Fit for Life

by Planet Infinity

STAYING IN SHAPE TAKES MOTIVATION

A three hundred pound man told his friend, “I’m so depressed and I can’t get any dates. I’ve tried everything to lose weight.” “I think I can help,” said the friend. “Be dressed and ready to go tomorrow at nine am.” The next morning, a beautiful woman in a skin tight exercise suit knocked on the man’s door. “If you can catch me, you can have me” she said as she took off. He huffed and puffed after her. This routine went on everyday for the next five months. The man lost 115 pounds and felt confident that he would catch the woman the next day. That morning, he whipped open his front door and found a 300 pound woman in a jogging suit waiting for him. “Your friend told me,” she began, “That if I can catch you, I can have you.”

We find ways to motivate ourselves towards fitness.

Most often than not we associate fitness with losing weight.  But, fitness is more than just decreasing pounds. It is adopting a healthy lifestyle that benefits both mind and body.

That all sounds good but you might say “That’s not for me. I’ve tried everything: enrolling in a gym, following a specific diet, I even bought a treadmill so that I can exercise at home. The motivation to look good is enough to get me started but not enough to sustain the efforts. So, after a few days or a few weeks of highly motivated resolution, I find myself not sustaining my fitness program.” Because of this cycle, we give up all resolution and resign to the fact that we cannot change our bodies, we cannot change ourselves.

We say “So many mistakes and failures; so many missed opportunities; so many regrets.”  We tend to approach life with apathy and cynicism.  We look at ourselves in the mirror and say “I’m hopeless. There’s no solution to my problems”.

It’s time for a change. Change the way you look at yourself. Change the way you approach wellness. Change the way you look at life.

Take this story shared by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the man who invented aerobics:

There’s a story of a 46 year old lady. She had back pains that were so terrible that she could not walk further than 75 feet without having to sit down. She was stooped and couldn’t stand up. As a result, it killed all of her social life; all of her outings. She was in constant pain and disability. When she came to Dr. Cooper, he advised that she have back surgery but she said “No.” She wanted to try something else.

She began to walk on a treadmill. She found that when she put the treadmill into some angle she could walk without being in pain for about 25 seconds. She began to walk on the treadmill several times a day. Soon she found that she could lower the treadmill more and more. Until, finally, she was walking on a flat surface without any pain for the first time in months. Next, she started to do some slow jogging with her walking routine.

Eventually, she began jogging continuously from three miles to five miles to ten miles at each outing. Today, this 46 year old woman has run nine marathons with her best time being three hours and three mins. A great time for any woman or any man in any age.

The lesson of the story? You can change if you want to.

Change your mind. Change your body. Change your life.