Health and fitness are about so much more than how often we exercise or what we eat

What do you think when I say ‘health and fitness’?

The gym, doing a workout, counting calories? The truth is health and fitness are about so much more than how often we exercise or what we eat.

They are about our whole body, wellbeing and our mental state too. If you’re looking to transform your health and fitness, just signing up to the gym isn’t going to cut it.

When we look at how everyday lifestyles compare to even a couple of decades ago, there is a massive difference. Longer work hours, longer commutes, more access to cars and public transport, less free time and high living costs.

And when we throw in coronavirus and lockdown 2.0, it’s no wonder it’s hard to look after ourselves, and as a nation we struggle to stay healthy. So, what can we do?

I’m Ollie Booth and I’m a Horsham-based mobile personal trainer. I specialise in working with people who have struggled to stay consistent in their health and fitness journeys; helping them to move better, reduce pain and reach a healthy weight in a sustainable way. I do that by looking at a number of components which impact our wellbeing, something I call the Complete Fitness Strategy.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be giving you some easy tips on how to implement and create lifestyle change that sticks in a series of articles, each based on a component of the strategy.

If we focus on one component only, we might make minimal progress, but usually nothing changes. However, if we look at the mind and body as a whole and understand how they link, then we’re on the path to success!

The 5 components are:

Mindset: The starting point! How do we actually implement lifestyle change? With the right mindset and some structure, change can be a lot easier than you’d think.

Movement: It’s about more than just getting the heart pumping. We also need to get the muscles working, put the joints through their full range of motion, stretch and break up periods of inactivity. And this doesn’t necessarily mean spending hours in the gym.

Nutrition: There’s a lot of information out there, but the bulk of what is going to bring you the biggest results is pretty simple.

Mental Health: Our mental state has a massive impact on our mindsets and our behaviours. If we want to get physically fitter, we have to get mentally fitter too.

Sleep: The fact that our bodies require us to spend around a third of our lives asleep should highlight sleep’s importance, but we often don’t give it the respect or attention it needs.

Hopefully this has got you thinking about your health and fitness. Trust me, you can implement lifestyle change and it can stick. I see people do it every day! Keep an eye out over the coming weeks for the easy-to-implement tips which will help transform your health and fitness. www.olliebooth.com