speed of change when it comes to our bodies – we want it all and we want it now. But it doesn’t work that way – you might demand it but your body takes a while to catch up.
Humans vs Technology
Technology evolves faster than humans. Technology, automation, communication and information access has moved on so far from where it was just 20 or 30 years ago that everyone is doing a lot more sitting down and a lot less moving than before.
That’s before we consider the changes in the foods that are available to us now that are more processed than ever before to guarantee shelf life and increase palatability.
To get the health and fitness you want you now have to make regular conscious decisions – you’re probably not as active as your grandparents were, the range of foods in the shops is wider than ever before, food scientists exist to make foods more tasty and easier to eat, you can use your phone to have a takeaway delivered without even searching through a drawer in the kitchen for a menu!
So what decisions do you need to make?
Get your body moving. It doesn’t really matter what you do, it matters that you do it and you do it regularly. Maybe you enjoy Zumba – good, make sure you’re doing it regularly. Maybe you enjoy going out for a walk – doing it everyday will help you more than doing it once a week.
Eat more whole foods. Apples and steaks aren’t advertised on TV but processed crap is – use that as a starting point.
Be aware. You don’t have to be perfect but you have to be aware of what you’re eating, how much you’re eating and how much you’re moving.
We have found over the years that the people who make movement part of their daily life, the people who eat the most whole foods and the people who are most aware of their daily habits make the most progress towards their goals.
Society tells you that you don’t need to wait for anything, but with health and fitness there’s no such thing as immediate results. You get out what you put in and you need to do something consistently for an extended period of time to get out what you want. Think about the choices that you make on a daily basis – could you improve one of those just a little bit and make that a habit?
Once you’ve changed one small thing you can start looking at the next thing – this is a version of Habit Stacking.
Remember that the coaches at SC FIT exist to help you out with this kind of stuff so if you’re interested in getting help along the way so you don’t have to do it alone get in touch with us today and book a FREE No Sweat Intro today.