The Similarities Between Fitness and Personal Finance

December 20, 2021  Financial Pilgrimage

What do physical fitness and personal finance have in common? On the surface, there are a lot of differences between your fitness program and financial wellness. One involves income, spending, saving, and investing. The other involves physical activity, nutrition, and overall health. The reality is that financial fitness (and just fitness) are some of the most critical areas of our lives. It’s no coincidence that there are striking similarities between fitness and finance once you start digging in.

Financial Fitness is Behavioral

Fitness programs have always been a big part of my life. So when referring to fitness, we’ll be talking about both sides of the equation, including physical activity and nutrition. Being raised by a dietitian and having a love of sports had me interested in both early on. Looking back, I feel fortunate to have built habits in both areas at a relatively young age.

Growing up in a house with two younger brothers and a junk food-loving dad, the competition for unhealthy food was fierce. My mom would go grocery shopping every ten days, and the one bag of chips or package of cookies would be gone within a day, sometimes minutes. That would leave us with nothing but rice cakes, fruits and veggies, and other healthy options for the rest of the week and a half. It was rough.

We had home-cooked meals that consisted of protein, carbs, and vegetables most nights. But, as I got older, I realized that having home-cooked meals was a rarity compared to other households.

We’d still get fast food on occasion. My dad was a fast-food manager, after all. With three kids in the house, sometimes the easy thing was to bring home a big bag of burgers and fries so we could eat and then make our way to evening activities. This taught me that one of the most critical nutrition lessons is “everything in moderation.” Eating fast food, sweets, or potato chips is fine on occasion as long as most of what you put into your body is more on the healthy side.

Whenever a new diet fad becomes popular, I’ll ask my mom about it to get her thoughts. Usually, she rolls her eyes. Over the years, there have been so many diet fads—Atkins, Paleo, Intermittent Fasting, Mediterranean, South Beach, and on and on. Almost everyone will swear by one of these diets and back it by “science.” I understand that some diets result from personal beliefs or food allergies. However, most people latch onto these fad diets, stick with them for a while, and then end up right back where they started. We’ll hit on this topic more below.

Personal Finance is Personal – So Is Fitness

When attending FinCon, a conference for personal finance nerds like me, the theme was “personal finance is personal.” This statement means that everyone’s situation is different. It’s one of the reasons why I believe there are so many personal finance bloggers as we all connect to other people in different ways. What I’ve learned through personal finance is that if you want to change your behavior, you have to change your habits.

Financial and fitness programs are behavioral, and they’re personal. Hopefully, this blog post resonates with some people, but it can’t be relatable to everyone. So all I can do is tell my story and share the experiences I’ve learned over my lifetime with the hope that it makes an impact.

We have a deep emotional connection to both food and money. For example, I know when I’m stressed and tired, that’s when I tend to stuff my face with junk food or drink alcohol. Similarly, others may practice “retail therapy” and take it to the malls to run up their credit card bills. It’s a vicious cycle that hits us in our weakest moments. So how do we change our habits? I’m not sure, but maybe understanding the similarities between fitness and financial wellbeing will be helpful.

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