Ganja & Fitness – The Perfect Pair

For some, fitness is a little more than just a New Year’s conversation. It’s a lifestyle – a conscious daily effort to be mindful of diet, activity, stress and rest and finding a balance for it all.  If you focus too much on diet it can lead to stress.  If you’re too active that can also lead to stress and sometimes eat away at your sleep time.  If you don’t get enough rest it’s difficult to be active the next day.  And if you’re not active it can affect your metabolism which can impact your diet which can impact your stress which can impact your rest and on and on and on.  It’s really important to keep everything in line and our good friend marijuana can help us achieve just that.
 
Most Americans have at least one job and sometimes more.  In addition to long working hours most people have other things to take care of as well, like kids, errands, LIFE, and it can sometimes be hard to find the time, energy and motivation to get some activity in.  Good ol Maryjane has been helping with this for years and here’s how.  Firstly, THC and CBD have a reputation for making people feel great.  Feelings some experience when high often include pain relief, stress relief, better mood, increased energy and more motivation just to name a few.  If lack of any of these elements is holding you back from being more active there’s a chance you’re a solid candidate for some botanical relief.
 
In my opinion the benefits of combining marijuana and fitness become even more evident after activity.  A huge part of recovering from physical activity revolves around having a solid diet and getting good rest.  Obviously marijuana can open up the appetite but it’s going to be up to you to get the right things on your plate to really benefit from this effect.  It’s also pretty well known that it can help you relax and get some rest which is imperative for muscle recovery.  Since most of your recovery happens in your sleep it’s incredible to know that you can consume your ganj after all your day’s activities are complete, have a balanced meal and then eventually get to rest where most of your food and rest will be used for recovery.  As an added bonus marijuana dilates blood vessels.  This is why your eyes get red when you smoke but the benefit gained here from a fitness perspective is more efficient blood flow and your blood, of course, is what’s delivering your nutrients from your food to your recovering muscles.  Speaking of nutrients, protein is the king of muscle recovery.  Did you know there are hemp protein supplements out there packed with way more nutrition than your typical whey protein product?
 
One more cool thing about marijuana as it pertains to activity is that it produces a euphoric high just like physical activity does.  Some find that when they combine activity and marijuana the high is intensified but that’s just personal preference.  I personally prefer to get high after the activity, not before or during but again, that’s just my preference.
 
Now onto stress.  Have you ever noticed that your stress seems to be lightened when high?  Me too!  It’s important to note that getting high doesn’t directly solve any problems at all but it can certainly help with temporarily freeing your mind of things that would otherwise bog you down and limit your outlook.  With less stress and the ability to focus on other things instead you can give more attention to life’s essentials like diet, rest, activity and more.  See how this is all starting to come around?
 
Sleep is an easy one… Although marijuana can stimulate brain activity and initiate other bodily phenomena it’s naturally considered a depressant.  It slows down most body functions and this is especially beneficial for sleep.  If you’re anything like me your whole day is go go go and then when it’s time for your body to rest it’s almost like your brain hasn’t gotten the memo.  It’s bedtime and your body is physically exhausted but your mind is still racing through a million thoughts a minute.  Introducing marijuana to your night time ritual can help you find that balance between activity and rest quite easily.  Also, keep in mind the added bonus of dilated blood vessels while you’re sleeping, allowing a more free delivery of your nutrients that you hopefully recently ate.
 
Diet… This is a tough one for most Americans.  Half the stuff available to us is fried, preserved, genetically modified and/or monster-portioned.  How could marijuana possibly help someone overcome this?  Well first, we can be inspired by the green goodness.  When we buy buds we tend to avoid the stuff that’s laced with pesticides, grown in unacceptable conditions and we also tend to enjoy just up to what we need.  The same could be applied to food – avoid the food that’s unacceptably sourced and stop when you’ve had enough.  Simple, right?
 
Secondly, to me marijuana is a pure experience.  It’s a way to harness nature with no additives and directly benefit from my body’s own endocannabinoid system.  If we could all just take more of a pure approach to life and diet we would see the results in our nutritional makeups immediately.  Examples of this would be getting fresh instead of canned food, avoiding foods with chemically engineered ingredients, etc.  Improving the quality of what you put into your life will directly impact the quality of what you get out of your life.
 
If you think about it, there’s an argument for how marijuana can complement just about anything in life and it’s up to the user to consume responsibly and make the right choices for them.  Let’s keep in mind this is a little more applicable to people who can still be productive and make healthy decisions after a couple hits, which should be most of us.  So does marijuana ALWAYS make EVERYTHING better?  No, but with the right routine and choices it’s pretty easy to reliably benefit from it.