Fitness And Golf: My Journey

     How important is fitness and golf to you? For me, it is very important.  A few posts ago I talked about how important improving your health and fitness is in playing golf, and a person has to understand that fitness also affects the quality of life.  The better shape you are, the better quality of life you will realize. I have decided to address that very issue and return to the gym, as well as improve my eating habits.
     For me, losing weight is easy.  My only problem is that I must get to the point that I have hit bottom and must lose weight.  Once I have thoroughly convinced myself that it is time to do something about my health and weight, I generally have and been successful.  My problem is that once I lose weight, I convince myself that I can go off what ever good things I have done in my weight loss program and return to old ways. Well, of course this leads to disaster and I put the weight back on.  For me, what I stop doing is going to the gym and working out as well as not paying attention to the portions I eat.  I am pretty lucky in that I can eat mostly what I want as long as I leave some on my plate.  I also have to eat regular meals.  Working out at the gym and portion control are the keys to my losing weight.
     Sometimes life gets in the way and all great work and progress goes for naught.  I stopped going to the gym and working out for a number of reasons.  My eating habits got out of control and most importantly, I did not take my hypertension medications.  The result of this was I wound up in the hospital not once but twice.  The second time I was told that if I didn't follow doctor's instructions I would be dead in two weeks. Kind of a wake up call, don't you think?
      My first step to better health and golf was to follow the doctor's orders as far as my taking my medications and improving my diet.  I have been taking my meds religiously and my heart function has improved dramatically.  There was some concern that I should not return to the gym to begin a workout program because of the status of my heart.  Recently I completed a battery of tests which showed that my heart was well on the road to recovery to the point that I could return to the gym.  The doctor told me to start slowly, but he saw no reasons that I couldn't return to the levels I was working out before my heart problems set in.
     I can proudly say that I have returned to the gym and my first day was Monday. I plan to go every third day and fill in with a stretching routine and core exercises every day.  I haven't started the core and stretching yet, but that will come soon as I want to ease into all of this. I have to say, for just the two times I have worked out this week, I feel a lot better and the endorphins just keep coming. I have more energy and a clearer outlook on life in general. Trust me, I'm not going to stop.  I also plan to address my eating habits as well, and in fact am cutting down on portions leaving food on my plate. My biggest realization is that it will take some time before I return to where I was and I am OK with that.
     Why am I sharing this with you?  The answer is simple and that is it is never to late to improve your health and fitness.  I want to share the struggles and challenges as well as the achievements. You have to put things in perspective and that is it is a process.  You will have ups and downs, but if I can do it you can too.  Most importantly, its never too late.  You will feel better.

Take the first step in crossing the bridge to better health and better golf. Join me.