How to Stay Healthy

Raise your hand if you like to be sick or injured.  If you raised your hand, you may now exit the post. Those of you who survived the first round of cuts, congratulations.  So it's safe to say that if you are still here you are looking for some good, juicy info on how to stay on top of your game.  Well, the health game I mean.

Alright, well look, the good news is that for the average American becoming a more healthy person is easy.  Americans tend to be unhealthy.  Why?  Well, let me make my rant really short: we tend to be very lazy.  Laziness goes hand in hand with being unhealthy for many reason.  But the good news is, you can easily get over this.  You don't have to be stuck in a constant battle between training and taking off. Here is a list of ideas that you can follow to break out of the cycle and perform to your highest level.

1) Sleep.  Sleep.  Sleep.  All three of these ideas I'm listing are equally important, but to paraphrase Animal Farm, this is the "greatest amongst equals," mainly because so many high school athletes run themselves into the ground by shrugging off sleep.  I know for a fact many of my runners stay up late texting, facebooking, and playing video games, and it is easy to tell when a kid is struggling because of lack of sleep.  You can't stay healthy or compete at a high level without proper sleep.

2) Eat healthy!  What so many people refuse to admit is that food affects their body.  If I eat too much fast food in a short amount of time, or too much processed food, I usually end up feeling ill.  I know plenty of people who feel the same way, and it gets worse as you get older.  Eat as much organic food, or lightly processed foods as possible, and definitely avoid too much sugars.  And remember, All-Natural means nothing!  The word Organic is regulated, but anyone can claim anything is all-natural.

Yogurt and fresh fruit is a common healthy dish.

3) Take measures to avoid injuries/sickness before they become an issue.  Some call it pre-hab, or pre-habilitation, but it means treating injuries before they are injuries.  This means if you always know your knees are very sore a few days after a long run, take measures such as icing as soon as you are done, don't wait till you are sore.  If you always get sick when the weather changes or when it rains in the winter, take vitamin C and other vitamins before the storms or weather change even come!  You need to think on your feet and do your best to beat out sickness and injury before they manifest.