I wake up every day with the goal of improving both my physical and mental health, and this is what I mean when I say that I live a healthy lifestyle. I strongly believe that people have so much more control over their happiness/life than they think they do. I really hope that after reading about my story, people who feel hopeless will wake up tomorrow with a new attitude, an attitude that enables them to take on life’s challenges.
The most important lesson that I have learnt over the past 5 years is that we need to start taking more responsibility over our own lives.
We take advice too easily from others and follow people of power regardless of our own needs/wants. Since I would like to promote the idea that people should think for themselves, please don’t try and relate my story directly back into your life, but rather take some of the general concepts that resonate with you and apply them into your life.
My journey to a healthy lifestyle began with the dream of being a natural bodybuilder, and over the past 5 years I have challenged myself to incorporate as much health and positivity into my day as I possibly can. When I first began bodybuilding in high school, the bigger guys in the gym told me that I was never going to succeed, and they really tried to bring me down. The Professional bodybuilders that I was following online said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to build lean muscle without using steroids. I listened to these limitations set by my ‘friends’ and ‘idols’ for so many years. I pursued bodybuilding with minimal effort and didn’t really make any real progress. In the summer of last year, I realized that I was extremely unhappy with the way that my life was going, but I knew that I still had a dream to be a natural bodybuilder.
In September of last year, as I started my second year of university, I decided to start taking more control over my own life. The big change that I wanted to make was my approach to mental and physical health. I began waking up at 5:30am every morning to go to gym, I made sure to stick to my diet, every night I aimed for 8 hours of sleep, and I took a general approach of being honest with myself about what was acceptable and what was not. The biggest change that I made was giving up alcohol. In a student society alcohol is very prevalent and many of my friends made fun of me because I stopped drinking. I made this decision for myself and I knew that I wanted to follow through with it. I made a conscious effort to go out with my friends and still have fun sober which really changed their perception of what I was trying to do. Not only did people begin to admire what I was doing, but the results began to speak for themselves, and my Mental and Physical health increased exponentially. This got me thinking about what other toxic things I still allowed to be a part of my life, and I began to make more positive changes. I made a conscious effort to stay away from technology as much as I can, and every day I try to use my laptop and phone as little as possible.
I have 4 big rules when it comes to technology:
(1) I don’t use technology for at least 1 hour before I go to bed, I set my alarm and spend an hour with myself reflecting and planning for the next day.
(2) When I wake up in the morning, I make sure to get out of bed and do something productive before I check my phone/laptop.
(3) I only wear earphones in the gym, walking around campus without music in my ears allows me to think of ideas and just be more present in the moment.
(4) I don’t worry about who likes my pictures or how many people like my pictures, social media when used irresponsibly can really bring down your mental health and I challenge every student to be analytical about how they use their social media.
The next challenge that I set myself combined two very relatable topics for all students, money and food. I realized that I was reckless in the amount and types of food that I was buying, and so I decided to see how healthy I could eat while spending as little as possible. I stopped eating out as regularly as I was, and I bought healthy food to cook for myself at home. Within a week I realized that I was saving money and that the food I was eating really made my body feel good. As an example, instead of getting a sandwich from somewhere on campus as a snack, I began making smoothies to carry around campus. A simple smoothie containing kale, ginger and lemon is extremely inexpensive, easy to make, and makes your body/mind feel a whole lot better.
After doing all of these things, my body and mind felt so much better and I was eager to do more. I began taking ice cold showers after exercise to help my body recover, I made sure to visit a park or beach at least once a week and spend time in nature, and I tried to start as many conversations with strangers as possible just to regain some social skills that technology had taken away from me. Like I said, not all of these changes that I made will be relatable to you, but I challenge students to actively work on your mental/physical health as often as you can. Although the results were extremely rewarding, the journey was not always easy and there were many bad days along the way.
My advice to anyone who would like to start making daily positive changes to their life is to be honest with yourself and to love yourself. To be honest with yourself is crucial to achieving a goal, for example, if you say that you are going to go the whole week without eating pizza, then really make sure that you try your best to suppress those cravings when they come. The second piece of advice is to love yourself. Sometimes we have a bad day and eat pizza, but remember not to hurt yourself mentally when you make a mistake, just acknowledge your mistake and promise yourself that you will try harder tomorrow. Doing things for yourself is a contract between you and you, nobody’s opinions should matter, and you owe it to yourself to try as hard as you can to achieve the goals that YOU set for yourself. I hope that everyone reading this took something valuable away from my story, you are so strong and have so much value to add to yourself and the society around you. I still make mistakes and continue to learn all the time, and so if you want to connect with me and follow my journey, I would love to follow yours. “I want to be better than I was yesterday, everyday.”
Tristan Kolver, Bodybuilder.
Any individuals in sports and fitness who would like to share their voice, please submit to hank@hankfittraining.com