Be a Leader not a Follower with Your Fitness

My daughter's 1st grade teacher let me know she would always be a leader and not a follower and this still holds true 24-years later. I have also remained great friends with the awesome lady providing this advice, and I think about it often and how it applies to health and fitness. We all need to be leaders and not followers when it comes to our nutrition, exercise, sleep and everything related to improving the quality of our health.

I am a skeptic when it comes to the "too good to be true" fitness miracles regardless of who is sharing the information. I refuse to follow into the beliefs of others just because they heard it was the next best thing to sliced bread and how they have lost 20lbs in 5 days, or some crazy thing like that. I feel the same way about exercise programs and will not trend in with the crowd because it has been advertised as the coolest "big hit" workout ever. What does impress me is solid research and leading myself with what works best for me nutritionally and physically. Everything else is just fluff until proven quality. Sure it takes work when you are a leader, but it is worth the time and effort to ensure sound principles are being applied to your health. There is so much crap out there that can actually hurt you and to not be aware of this fact is negligent.

Leaders also do not feel the need to compare and are confident moving forward, regardless of how slow, with a tried and true fitness program. Followers are more apt to give up and jump to the next new fitness "thing" in hopes of achieving something from empty promises. Leaders stand firm with dedication while followers get lost in the shuffle. Leaders will get lifelong results and followers will yo-yo through and typically end up right where they started or worse. Science has already proven consistent healthy eating and regular exercise is the answer to good health and leaders understand and accept this fact. Followers continue to struggle because they want fast and easy and typically the results worn by the leaders.

It is so important to understand being a leader will be the success of your overall health and fitness. We all have differing things going on genetically, medically, and even emotionally worthy of our time and attention so an accurate fitness program specific to each of us can be applied. It is time to stop jumping through someone else's hoop and think that is going to work and start being a leader with your fitness.

My current article on the About network covers science-backed nutrition recommendations for contest preparation and natural bodybuilding. This is a great read and right on track with being a leader!