Get Fit Before You Get Rich

Humans have a wonderful capacity to justify doing something they will enjoy in the present in exchange for a promise of hard work in the future.

“I’m going to rest today but I will go for a run tomorrow.”

“I’m going to have pizza for dinner tonight because I’m starting my diet on Monday.”

“I’ll buy this new phone on my credit card now and I won’t eat out over the next month to pay it back faster.”

While we are very good at making promises, our ability to follow through is not as impressive. We rest again tomorrow and promise to start fresh next week. We do start the diet on Monday but it ends on Tuesday. We buy the phone today but it sits on the credit card for a year because we never cut something else out.

When I was a personal trainer, the majority of my clients were aged 45+ and looking to improve their strength, fitness and body composition. For the most part, they had exercised on-and-off for the past twenty years or so, with maybe a few periods of solid adherence and results. But what they commonly said was that they had put it off for so long, now was the time to take action.

There were some people who were forced into action by medical recommendations for conditions that would improve with weight loss. There were others saw someone close to them pass away due…