Natural Everyday Fitness is Important for Sustained Weight Loss

Perhaps when you hear the words exercise and physical activity you may ask “well aren’t they really the same thing”? They both involve movement don’t they? However, when you think of it, the nature of the two are quite different. Physical activity involves more natural movement and applies to the activities which are a normal part of our daily life, eg. Walking, gardening, playing with the kids, walking up stairs etc.

On the other hand, “exercise” conjures the image of regimented, planned movement. You set a time for it, you plan what type of activity it’s going to comprise of (jogging, aerobics, push ups etc), then you do it. Sometimes it may be motivating and sometimes it may feel like a chore which you need to ration out your available day light hours towards.

There’s nothing wrong with that if it gets you moving, but the thing is that you are always moving. Movement is as natural to us as having hands and feet. In this age of technological advancement, computers and one gizmo after the other to “simplify” our lives, it’s hard to see how what we do just as part of everyday living can allow equal exertion of energy as a scheduled exercise program. But before the days of fancy gym equipment and gadgets it was our daily activities which constituted “exercise". Movement just happened and it was effortless.

If you connect physical activity to applying mainly to when you’re on a diet or when the clock says 5 am before work or 6 pm after work and you’re heading to the gym, or when you put the exercise video in the DVD player; then you’re missing many opportunities to be active. I don’t mean to make it sound so simplistic and I’m certainly not implying that any form of activity whether from exercise or daily physical movement, is a bad thing. But often times people judge themselves and each other as "lazy" or "unmotivated" if they don’t go to the gym often or have a planned, daily exercise routine.

Even with our simplified lives, we find ourselves with much more on our plate than we did in the days when we needed to hunt our own food to survive. Essentially we now need to make time to engage in activity. The question to ask yourself really is “How do I make fitness more a part of my day to day living rather than an item on my “To Do List?”

Although we may get enjoyment and a feeling of accomplishment by keeping to the plan, the moment we miss one day or fall off our routine, guilt and a feeling of letting down ourselves may follow. We are a society who feel that a planned exercise routine is the only real way a person maintains fitness and achieves weight loss, but it would serve us all to broaden our view of physical well being and fitness.



To Your Enjoyable and Guilt-Free Food Experiences,



NOTE: Next time I will discuss specific ways to make physical activity more of a lifestyle than something which needs to be thoroughly arranged before hand. Also be sure to sign up for the 10-Part E-course on How Non-Diet Weight Management Can Work for You