Bring the F-Factor Back into Your Life!

Hooked on Candy Crushing more than muscle crunching? Does the idea of being fit, agile, toned and healthy seem like a distant memory from another dimension? Well, pay close attention: You’re not alone, and there is definitely hope! All it takes is re-focusing on your ‘intrinsic motivation’. This involves guiltlessly forgetting any over-indulgences and reviving your deep-seated motives for why fitness matters to you personally – why and how you are ready to move forward. Equally important is your ability to discover where you’re at right now; how has your body and mind changed since you stopped or eased up on exercising?

Since the Covid pandemic hit planet earth like a Don’t Look Up meteor, lockdown life turned millions of us formerly fit and dynamic individuals into couch potatoes. Then there were seasonal festivities that almost required us to let self-discipline go in often detrimental ways. But the more we stay away from exercise and the fitness mindset, training routines and the endorphin-infused feelings generated from it, the more our body shuts down, slackens and feels unable to restart. Now, 2022 is here offering the perfect opportunity for a new beginning to get that mojo back. 

Let’s start by looking at what exactly happens to your body when you stop working out for longer than a couple of weeks to a month. Maybe you should sit down for this, but only one last time before you bound toward a new fitness horizon. Sadly, strength and flexibility diminish quite rapidly after you stop exercising, as tendons and muscles, including your heart muscle and lungs, start retracting to their typical (as opposed to well stretched) resting length.

Muscles start to lose protein and to waste away due to a change in the muscular nerve’s impulses to muscle fibres. As muscles shrink, fat cells are likely to grow – unless you’re maintaining a low-calorie, high-protein diet. An inactive lifestyle inevitably leads to a loss in VO₂ max, the maximum rate of oxygen the body can use while training – the higher your VO₂ max levels, the better your body can handle aerobic or cardio exercise.

Meanwhile, hormones levels that you sustained while leading a lifestyle that included regular exercise, fluctuate and change; this means both that when you do exercise you have less tolerance, ability to deal with impact and lower energy, and that your psychology is affected by the stress of inactivity.

Which takes us to how your brain and psychological state are affected when fitness goes out the window. Adroitly aware of the mind-body combo required for a healthy existence, statuesque ancient Greek and Roman athletics-lovers lived by the motto “healthy mind in a healthy body”. Exercising aids both the mind and body in a multitude of incredible ways, just as much as not exercising causes stress, cellular degeneration, higher levels of anxiety and irritability, lower self-confidence (both because of how you may feel about your less strong and fit body and about your motivation overall) and a lack of exactly the stamina, endurance and focus you need to get you going again. When you’re in a fitness-mentality, you’re more likely to mind your diet and health choices overall. 

So how can you hop back on the treadmill, start lifting weights heavier than a pack of crisps, stretch and challenge your body and breathe new life into your every cell? 

The ideal way to start feeling more like a superhero and less like a lazy ghost of your former self watching superheroes on the screen is by taking a good look at what’s going on inside you right now. How are your vitamin and mineral levels? What’s going on with your hormones? By taking a blood test and sending it to our lab, you will receive a sophisticated reading of all your biomarkers. 

You’ll gain an easy, fast and thorough understanding of what your body is depleted of due to your divorce with an active fitness-based routine. Additionally, our experts will supply you with a full list of customised advice on how you can return to your best self both in terms of diet and exercise. Make this your first and best decision for 2022 !