Fitness Knowledge is Power

One of the key factors to getting in shape is knowledge. It doesn’t matter what program or routine you are trying out, if you don’t acquire the right knowledge about fitness, diet and exercise you will fail. With the Internet, there is no excuse for not having access to knowledge. I just Google the term “weight loss” and the first link I saw was http://www.webmd.com/diet/. I went to that page and found a great deal of information – more than I could read in one sitting.

But don’t stop at the first site you see. Keep looking. Your journey should be a constant process of discovery. You need to find out what works best for you. The common advice will get you where you want to go but you may also find tips and tricks that speeds up the process or fits your lifestyle better.

Knowledge is power. I don’t provide a lot of detailed advice on my blog because I know how easy it is to find. I can tell you that you need to avoid sugar but if you want to learn why you can find that information easily.

Learning what exercises to do or what foods to eat is not the hard part. The most difficult aspect of getting in shape is figuring out for yourself how to keep going. What level of progression is too fast or too slow depends on the individual. I’ve pushed myself too hard on occasion and paid the price but I had to find out what my limits are. No book, video or magazine article is going to tell me how much I can take.

The acquisition of knowledge is not just about techniques and strategies. You also need to gain, what I’m going to call, motivational knowledge. Humans learn best by watching others. If we someone else doing something that helps us believe that we can do it. For this reason, I routinely look for success stories and motivation videos online. Go to YouTube and search the term “fitness motivation” and you will find thousands of videos of people working out or offering words of encouragement. Sure some of it may be over the top and extreme, but in the quest to get motivated you often have to witness the fringes of what’s possible.

The answers are out there. You just need to go find them.