The essential ingredient to fitness …

Not everyone wants to be fit.

That doesn’t sound like a true statement. Surely EVERYONE wants to be fit, right?

Well, more than half of Americans would rather lose their jobs than get fat, according to a Fitness magazine poll. Fifty-eight percent of women and 54 percent of men would rather be unemployed than gain 75 pounds. Sixty-three percent of women and 55 percent of men would rather be poor and not overweight than rich and substantially overweight.

It certainly sounds like most people really do want to be fit!

BUT … if you’re capable of doing what it takes for YOU to become fit (almost everyone is capable), but you’re unwilling to do what is necessary for you to achieve and maintain fitness, then you really do NOT want to be fit.

The essential ingredient to achieving fitness is change. If what you’re doing (or not doing) and eating (or not eating) has you out of shape and unhealthy (or trending that way), then you MUST make real changes to become fit and regain or retain your health.

Bert Young was not fit and leery about the claims that committing to significant change would have him in great condition. He tells his story of being willing to make some changes …

For months I saw the P90X workout advertisements on television. They promised that if you followed their exercise regimen and followed their nutritional guide (euphemism for “diet”), in 90 days your body would be ripped with muscles. In a moment of weakness, I ordered my very own P90X kit along with dietary supplements, workout bands and a pull-up bar. I committed myself to the diet and to the workout schedule that was created by fitness experts who specialized in “muscle confusion.”

Soon I found myself eating half the calories I used to, doing all sorts of strange exercises — not the elliptical machine and bench press I usually use. I was also drinking protein shakes and eating few carbs. I even found myself doing yoga once a week. How is this going to turn me into a poster boy? “Stick with it! Trust the system!” encourages Tony Horton, the workout leader, who constantly introduces people who have done the program, and they are all fit. He points out that they didn’t used to be. The mantra is “Do your best, forget the rest.” So I stick with this totally-new-to-me form of fitness. And guess what? After 90 days, I am cut like a diamond and in the best shape of my life.

It is nothing less than folly to think that no change, or just simplistic tweaks to how you’re caring for your body, can transform you physically from being unfit and possibly unhealthy to being fit and healthy. To go from the first position to the second requires real change,

IF you want that change, then you’ll have to make the necessary changes! And that does NOT mean just flirting with change, but being persistent about how you’re caring for your body. It is a VERY common thing for someone to stick their toes into the waters of change, feel the initial discomfort, and immediately retreat …

Joyce Redding tells the story about a retired couple who decided they should walk two miles a day to stay in shape. They chose to walk a mile out on a lonely country road so they would have no choice but to walk back. At the one-mile mark on their first venture, the man asked his wife, “Do you think you can make it back all right, or are you too tired?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not tired. I can make it fine.”

“Good,” he replied. “I’ll wait here. You go back, get the car and come get me.”

“Change” means just that — to make a real change, not just experiment. Some people tell themselves if they endure the discomfort of taking good care of themselves for a while, they can then revert back to how they don’t take care of themselves now and float for a while on the improvements they had made.

That will last only a while.

If we aren’t maintaining our fitness and health, we will be in the process of losing both.

Let me conclude with this – one of the best investments a person who is unfit and possibly unhealthy can make is that of paying for hiring an experienced, competent Personal Trainer. Having a fitness expert design for you a fitness program tailor-made to your specific goals and needs, and then lead you through that program, can be what you need to finally transform your physical condition to fitness and health.

Scotty