I’ve heard it said that health begins in the kitchen. As much as I relish the idea of my life revolving around the kitchen, let’s not neglect the rest of the house. All of our success in the gym begins at home, but so do our excuses and temptations. It’s time to take ownership of our home.
We hear all about meal prepping and at-home workouts. But these usually don’t go swimmingly when we have house cleaning, Netflix and that hidden box of delicious carbs in the back of the pantry. These are the distractions we all know will keep us from hitting some of those much desired goals. But, beyond the distractions we’re all aware of (and secretly love), there is a home keeping us from being the healthiest version of ourselves. We come home, and instantly feel as though we are a victim to our abode. The moment we’re home, all of the stresses of the day hit us, and we’ve spent the entirety of our mental capacity trying to have a marginally successful day.
We spend so much of our lives focusing only on physical health, yet the things keeping us from getting the fittest we can be are the excuses and temptations we come home to every day. We feel stressed so we decide we need to take a day off from the gym. We’re mentally exhausted so we can’t focus on a single exercise. If we want to be our fittest, we have to learn to create our home as a haven of health and to broaden our focus to our entire health.
Taking Ownership
This is all about taking ownership. I tell my students to take ownership all day, it seems. I tell them that they need to take ownership of the education. Ownership over what should be their responsibility. These talks follow the same script and are beyond frequent. Sometimes, we need to give ourselves this same talk. We need to take ownership. Ownership over what should be our responsibility in the first place: our health.
We have to begin to take care of ourselves, and I mean all of ourselves. Yes, we should eat healthy and exercise. But, let’s not neglect the rest of our health. Let’s take care of our emotional, psychological and spiritual health. I think you’ll quickly realize that the two are intricately tied together. It is only when we are healthy in mind, body and soul that we will be our absolute fittest and do so by going beyond the biceps and carb deficiencies. So don’t let your home become the thing that is keeping you from your health. Take ownership.