Why Be Fit and Active?

It’s not easy to maintain a balance between what you eat and what you expend as exercise. Due to our sedentary lifestyle, too often the calories we consume through foods and drinks add up quicker than our physical activity expenditure. How can we maintain a healthy weight by balancing calories in and calories out? Just an extra one hundred calories a day over a year can add up to ten extra pounds of weight!

Why should we strive to make fitness a priority in our lives? It can energize us, making us feel less tired and more alert. We’re able to better concentrate on our daily activities. It helps us sleep better and reduces stress. When we feel good about ourselves, our self-esteem also increases. Many times just adding exercise helps us decrease our high blood pressure medications and reduce the risk of heart disease. Have you been trying to lose weight yet you seem to be tied to your computer chair? Choosing an exercise that you enjoy can help shed off those extra pounds.

How many reasons can we make up not to start exercising? Hundreds of reasons! Maybe it’s too cold or too hot or we say we have no time to work-out. There’s always something we can blame in order to avoid the real reason: ask yourself why do you keep postponing yourself?

The main dilemma is really starting to exercise. Once you’ve written fitness as a goal, choose activities that you really enjoy. If you really despise walking on the treadmill, you won’t want to go to the gym too often. Do you prefer company and group classes or just somebody to walk around the block with? A buddy system is very motivating and you can become each other’s cheerleader – even when it’s too cold or too hot.

Don’t push yourself over the edge. Just start slowly – 10 minutes a day, maybe bump it to 15 minutes or 30 minutes a few times a week. Make it work within your schedule.

You might want to include your colleagues at work with some simple tips as taking a lunch walking break or using the stairs instead of the comfortable elevator. Maybe walk to your colleague in person instead of sending them an email when they are in the same office.

How to organize your time wisely? Are you a morning person and can you start your day exercising – maybe waking up 30 minutes earlier? Many times doing some extra chores at home such as vacuuming, taking out the weeds or raking makes a difference. Use some light weights while watching television especially to avoid opening that bag of tempting chips!

Think about family time and having family members join you after dinner for a stroll around the neighborhood or some cycling. Is it possible to include a weekend hike or fitness activity with the whole family on weekends? You might just start a new hobby!
If business travel is a concern, try adding fitness on your trips. Pack some weights or choose hotels that have a fitness center that you can use or a yoga mat that you can borrow during your stay. If you have time to explore a city, do it on foot. It will refresh you, both physical and mentally.

Just remember, fitness should be fun, wherever you do it, whether alone or in company. Change it to make it varied and you’ll soon become addicted to its healthy benefits.