What is a Comprehensive Fitness Lifestyle?

Since I started this blog, up until now I have been talking about my weight loss journey and trying to give some tips I have learned along the way on how I accomplished it. Hopefully they have been helpful to some of you who have been reading. I also hopefully will have a lot more to say on that topic as well as giving some low calorie recipes for you to try, but there is a lot more that I want to talk about besides just weight loss.

I’ve mentioned a few times on this site that my blog is about fitness for body, soul and spirit. Today I would like to explain a little more about what that means and what the direction of this blog is going to take.

You see many different types of people that fit into various stereotypes. For example the nerdy type; the one who is intellectually gifted but struggles to pick up a 5 pound weight.

Then there is the jock type; he has muscle upon muscle, but has difficulty grasping simple concepts.

Another type which I ran into a lot when I was a pastor, I guess you could call the heavenly minded type. Many pastors fall into this category. They spend all their time at church doing what to them is the most important work but they end up way overweight because whenever there is an event at church there is also a lot of calorie laden food.

Each type has their strengths, but also a lot of weaknesses as well. I have come up with the idea that I like to call a Comprehensive Fitness Lifestyle which is where each part that makes up a person is strengthened so that person can live a balanced healthy life.

I chose to call it comprehensive fitness lifestyle because comprehensive means it includes everything, fitness means each part is made stronger and lifestyle means once put into to practice it becomes a way of life.

Whenever someone talks about fitness basically the only thing that one thinks about is physical fitness, but a person is more than just a body and there are other aspects of our lives that needs to grow and become stronger.

So what makes up the aspects of a person?

The Bible teaches that a person is made up of a spirit, a soul and a body. I Thessalonians 5:23 says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In this passage the Apostle Paul is expressing his desire that God would work in the lives of those he was writing to and that every aspect of their lives be protected.

The word ‘whole’ in the original Greek in this verse is a unique compound word that means ‘whole in every part’. Then Paul lists the various parts of a person, which is a spirit, a soul and a body.

1. Physical Fitness

Now the body is the easiest to understand. It is the physical part of a person. It is what you feed and clothe and it is what allows you to interact with the world and communicate with others.

To have a fit body you have to feed it with proper nutrition. You need to exercise your body to make it stronger and to have endurance, so the body can function better and last longer.

It takes discipline, consistency and dedication to reach any level of fitness. Learning how to take care of your body is what is called physical fitness.

2. Soul Fitness

As for the soul, the Greek word for the soul is psyche. We get the words psychology and psychiatry from this word. The soul is what make you uniquely you. It is your emotions, your mind or intellect and your will.

To have a fit soul, you need to master your emotions, focus on positive thinking and sharpen your mind. Those things don’t just happen. You need to pursue it and strengthen your will so you don’t give up.

Just like the body you need to feed your soul with things that with strengthen it and you need to exercise your soul by purposefully thinking about those things which will build your soul rather than tearing it down.

As for the intellectual part of your soul, your biggest need is to never stop learning. The more you use your brain the sharper it will become.

For a fit soul, you need the same type of discipline, consistency and dedication as you do with physical fitness. Learning how to take care of your soul I will call in future articles soul fitness.

3. Spirit Fitness

The spirit is a little more difficult to describe. The body connects you with the world around you. The soul connects you with yourself. The spirit is what connects you with God.

Your spirit is your conscience, your intuition and your ability to have communion or a relationship with God.

Like your body, your spirit needs fed with what will help it grow. Actions like reading God’s Word, prayer, serving others and knowing God in a personal way is the way to exercise your spirit.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in Hebrews 5:14 said, “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Those he was writing to were not developing their spirits and were not growing as a result.

Your spirit needs fed and exercised as this verse says to grow and mature. This too takes discipline, consistency and dedication to grow and mature, just like the body and the soul. In future article I will refer to this as spiritual fitness.

You also have to take into account the interaction between the various parts. There is a definite body and soul connection. If you think negatively, your body will react negatively. If your body is in pain, your mood is effected. Sometimes it is good to recognize what is going on and why we may be reacting the way we do.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what I have plans to discuss on this blog. Yes it is a fitness blog, but unique in that the topics can vary from week to week based upon what area of our person is being discussed.

I hope you are willing to join me as I weekly post a new blog. If there is any area of your life that you have questions about, send me an email and ask me. I will do my best to be an encourager to all.