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I have been revisiting my health and fitness archive.  Prior to pursuing a career in business, I was a personal trainer in Sarasota, Florida.  I focused on corrective exercises (i.e. bringing the body back into alignment by stretching and strengthening at the same time) and functional training methods (i.e. not doing bicep curls).

For each weekly review, I include a widget that will play my favorite song of the moment.  So, you can listen to a nice song while you read the post.

Within a few short months of taking the path of learning about business and marketing, my diet and training regimen went out the window [for several years].  To make matters worse, at the beginning of 2009, I also tore my lisfranc ligament—the ligament that holds the foot together.  I needed surgery and a temporary screw to give the ligament time to reattach.  After three months of little to no walking, the screw was removed.  At this point in time, I could barely walk, had lost almost all my muscle mass, and was eating exceptionally poorly.  Cooking on crutches is like eating rice with chop sticks.  This was the kick in the ass I needed to get back in shape.  So, I designed a rehabilitative exercise program and stuck to it.  I made time and made my recovery a priority in my life.  Who wouldn’t?

Things are different now. I am on the other side of the fence because I am not a trainer; I am an entrepreneur working in a small business.  I see how difficult it can be to eat well and exercise regularly when it’s not your career.  It can be too easy to say, “There are not enough hours in the day.”  Back when I was a personal trainer, I often believed what my clients were telling me and offered my ear rather than my thoughts.  Now that I am on your side, and have lived the excuse of “There are not enough hours in the day,” I realize that the issue is not with the amount of time but in how we prioritize the use of it.

If you are working long hours, eating poorly, and exercising rarely, maybe you should take a step back and reprioritize your life.  I am a firm believer that 45mins of exercise each day combined with a diet of healthy, organic foods will positively impact your performance at work, decrease your risks for encountering avoidable health problems, and improve your overall well-being.

Books: a list of books I read this week with a short summary paragraph.

How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy by Paul Chek

I have read this book several times, learning something new every time I revisit it.  Since I sit in a chair over a computer most of the day, my focus is on my neck, back, and hamstrings.  The hamstrings shorten from sitting which pulls the back out of alignment and the neck.  The neck muscles also shorten as our heads often protrude forward when working on a computer.  I am not sure about the legal ramifications of scanning and publishing pictures from the book.  So, I grabbed links to near the same stretches from Google.

These 4 stretches are the foundation of my “Beat Chair Pain” routine:

• Lying Hamstring Stretch—Lengthening those tight muscles on the back of the legs
• Neck Retraction Stretch—Pulling your chin in, the opposite of it protruding
• Bent-Over Cat Stretch Movement—Alleviating the tension from the neck down to the hips
• Seated Bent-Over Lower Back Stretch—Opening up that lower back area

Closing Thoughts

In almost all instances, if you don’t have enough time to exercise and eat properly, you are not prioritizing correctly.  Proper exercise and nutrition are a crucial part of one’s overall success system.  I let my health slip and didn’t realize just how much it was affecting my work.  Now that I have reestablished a decent exercise routine and eat fairly well, I feel better and my productivity has increased measurably.  The long-standing team members around the jiveSYSTEMS office will also testify to the fact that my overall temperament has improved.

Making exercise and nutrition a priority in your life is a sound business decision that will benefit you in every area of you life.