Things To Consider Today

Fitting The Right Excercise Into Your Life

I belong to a fitness club that offers a variety of exercise machines, a swimming pool, racquetball courts, a yoga room, and basketball gym. There is even day care provided during certain hours for members with young children.

When you walk in the door, you can decide what type of exercise and the amount of it you would like to get that day. You can follow a program worked out by yourself, or receive help from a trainer at the club to plan out a fitness program for you. The program can be gradually made more difficult with time in order to challenge you. The big benefit is that you get to decide the variety of exercises to follow and how fast you build up your strength and endurance.

The exercise equipment itself offers a wide variety of choices. Each type of machine works out a different part of the body. By using different machines in your workout routine per week, you can exercise on all parts of your body. By changing the weights or the resistance on each machine and the amount of time you stay on it, you can increase or decrease the intensity of your workout on each machine. In these ways you can control how much you workout over a period of time and the variety of exercises utilized.

I have not always belonged to an exercise club during my adult years. I wish now that I had belonged to such a club or found an alternative means to get a regular workout more consistently during adulthood. It is these things that motivated me to join a fitness club again after many years of absence. Currently, I’m learning to use a lot of the exercise equipment and establishing a workout routine for myself. I also enjoy the swimming pool a lot . Being that I am now in my 60s, retirement and then older age await for me in the future. I want to sustain good health as long as possible and it only makes sense to combine good exercise with a proper diet and plenty of sleep.

Exercise is not just for me or someone in my age group. It is for everyone. I say this for several reasons.

• Too many people today are overweight. It makes me sad to see the number of overweight children. I never saw such a phenomenon when I was growing up. One reason is because kids were getting more exercise outside and eating more home-cooked meals instead of so much fast food and junk food. Look at the number of overweight youths and adults today. They all need to look at their exercise routines and eating habits and make some adjustments in their lifestyle.

• More people who did work outside the home used to get more exercise in their jobs than they do today.

• At home more people spend more time sitting in front of a television or computer today than ever before.

• There is more fast food eaten today then well balanced meals. This leads to more calorie intake and not enough exercise to burn off these calories.

Let’s go back to my fitness club. The other day I was on an exercise machine and monitoring my workout on it. While doing so I was looking around at the many other individuals in the club at the same time as myself. Some were on the same type of machine as me, and others were on a variety of different machines. Each individual was doing different things based upon what they wanted to accomplished for their own bodies. The important thing is that they were doing something. I saw women as well as men, and older people as well as younger people. There were individuals who we are in good physical shape, and others who really needed to get the bodies in good shape. What they all shared that day was the desire for exercise, the decision to get it, and action to support their commitment to themselves.

You don’t have to belong to a fitness club to get exercise. You can exercise at home in a variety of ways. You can take walks regularly or run a particular course around your neighborhood. You can walk to a local store instead of drive your car. You can participate in sports or other athletic activities. If you work in an office building, climb a few stares each day to get to your office rather than take the elevator all the way up. If you watch a lot of television, put a treadmill in front of your television and walk or run on it while watching your favorite shows. What I’m suggesting is that you can come up with ways to get exercise if you really put your mind to it. Be creative and think of ways that you can incorporate exercise into your daily routines. If you can blend exercise in with other things, you’ll overcome the big excuse people give for not getting exercise. They don’t have time for it or it doesn’t fit into their busy schedules.

Another obstacle to exercise is motivation. This can be overcome by exercising with another person. In a fitness club you see others exercising and thus reinforcing your own motives.

Exercise is related to health care. Each of us needs to think about good health. The challenge to sustain good health and provide proper health care for members of society is not getting any easier. Too many people are not taking care of their health. Health care costs are going up faster than people’s incomes. What lies ahead of us with an aging population is a big problem and not enough money and willpower from sufficient individuals to solve it. Remember, health care requires individual effort and lots of tax dollars. This is why all of us can make a contribution, and all of us should be concerned not only with what we do with our bodies, but what other people do with their bodies. If we do not take care of our health, we are contributing to the overall health care problem. If others do not take care of their health, ultimately the costs of their care will be dumped on us.

Exercise is an important ingredient of any health maintenance program. It should be an important part of your lifestyle. I challenge you to incorporate regular exercise into your daily and weekly routines. Take care of your health now, and you will feel better. As you get older, you’ll be grateful that you took care of your health while you were younger. Set an example of good health for others in order to encourage them to take care of their health. In this way both you and them will ultimately end up healthier, happier, and with a lower tax bill for health care programs.

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Copyright 2009 Leland Pulleyy