Do you feel like you’ve been doing the same workout for months but don’t see the results you desire?
You probably want to make an extra effort to achieve your desired body composition. However, finding the right exercise and training that works for you isn’t always easy.
Before embarking on any fitness program or nutritional agenda, you’ll need to tell yourself to take it one day at a time. Understand the process you want to work for and develop a positive attitude.
We live in a culture with instant gratification. Anything we desire, we can obtain quickly for different reasons.
But when we talk about body transformation or improving one’s health, it takes time and effort. Your patience is needed to see it through and you’ll need the perseverance to find a course that works best for you and your body’s needs.
Today, let me walk you through holistic fitness and wellness and how it can better help you attain your fitness goals.
How to Achieve Holistic Fitness and Wellness
If you’re unsure where to start, keep in mind that showing up to your daily workout is more important than keeping to a specific schedule. It’s better than not having done anything at all.
There’s a greater chance that you will succeed in your goals if you know how to achieve them. Success in any fitness journey, like your career path, doesn’t happen in a stroke of luck.
Moreover, start taking charge of your journey right now. Set goals for yourself and stay on track. With that having said, let’s talk about what is Holistic fitness and how you can make use of it to take charge of your fitness journey.
What is a Holistic Approach?
Holistic fitness is a form of training that addresses the whole being, not just focusing on the physical. It aims to work towards wellness, achieving physical fitness through a succession of mental, spiritual, and environmental avenues.
Holistic fitness coaches incorporate physical fitness, nutrition, mindset coaching, and mindfulness into their programs. It’s basically not just lifting weights and dieting, but it’s programming your body to a whole new level of training!
We have known for a long time that great results need a whole-body approach — the industry is finally formally recognizing this.
1. Approach the Body Holistically
Finding a workout that you enjoy doing isn’t an overnight thing — you need to try a couple of practices before figuring it all out.
But what happens if you approach things holistically?
A holistic approach to your training means encouraging sustainability instead of simply just transforming your body. In other words, a holistic approach means touching base with several factors that affect someone’s health like diet, exercise, environment, spiritual and emotional health. With that, it’s much easier to maintain and increase vitality.
The mind-body connection is strong and can make a significant impact on how you approach your health. By achieving mindfulness and awareness of the body as a whole, people can strengthen their connections to their own bodies and thus fortify their strength and training practices.
At the same time, approaching fitness holistically gets one closer to nature and allows for more a sustainable lifestyle. By promoting a good diet and more preventative measures, you can focus on a minimal lifestyle centered on what the body and mind need to grow and be physically fit.
2. How Mind-Body Exercises Can Heal
By approaching our health through an all-encompassing view of ourselves, we can achieve great changes and a reversal of negative and unhealthy habits. In addition, there are activities that encourage healing through a strengthening of the mind-body approach.
There are many activities that aren’t only very accessible, but also strengthen the connection between the body and mind, thus improving mental and physical health — your overall health.
As part of the natural holistic practice, meditation can help with depression and anxiety by strengthening mindfulness, awareness, and inner peace. This is because they place a great focus on breathing and movement.
3. Be Mindful of How What You Consume
Whether you want to avoid overeating, gaining extra weight, need to control your blood sugar, or wish to consume only what your body requires — every day isn’t a feast. But, some days it can feel like dieting is challenging.
That said, mindful eating might help you actually reach your goal. It’s a technique that helps you gain control over your eating habits. It’s been shown to promote weight loss, reduce binge eating, and help you feel better.
Some of the fundamental aspects of mindful eating are as follows:
- Eating without distractions
- Listening to physical hunger cues
- Distinguishing between true hunger and non-hunger triggers for eating
- Learning to cope with guilt and anxiety about food
- Eating to maintain overall health and well-being
- Knowing what’s overeating and undereating
- Noticing the effects food has on your feelings and figure
- Appreciating your food
- Identifying which food is good food
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to diet and nutrition. Consult with the best personal coaches and configure the best nutritional and training plan that works best for you.
Holistic Training Aspects
The holistic framework treats the mind as well as the body.
When it comes to holistic health we are looking beyond the physical body. We also address emotional, mental, social, spiritual, environmental, occupational, and intellectual health. All of these eight aspects of holistic health enable a person to truly live each day in the healthiest, happiest way possible.
This is why holistic health is so important because to achieve optimal wellness, you have to view and support the body as the integrated system it is.
To start, let’s get to know the aspects of Holistic training for a successful fitness journey.
Physical
Physical activity or exercise can improve your health and reduce the risk of developing several diseases. In addition, consistent physical activity and movements can result in immediate and long-term health benefits. Most notably, it can improve your overall quality of life.
One of the aspects of Holistic training is to give importance to being physically fit as a whole. Not just training your body to move and transform but also to program it to do healthy habits — getting enough sleep, following routines, eating mindfully, and knowing what’s good and what’s not for your body.
In addition, finding the right program for your body is the utmost goal of holistic training. You don’t just go out there and exercise, you have to ensure that you’re practicing tailored fit exercises that will work best for you.
Emotional
Emotional health is often overlooked, but it is just as important as our physical health. Especially when our emotional health can affect our body at all levels. Your emotional health affects your motivation to get up in the morning, it affects your eating, and it affects your whole body’s programming.
Holistic health ensures that you prioritize your emotional health in your training. To do so, start with practicing mindfulness and stress reduction habits that can help you better manage life’s daily stressors.
Social
It’s often said that people who have a strong social network tend to live happier and longer. This is because social wellness enhances the quality of life and provides a defense against life’s adversities.
Surrounding yourself with a positive social network increases your self-esteem. Having good social wellness is critical to building emotional resilience. It’s often why you find a good support system with trainers because you’re not alone in your journey.
Mental
Mental health includes physical, emotional, and social wellbeing. It affects how you think, feel, and act. It’s an essential factor in holistic fitness because it helps determine how you handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.
Today’s current stay-at-home situation sparks unproductivity, and sometimes they forget to check in with their mental health. People have become so used to pouring a drink to address any problem. Alcohol can be seen as an easy fix. However, the error with that way of thinking is that mental wellness can’t be achieved by drinking alcohol.
To shift into holistic wellness, you must address your overall wellbeing. Some of the things we do to improve your mental health are:
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Breathing exercises
- Mindfulness
- Nutritional diet
- Exercise
At Champ City, we adopt these methods and techniques to practice the ‘total‘ approach to healthier mental wellness, per se.
Environmental
Do you ever feel that unexplainable motivation whenever you work out in a certain place? Or how much tranquility and peace the sunset at the beach gives you?
Our health is affected in myriad ways by the environment — your workplace, your home, and even your go-to workout place. No one wants to be in a place where it’s not conducive to work, or a place that doesn’t spark motivation.
But even more than that, environmental aspects also mean the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat. In the Holistic approach, we always ensure that whatever we take in, wherever we go, we bring our natural footprints with us.
Not only should you choose the places that impact you positively, but you also ensure that you do no harm to the environment.
Intellectual
Intellectual wellness is strengthened by constantly engaging the mind. Doing so can help you build new skills and knowledge that inspire and challenge to help you grow.
Something you can do to keep your mind sharp is doing things that encourage learning. Even something as simple as engaging in intellectually stimulating conversations, or enrolling in training and wellness programs.
Spiritual
In many of the aspects that constitute holistic wellness, spirituality plays a crucial role. For some, spirituality may refer to religion, but it also can take the form of personal growth that includes finding life’s meaning and purpose — allowing you to create joy for yourself and others.
Spiritual wellness enhances the connection between the mind and the body, making it more effective to function as a whole. Even if you don’t spend much time thinking about spirituality, it likely impacts your life.
So, how do you know if you have achieved a sense of spiritual wellness? Some of the attributes of spiritual wellness are:
- Spending time in solitude.
- Simply writing in a journal.
- Having clear ideas about their values and goals.
- Acting in advocacy of the welfare of others.
- Acknowledging your true purpose for achieving a sustainable healthy lifestyle.
Remember, just as the physical body requires movement to thrive, and food to fuel, the spirit needs practice and activity to give it a sense of purpose.
Occupational
One of the relevant aspects of holistic fitness is occupational wellness. I’m referring to your ability to feel fulfilled with your job and chosen career path without sacrificing your work-life balance. It’s about being involved in activities that allow you to improve and grow.
It’s also about providing a work environment conducive to good health, productivity, and preventing work-related diseases. Occupational health is a leading factor of overall good health, especially considering that people spend over 40 hours of their week in the workplace.
Holistic practice emphasizes the importance of having a work-life balance and finding downtime for fitness practices. It allows you to acknowledge that no matter how busy you get at work, you’ll always find time to check in with yourself.
Get Started with Holistic Fitness and Wellness
Wellness means something different to every individual. Being well gives you the ability to reach your personal goals, whatever they may be.
After all, when your body, mind, and soul are cared for holistically, you’re able to pursue and meet your goals with less resistance. And you can continually live a healthy, thriving, and sustainable life.
With Champ City, I help you determine a tailored and personalized approach to wellness by reflecting on these eight pillars of holistic health and wellness. Our personalized programs allow you to tune in with yourself and identify which ones require most of your attention. Strengthening each of these aspects will help provide an excellent foundation for living your best, healthiest life.
If you’re ready to start your holistic wellness journey today, sign up and get a headstart with a 20 minute consultation!
