Your day begins at three in the morning with a cup of coffee and speed reading fifty to one hundred pages. Next, you go for a ten-minute jog with your Doberman. Now that you’re warmed up, it’s time to head to the YMCA for your mind and body workout. You spend the first sixty-five minutes of the workout on a Life Fitness elliptical machine at a pace traversing eight miles, which burns 750 calories. And you do this while simultaneously working on your “brain exercise,” the first of several mental challenges aided by an App on your phone.

 

Next, and without changing your elliptical pace, you recall the exact sequence of over 300 items from seventeen separate Memory Palaces. This is one component of a memory enhancement technique termed The Method of Loci, used by memory experts for centuries. Next, comes practice with an app that enhances peripheral vision and aids speed reading.

 

After this first section is complete, you change into a dry set of workout clothes and move to the rower where you’ll row for sixty consecutive minutes while listening to music or a podcast. And finally, you’ll swim five laps in the pool as a cool down. Altogether, combining elliptical and rower, you have traveled the equivalent of over thirteen miles in about three hours and expended over 1,500 calories.

 

This workout belongs to seventy-eight-year-old Bill Andrade, MD, the formal Medical Director of the Wellness Center in Las Vegas. While in Last Vegas, he wrote a popular health and fitness newspaper column for the Las Vegas Sun, and he served as the President of the local chapter of the American Heart Association with an office located in the luxurious Green Valley Athletic club. But Dr. Andrade’s biggest passion has been designing wellness programs.

 

While his workout is certainly effective, you won’t have to copy Bill’s exact routine to see results. “I wouldn’t advise anyone to copy my workout. My program has evolved over thirty consistent years. It fits my temperament and personal goals,” says Dr. Andrade. Industry statistics reveal that seventy percent of new gym members quit going within six months of starting. Bill believes there’s a disconnect between patients and physicians, and that’s where his fitness plan comes in. He also believes that fitness is to be found in both mind and body. After all, engaging your brain strengthens neural pathways, which is where our memories live, and helps form new ones.

 

Dr. Andrade believes that sustaining healthy habits is crucial to a happy and productive life, and says he wants to help people improve their lives by spreading the word that a mind and body workout will drastically improve their livelihood and overall health.

 

Here are some go-to tips from Dr. Andrade: 

• There are many choices for exercise. But the best physical activity is something that you will do regularly and stick with for the long term.
• Even small, modest changes in activity level can make a significant impact on overall health.
• Don’t be afraid of variety and diversity in your exercise program: explore and find new adventures.
• in my experience, the best predictor of eventual fitness success is how regularly that person has worked out during the first 12 weeks of starting their program.
• Building a regular exercise habit isn’t easy.
• Adherence is not often recognized as the highest priority goal. Yet it usually becomes the biggest obstacle to success.
• Developing a sustained exercise habit – one that lasts forever – is a highly personal journey. It’s a slow process that requires patience, perseverance, and flexibility.
• The process will require a lot of adjustments before it falls into place usually around 6-12 months (or more) until it becomes a routine priority lifestyle habit.
• Program design has to be carefully built around and compatible with the schedule and lifestyle of the person. Not the other way around. Many things must be taken in the consideration.
• Developing a sustainable exercise habit is rarely a smooth process. Instead it’s usually a trial and error match against unforeseen events, competing priorities, changing circumstances.
• Overcoming the adherence challenge by relying on discipline and high motivation is a common strategy, but rarely works in the long run.
• Most underestimate the need to prioritize exercise consistency, which is the most important key to success.
• A successful program is the one that will be practiced consistently.
• Take enough time to build your exercise program to match your personality and natural preferences. There are many options. It is often a trial and error process. Make it as enjoyable as possible – something you look forward to.
• Developing a sustained exercise habit – one that lasts forever – is a highly personal journey. It requires patience and flexibility.
• The program design has to be carefully built around the person. Not the other way around.
• In my opinion a successful program is one that is designed around lifestyle demands, current fitness level, exercise preferences, and realistic goals.
• Goals must be clearly defined, measurable and projected along a realistic time frame unique to one’s circumstances.
• Reward yourself for consistency.
• Bring your reward closer to your action.