The best workout routine is the one that you can maintain.

The best workout routine is the one that you can maintain.

I think a lot of people think that they must work out X amount of times and do all of these things in order to be healthy and fit and feel amazing. While working out and eating nutritious foods and feeling amazing is something that is optimal and desirable, I don’t believe it actually takes everything from you, rather it should be giving you energy and life and enjoyment.

A workout routine should not be exhausting to the point where you feel like you can’t get up or you’re just tired all the time - that is pushing yourself too much.

Moderation is a word that gets mixed reviews because some people think that when the word moderation is used in the context of working out and eating healthy, it means that you are not actually working that hard or doing that much to better yourself. In reality, I think that is setting yourself up to be so much better than you ever thought you could be.

We are working towards a routine and a lifestyle that is maintainable every single day for the rest of your life.

This means that you should enjoy working out a couple times a week or maybe more if that is your passion. And you should be eating nutritious and real whole foods that you enjoy and getting creative in the kitchen so that for the rest of your life, you can enjoy eating good food that is also good for you. However, there’s nothing wrong with baking, your favorite chocolate chip cookies or brownies or having ice cream. Like I said, this is a routine and a lifestyle that can maintain every single day for the rest of your life. You can’t go your entire life without eating brownies if you love brownies. That is a miserable life. 

While this is all about enjoying working out and enjoy eating real whole foods, this does not mean that every single day is going to be easy. They’re going to be days where you don’t wanna work out or you don’t want to eat another vegetable. These are the days where it’s important to really listen to your body and what it’s needing. Maybe it does need a day off and you need to allow yourself some rest so that you can work out the next day or even the next day if you need to rest. Like I said, maintainable. Sometimes you just want a slice of brownie and giving yourself a brownie on the days that you do want one even if that’s several days a week means that the rest of the week you are satiated and you are eating nutritious real Whole Foods. 

It’s really important that you do not deprive yourself of good foods that you enjoy eating whether that be healthy or ““ unhealthy. When you deprive yourself, your body goes into a starvation mode and all at once is to eat and eat and eat and then you’ll have binged and feel like you can’t stop eating and that is the last thing that we want. The best thing that you can do for yourself is make sure that you’re eating enough food in a day and not starving yourself or even restricting yourself. You wanna make sure that your body feels well fed and that does include making sure that you’re eating real Whole Foods. There’s nothing wrong with working towards eating a nutritionally dense diet because then you’ll be able to fit in treats when you want them, and you aren’t going to want them every single day for the rest of your life because you’re going to be feeding yourself really good foods. And let’s say you do want to have a sweet treat after dinner every single day for your entire life. If you eat a nutritionally dense meal three meals a day and maybe a snack as well then having some sugar and a dessert is not going to detract from any progress or any forward momentum. Our bodies can handle sugar. They just can’t handle too much sugar.

Working out gives you endorphins and dopamine which makes you happy. We all learned this from legally blonde. Happy people work out and people who work out are happy. Find what works for you and what you enjoy the most. You do not have to run or bike or swim or lift weights. Maybe you love taking Zumba classes or you love taking step classes or cycle classes or you love to play basketball at your gym a couple times a week. It does not matter what you do so long as you do it.

I will say lifting weights is actually so important even if you don’t love it to lift weights one to two, maybe even three times a week. If you love lifting weights, it’s great to lift as many times a week as you’d like without burning yourself out. But if you don’t enjoy lifting weights, it is a must in order to preserve muscle and bone density as you get older. The bone density that you have is so important so that you don’t break bones as you get older and you’re also increasing your longevity and the quality of your life if you lift weights. This may be less fun for some people so I would recommend taking a Pilates class or a strength class at your local gym because when you’re taking it with other people you usually end up having more fun.

Like I said before, the best workout routine and a lifestyle that you can have is one that you can maintain every single day for the rest of your life. This is not a sprint. This is an ultra ultra marathon. Life is meant to be enjoyed so please eat a brownie if you like, but also make sure that you eat nutritious real Whole Foods and work out and lift weights. Have fun with it, don't pressure yourself or make it so that it is no longer fun.