Fit not Fat

When losing weight is only part of the equation.

I think weight and body image is something that most people struggle with in their lives unless you’re one of those lucky b!tches that were just born skinny (I am not one of those people).

I have spent most of my life overweight. I have tried the fad diets and started to exercise more times than I care to remember, only to give up when the muscle aches start.

Each time, I promise myself that things will be different and that I will lose the weight, but the truth is that I was going about it all the wrong way. I read a blog post recently, and it was written that if you exercise and diet simply to lose weight, then you are almost certainly destined to fail.

This blogger then talked about how they began to exercise because they wanted to do something nice for their body. They talked of exercise as a way of pampering themselves; of building up their body.

I was talking to one of my best friends about exercise last week, and they were saying that they usually exercise every morning, and they find that when they don’t, they end up feeling worse because of it; almost as if their body is protesting the lack of care that not exercising causes.

This has completely changed my thinking. Instead of fighting fat, I need to be focusing on getting fit. Today, I started a new exercise routine that I made up myself. I am combining a mixture of strength, cardio and yoga stretches.

I am no expert. I have no idea if this will work or not. I just know that I have to try this, because I want to be fit. I want to be healthy and I want to be strong. I already have back problems from an inherited condition, which I have been told will only get worse, so I need to do all I can to slow that down. I also have high blood pressure, and have been advised to increase my cardio as that can help to bring blood pressure down.

This morning, I began the process of strengthening my grip so that I can do chin ups, I jogged for ten minutes, I walked brusquely for ten minutes, I did some crunches using a yoga trapeze, and then did some inversion stretching.

It might not sound like much to someone who exercises regularly, but this was a big thing to me, and while, yes, losing weight would be wonderful.. (who doesn’t want to be thinner, right?!) I am doing this because this body is the only one I have and I need to take care of it.

I guess what I’m saying is that my body is a temple and I plan to do all I can to treat it as such, in order to improve my overall fitness. So, the exercises I outlined above are what I plan to do for the next month. Every day (except Sundays, although I may still do some stretches that day).

This is not me trying to get praise or approval. This is me making a decisive decision and holding myself accountable in a public arena. I may fail. I may fall down (possibly literally), but I plan to try my hardest to “EEDIA” (Exercise Every Day In August).