BY BRENDAN CRONIN // APRIL 10, 2012 //  

The battle for a healthy lifestyle begins in the mind. In order to reach your fitness goals, you must eliminate the words “why” and “how” from your everyday vocabulary. Throwing away your inhibitions and becoming receptive to new ideas about fitness and health, can result in major lifestyle changes. One of the first things you should do is set a goal/goals. This is important because it gives you incentive to stay motivated and disciplined.

PHOTO BY AMBRO

That being said, the goals you set for yourself have to be realistic and reachable. After eating Domino’s pizza for a month straight, don’t be surprised that you can’t run a mile without sucking wind. Sometimes we have to set the bar really low, step over it, and pat ourselves on the back so that we can feel accomplished and build up our confidence.  When you are working to attain something, I feel that it’s important to have confidence and motivation to get the job done. You must make drastic changes in your psyche to remain consistent with your training and eating habits. You have to make up your mind to be special because no one’s okay with just being mediocre. Once you come to the realization that you are special, you’ll be able to achieve great things beyond your own comprehension.

This all may sound cliché and I might come across sounding like Tony Robbins, but if you work to improve mental toughness, the physical part becomes easy. Many say they want to live a healthy lifestyle but don’t think hard enough and dig deep enough to achieve great levels of health and fitness. I would go as far as to say that achieving a good level of health and fitness is 90% mental and 10% physical. You need to incorporate a little mental toughness on days when you want to eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast and skip a run. These are the make or break moments that can mean the difference between losing ten pounds and gaining 20.