Making Fitness an Attainable Personal Goal

Making Fitness an Attainable Personal Goal

People are always making resolutions to get in shape. To lose some weight. To tone up,to firm up they say they’ll start the diet on. Monday. After the first of the year. With swimsuit season coming up. They say they’ll sign up at a health club next week. Next month. Next time there’s a membership special. After the first of the year. Perhaps after Memorial Day. Maybe they’ve already signed up but have gone only once, a couple of times, or not at all.
Other than sheer procrastination, one of the main reasons many people don’t really get started on a program is that they are seeking a sure cure or fast fix for flab—or, at the very least, the most efficient way to get in shape.Others don’t work out because they don’t believe they can do it; being afraid of failure, they don’t start at all. But everyone can get stronger and healthier. This book will compare and contrast what’s out there in terms of both targeted workout programs and participant sports.
Diet books and, worse, potentially harmful weight-loss formulas sell like proverbial hot cakes (hold the butter and use low-sugar syrup, of course), but many studies have shown that exercise, in combination with a healthful diet, is the only effective,permanent way to lose weight and keep it off—and also to enjoy good health. This is so true that it cannot be repeated too often. “The only place where success comes before work,” Vidal Sassoon once said, “is in the dictionary.”
Intake is just part of the answer to the obesity question. Most modern research shows that diet is not the route to long-range success. Diet plus exercise is important in body reshaping, not simply for good looks but, more important, for good health. Specialized books, magazines, and videos abound to help people begin to exercise to get and stay in shape. Not a month goes by without some major women’s magazine or general-interest publication doing a cover story on shaping up. Television infomercials promise a sure route to leanness. Common wisdom indicates that yo-yo diets and impulsive, short-lived plunges into workout programs are doomed to fail, yet people keep trying this and that. They spend money, realize disappointing results, and try still another fast fix. The urge for better health resides in many people, however, and this is a good beginning because the seeds of success have to sprout within your mind.