Health and Fitness
Consistency is the key to improving your health in 2020 Do you want to improve your health for 2020 but wondering where on earth to start? I was asked what is the one thing that would help make a real difference to a person’s health and it’s simple really. Consistency is key. It’s not sexy or innovative or fashionable; but it’s the truth. It has taken me the best part of eight years, training six days a week, eating well and sleeping plenty to get to where I am now. Now, unless your goal is also to be a professional athlete it won’t take you as long to achieve so don’t be put off by my time scale.
The first thing to unpick if your goal is ‘health’ is, what is healthy? The definition of health is ‘the state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ It is not a body weight or a marathon time. Of course, these goals may help motivate you to perform the behaviours necessary, but health is not one size fits all. If your goals are training or performance related, it is vital that you apply progressive overload to your training. This means that your sessions get harder over
Sleep and stress also have an important role to play in health. Prolonged sleep deprivation (less than seven hours a night) puts both your mental and physical health at risk and can reduce your quality of life.
Portrait image: Neil Shearer Photography. Action image: IBSF
We ask Olympic hopeful, Kimberley Murray, to give us her thoughts on how to make the coming year one where you improve and prioritise your health.