The following is based on my personal research and experience and if you disagree with it, Come on and I'll have you (or some such banter).
These are some of my favourite sporting personages:
The human body is capable of so much and while it pains
me to see people who do nothing with it, what really gets my back up is people
who complain about their size or their level of fitness. If you don't like it,
change it. Now there are going to be people, and I have met some of them, who
disagree with me here, but in my view (and I have studied Biology, human
anatomy and nutrition in some depth) obesity is
caused by, and only by, sitting around eating pies all day. (Leave some for
me.) Ok, there are, I am prepared to admit, a very small minority who have a
genuine medical condition but as for bleating on about glands, it's all a load
of bollocks. As Mark Renton says "Ye dinnae see any fat bastards on TV
footage fi Ethiopia. Dae they no have glands ower thair?". The fact is if
you exercise and eat sensible food you will lose weight, thyroid gland or no
thyroid gland. I know because I did it myself. I used to be fat, well maybe not
fat exactly but fond of pies, chocolate and all things sweet , until one day I
said "right, enough! Let's do something about this!" So I devised a
fiendish exercise scheme (this was before I knew much about nutrition) which
basically involved lots and lots of pressups. I stuck this for about a week
before it became too much, and then about three weeks later I started again and
the same thing happened, and so on, until I stopped, and learnt an important
lesson:
Don't take things too quickly.
This is the mistake many people make when starting any exercise program: they
throw themselves into it completely, get knackered within a week and revert to
their old lifestyle. So if you want to improve your fitness forget expensive
gyms and ludicrous equipment, at least for the moment, and start off gently.
Jog if you must, but remember that
"jogging is for people who are too unintelligent to watch television"
(Victoria Wood)
and get a decent pair of trainers or you'll damage your ankles, knees, hips
etc. I wear trainers all the time because I like running at odd moments and
cannot do it in shoes. A pair of trainers must be bouncy to absorb the impact
of running on tarmac, which the human body was not designed to do. It is not
true that professional runners develop arthritis in their joints; running is an
excellent exercise and will make you more supple.
So anyway, the way to start is to make small changes, that you can maintain,
because unfortunately becoming fit involves will power and by the way
being fit and being healthy are not the same thing; fitness implies healthiness
but not the other way around. And also fit is a very vague word. Some would say
especially looking at women that it means "pleasing to the eye, sexy,
curvaceous" but not me. (Well maybe sometimes.) Fitness is a combination
of strength, aerobic fitness, flexibility and stamina. You may wish to improve
all of these or to lose fat, to just develop big muscles, which is
body building, a different thing entirely.
Back to will power. The sad truth is that getting fit by exercising is a long
hard road but is really the only way to go. It doesn't have to be "no pain
no gain" but realistically exercising takes an incredible amount of energy
and effort and above all a powerful desire to do it. You'll also have to make
sacrifices, as exercise and face stuffing seldom mix. (If you eat less, you'll
not only feel more like exercising you'll also find you can get by with less
food, and the more exercise you take the more energy you'll have.)
Diet is more important than exercise, if you don't
have the right diet, exercise won't be effective.
But why exercise in the first place, other than to shed those mounds of fat? Well, if done regularly and properly, exercise can improve your strength, vitality, concentration, reflexes, memory, coordination and libido. Regular exercise also means you have much less chance of being ill, tired or depressed, have more energy, more efficient circulation, increased lung capacity and less chance of insomnia.
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© 1998 Ed (It came off the top of my head)