Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Nia Shanks of Lift Like a Girl.
Minimalism provides myriad benefits. Less stress. More time. A greater appreciation for the people and events that truly matter in your life.
These same benefits can be experienced when harnessing a minimalist approach to health and fitness.
Today’s society has developed an unhealthy obsession with health and fitness. It’s a billion dollar per year industry and people spend tremendous amounts of money and time on fad diets, gym memberships, and dangerous supplements because media and marketers attempt to persuade us to believe these items are mandatory. We’re told we can’t figure out how to improve our health on our own and that getting healthy is a complicated process.
But it’s not. You can improve your health and quality of life, the minimalist way.
As we approach the new year you’ll undoubtedly be bombarded with messages about cleanses, quick fixes, and gimmicks. Avoid them at all costs and choose instead to embrace the minimalist method for better health.
The Minimalist Guide to Health and Fitness
Follow these bare essentials to improve your health while saving precious time, and even money.
Move your body in a way you enjoy. Traditional “exercise” is not mandatory. Sure, you can join a gym if you’d like but it’s not necessary. You can perform bodyweight workouts at home or use free weights if you’d like to engage in resistance training.
Take advantage of local parks and go hiking, ride a bike, or anything else available in your area. Trying a new hobby is a terrific way to discover new passions and appreciate your body for the wonderful things it can do. You can also perform these activities with the family so everyone can improve their health and spend quality time with each other.
What you do isn’t near as important as doing something consistently. Aim to move your body on a near daily basis for at least 20-30 minutes. Remember the possibilities are endless ranging from bodyweight workouts at home to exploring local parks.
Search your local area and see what you can find to explore.
Eat well, simply. Nutrition can seem complicated as a result of fad diets that come and go every few months, but it needn’t be. Research has proven what matters most: make sure your diet consists mostly of real, minimally processed foods. Eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, dairy, eggs, fish and seafood, and meat and poultry. (You can omit the animal products if you’re vegan or vegetarian).
A few other key guidelines are beneficial: make eating fruits and vegetables a high priority, stop eating once you’re satisfied but not stuffed, enjoy your favorite not-super-healthy foods on occasion. This way you can still enjoy events like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other occasions that include your favorite foods without unnecessary guilt.
Focus on the lifestyle, not the goals. One of my favorite sayings is the journey is the destination. Even if you have excess weight to lose don’t focus exclusively on that goal. Instead concentrate on the daily journey. Enjoying delicious, satisfying meals with your family and moving your body in an enjoyable way. Do those things consistently and the additional benefits, such as weight loss, will be a tremendous side effect.
Strive to make eating well and moving your body in an enjoyable way part of your daily life. Enjoy the journey and additional results will follow.
Do these things for the right reasons. Most images and messages for health and fitness revolve around aesthetics: all for the sake of improving how you look. But don’t get caught up in that propaganda. Eat well and move your body to discover the amazing things it can do. Getting and staying strong and agile will help ensure you avoid injury, age gracefully, and allow you to continue doing the activities you enjoy, as well as trying new ones.
Losing excess weight can certainly be a benefit to improving your health and fitness habits, but don’t lose sight of the other, perhaps better, benefits you can reap from moving and eating well daily.
Focus on applying those few tips consistently—move your body frequently in ways enjoyable to you, eat well in a simple way, enjoy the journey, and do these things for the right reasons—and you’ll improve your health, fitness, and quality of life, the minimalist way.
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Nia Shanks blogs at Lift Like a Girl where she helps others become the most awesome and strongest version of themselves—no overblown promises or any of that mess, just information you can use to build the body you want. You may also enjoy her health and fitness podcast.
kellen says
Eating a plant based diet is more important than focusing on exercise, since the official guidelines for exercise are pretty minimal. Marathons and other high intensity exercises are now considered inflammatory and should be avoided. 30-45 minutes a day of walking or other moderate activity is all you need, so the focus should be on your diet.
You can’t out-exercise a bad diet, and recommending fish, meat, poultry, dairy and other animal products, and plant oils will cause people to continue their bad eating habits. What do they say in the plant based community about eating animal products and processed food? “People hate hearing bad news about their bad habits.”
Unless the person writing the exercise blog has credentials in nutrition or medicine with a focus on a plant-based diet, I would not take nutrition advice from them.
Liberty says
Plant based diets are certainly good for some folks, but not all. I follow a clean eating approach which involves whole, locally produced (or produced by me via our homestead)and organic foods. The problem I have with extreme diets is just that…They are extreme and very unbalanced in the long run. Being kind and respectful to yourself and others (in their choices ) is more valuable than any credentials. ☺
David says
The concept of focusing on a lifestyle change and not the goal, has dramatically changed my life. I have lost 55 pounds since February 2015. I did not have that as a goal of mine. It would sound too daunting to make that a goal. I just wanted to become the kind of person who ate better and could be found in the gym three days per week. And since fitness and eating better is a journey and not a final point to reach, there is no rush.
Naomi Alexander says
Get rid of your car and walk (or use public transport). When anyone I know passes their driving test and gets a car, they quickly gain a load of weight.
I suppose it might not be as easy for Americans as for us Brits (things are closer together over here) but I walk 5km every day just getting from home to office and back. I recently had to cut down on all the dance/yoga/Zumba classes I was doing as I was losing too much weight! Now I have a few evenings eating a big dinner and slobbing in front of the telly too.
Linda says
I would love to be able to ditch my car, but my mum lives over 100 miles away (the drive takes 2 hours, public transport would take around 8 hours), we have no railway near where we live, and for us, public transport is way more expensive than running our car. If I lived in or near a city, there’s no way I’d have a car – but being more rural, it’s essential (especially given all the cuts to spending on rural bus services etc). If only the whole of Britain was serviced by the railways! :D x
Annie says
We recently dropped our gym memberships as we never quite made it there and we needed the money for other things. We realized that we can fit more walking into our daily lives and that’s the best workout for us.
As for food, I learned the hard way that the best way to lose weight was through a simple, clean diet and sound eating habits. I developed acid reflux and had to cut out sweets and fried stuff, cut my portions, and could not eat within three hours of bed. I now eat smaller meals with a few snacks as needed, and it’s mostly vegetables, fruits, nuts, lean meats, and healthy oils. I have had the occasional sweet but only once or twice a month and have been trying to share with someone to make sure the portion stays small. I’ve lost 30lbs in five months and my sugar cravings have disappeared. My skin looks much better too. The most important thing is that I feel better. I plan to keep these habits for the rest of my life.
Ali Davies says
Well said. I find gym’s a turn off and demotivting. Much prefer to do what I call natural exercise – e.g. being outdoors hiking, walking, biking etc. And with the help of my husband I have all sorts of ways just around the house for my body to get the movement and exercise it needs (my husband is a Physiotherapist so he has helped me devise creative ways to exercise that don’t ever require stepping in a gym).
Judy says
My downfall was candy! I love it! Now I’ve cut the candy from my diet and replace it with fresh fruit. Instead of reaching for a bag of sweets…I’ll eat some berries, for example. It’s my new “sweet” and it’s made a big difference. I walk my dog…and for the most part, that is my main exercise. I need to work on portion control. I want to lose 5 lbs. That’s it! Yet those 5 lbs. refuse to go! lol
Jess says
I have followed Nia for years, and I love her sane and simple advice! Focus on the fundamentals, the big picture – and don’t worry about the details.
Linda Sand says
When we decided we needed to walk more we took up square dancing. In our metropolitan area there is a dance somewhere most evenings and they cost about $2 each. Cheaper than a gym and a lot more fun to walk to music in patterns that require different movements. Circle left, do-si-do your corner, swing your partner, allemande left with your left hand, promenade home.
Yooni K says
Honestly, this is very motivating. This is a great reminder to myself that I should be working out to feel good and live a healthier lifestyle, and not purely for vanity and looks.
http://threesacompany.net
Marissa says
Since I go to the gym and exercise the “traditional” way, meaning, I use the treadmill and exercise machines to loose weight (and it works for me! C: ), I stay far away from the exercise classes my gym offers. Every time I try a different exercise class out at my gym, I find that I don’t like them. I like to exercise at my own pace and at my own speed the most and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Everyone has something that works differently for them. ^^
Unfortunetely, since my aunt came to visit my mom and I, I have gained around 2 pounds from eating out together with my mom and her and it has me a bit bummed out. I know I will loose it all again and eating two donuts today is not helping my case, but my weight means a lot to me since I am still insecure about it. In a way, I am a very minimalist eater. When I eat well, I like to eat whole foods like fish, chicken, shrimp, berries, and broccoli as a vegetable since I hate most vegetables, lol. Then I have a little bit of dark chocolate or chocolate chips as a sweet to stop my sugar cravings or to satisfy me after a nice meal. It works out for me. ^^