Looking after my health today gives me a better hope for tomorrow

Rant and Tip for February 16, 2012

Quote: “Looking after my health today gives me a better hope for tomorrow.” Anne Wilson Schaef

Before

After

Good morning everyone, Prior to 2009 I did a very poor job at looking after my health. I didn’t eat right and as much as working around the house and helping family with projects I wasn’t getting enough of the right exercise. It is tough when you sit at a desk for a living to maintain a healthy fit body. While sitting at that desk we tend to eat all the wrong snacks and we opt for the quick and easy simple carbohydrate loaded lunch. I do not care whether you are on a low fat or low carb diet. The simple carbs are not good for you period end of story. Anyway my point here is that I did not take care of myself. I need to start looking after my health. Once I started doing that it gave me hope for a healthier tomorrow. Taking the steps to looking after your health is the wisest thing you can do for you and your family.

Eating right and getting your exercise in is one of the hardest things to do in this country. A food substance is always not too far away. I say food substance because if you actually read the label on some of the processed foods out there you really have to ask you if it is a food. On the other hand when I grab a bunch of asparagus or broccoli, I do not need a nutrition label to tell me what is in it. There are many whole natural foods we can snack on without getting a food substance. Society is such that everything seems to get in the way of getting proper exercise and eating correctly. We work long hours, we have to take our children here and there, and during all this still try to find time for our own mental health and sanity. For me part of the mental sanity is being able to get to the gym and hit the weights hard.

I got my cardio on the bike in this morning and later today am looking forward to working my shoulders and back. I want to strengthen my back more and work on thickening it for a better base to bench from. Yesterday I ended up doing squats and although I had not fueled my body properly had a great workout and then went for a max effort lift of 365. I attempted 375 after that but failed. Failure is a good thing, because squatting, is one of the exercises that I do tend to not work to failure. I get fearful of getting stuck under the weight. However like a friend of mine once said, “Kipper you need to be fearless in the squat”. Thanks Mike I am working on it.

Have a great workout!

Tip: Doing proper shoulder work consistently will also help improve your bench.