A couple of weeks ago I was up in Donegal for a Funeral. I think an emotion that a lot of people often have at a funeral is regret that they didn’t make more of an effort with the person who passed away over the years. Not enough effort to get to see them and actually be present with them when there.

Speaking of regret, one of the Paramedics who worked on the person who died mentioned that they (the Paramedics) “tried hard to keep her. But she tried twice as hard to stay.”

Unfortunately she lost her battle but I’d say you would have a hard time telling any paramedics out there that there are many more important things for us to look after other than our health. As the woman who passed away fought so hard “to stay” she was fighting for the most important thing that any of us have.

Our health and fitness because without it we literally have nothing.

Yet with around 75 days left in 2018, it would be interesting to know how many people have kept on track with their health and fitness goals or are keeping up any resemblance of the exercise regime they promised themselves that they would keep at the start of the year. Are they sitting with regret at letting another year pass where they have gone slightly backwards with their health.

In fact some people will be reading this and maybe thinking that they will “start in January”, next week, on Monday etc. But often these days/weeks/months bleed into years and people end up going from one year to the next with regrets about not looking after themselves properly or looking in the mirror thinking that it is just the passing of time that has caused them to look a bit more beaten down, with less energy/life in their eyes and carry a bit more weight around their waist.

The opposite option is to start taking control of the variables that you can now. Like coming up with some fitness goals, even a vision for how healthy you want to be, putting a plan in place to implement and going for it. Doing simple things like joining a gym/fitness community that you’ll enjoy being a part of, getting outside for a walk over the weekend, doing some resistance training, increasing your veg intake etc etc etc.

I could easily list 75 things that you could do to improve your health and fitness over the last 75 days of the year but most people reading this will know what needs to be done. And know how important it is to do it. For everything from longevity to enjoying the longevity we have!

The first thing is making the decision to look after the most important thing we have got. Everything else stems from there.