Everything In Moderation?

We’ve all heard the phrase “Everything in moderation” at some point in time and well, I think this is a misunderstood or maybe better stated, misused term. I whole-heartedly disagree with the concept of "moderation" as it is used in the health community. Often times, people will use “moderation” as a license to eat poorly, not train hard (or miss a workout) or as an excuse not to work hard at improving their health. C'mon, you've heard it before, “Hey, I worked out hard yesterday so I can justify eating this donut." That's the "everything in moderation" philosophy for most. But keep this in mind, when you pursue a health and fitness program in moderation, be prepared to achieve moderate results. Hey, if that's OK with you, then fine, but if you are looking to achieve more than average results, a moderate attitude will be your pitfall.

Because the general public misconstrues moderation, they fail to focus more on what I believe to be a more reasonable approach which is BALANCE. Balance, to me, is very important to succeeding and meeting your desired goals. Without the right balance in your program you are likely to hinder performance. In general, to achieve a higher level of overall health and well-being there needs to be an emphasis put on certain aspects. I won’t delve too deeply into each one but individualized attention needs to be placed on specific areas such as nutrition, strength training, cardiovascular conditioning, flexibility and recovery - and all need to be viewed with equal importance. You can’t just focus on your strength training and have little regard for your nutrition and expect to succeed, nor will proper nutrition combined with a solid strength program insure optimum results without the right "balance" of cardiovascular work and ample rest and recovery.


Again, the five factors that I consider of utmost importance for overall health and which need to be done properly for optimum results are:

* Strength Training
* Cardiovascular Conditioning
* Flexibility Training
* Nutrition
* Rest/Recovery

Think about how you can improve on any or all of these aspects and work to achieve balance and leave moderation out of the equation. - Fred Fornicola