Fitness kaizen.

Kaizen is the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life on a daily basis.

You may have heard the term kaizen before, most likely in the context of the business world.  For instance, the philosophy of kaizen and continuous quality improvement was one of the driving reasons why Toyota and the other Japanese auto makers basically kicked Ford’s butt for the past several years.

So what does that have to do with fitness?

Well, I’d like to introduce you to the concept of fitness kaizen, or continuously trying to improve your health and fitness by doing one small thing every day.

Often, when people decide to get in shape or get healthy, they look at all these things that they do, whether they don’t eat right, whether they drink too much, whether they drink too much coffee, whether they don’t exercise, etc.  Suddenly they start adding up this list of all these things they need to work on, and it seems like, “Holy crap! I can’t fix all that. This is going to be way too hard.”

Well, if you try and change everything all at once, you’re right, it will very likely be too hard.

So don’t change everything all at once.  Apply kaizen and every day just do one thing that gets you a little bit closer to living a healthy lifestyle.

Do one thing today.  Maybe it’s getting in six meals instead of two, or cutting back on your coffee, or increasing your water intake, or whatever you want to tackle first.  Nail that over the next few days, and once you do, try tackling something else.  If every day you do a small, simple thing to improve yourself, eventually all those simple things will build up and have a cumulative effect.

So apply the philosophy of fitness kaizen to continuously improve yourself, and before you know it, you’ll have reached your fitness goals.

About the Author

Dave Soucy is a coach, trainer, motivator, husband, dad, and former fat guy. His goal is to teach as many people as possible how to achieve a life of health, fitness, and wellness through simply eating right and exercising. Click here to learn more about Dave.

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