Fitness - Discover Yourself
Today, television
screens dish up sports bacon sizzling hot. Speed merchants zip across
on winged feet.
Be number one with yourself Tennis tycoons serve aces with pungent power. Swimmers
splice and explode through water like turbopowered fish at an Olympic
meet. It's not just sport, but life out there, as superhumans battle
for records and recognition. Medels hang around athletic necks
trumpeting the triumphant Number One note. The message in those
medals is for every one of us. Fitness is round the corner, just a few
calories away. Fitness echoes its muscular melody from the pulse of our
wrists. It's time to grab at the medals of health and stand firm and
strong on the pedestal of life. There is as much satisfaction in being
Number One with oneself. We are all born with our quota of fat
cells. They are the constant factor that keep us from being honed down
to our skeletal skin-and-bone selves. In times of famine, they provide
energy. But, on the other hand, we needn't act like famine is eternally
dogging our heels. There's no need for that surplus fat to be stored. if
you're into a sedentary lifestyle, change it. Here's what happens when
you don't exercise. Since you are not burning off enough calories,
those ever accommodating cells spread and store the excess fat. But
unlike a tanked-up ship that sails the sea to use its fuel, you don't.
On the other hand, a grounded ship would rust and if you continue to
fill its tank with fuel, it will overflow. That's exactly what happens
to an overeating, non exercising human. The overflow is the unseemly
bulge. The rust is seen in different ways - tiredness, not looking
forward to the day, low spirits, poor health. But then, aren't
fat people jolly folk always laughing at everything including
themselves? Except for a few, most get into the ha-ha sphere because
that's the only way they can cope. Group therapies have shown
that almost all fat people admit to putting on a facade. What they are
doing, in essence, is switching on a self-defence mechanism. By
laughing at themselves, they pre-empt the jokes against them by others.
Their laughter is their fortress. Psychologists have discovered
that many overweight people are so due to various insecurities plaguing
them. They eat to satisfy a certain gnawing emptiness inside. The
feeling of emptiness could be due to some vaguely perceived, but not
entirely understood, unfulfilled desires. It could be for larger things
- like identity, or creative satisfaction, power, for a meaningful role
in society, or for recognition. In Attitudes, a television
programme, two fat women admitted that they deliberately put on weight
to get attention. One said, "Every time I overeat and gain inches, my
husband buys me a new dress." In short, the hunger is not for
food. It may sound like a peculiar reason to remain fat, but insecurity
is the biggest plague of modern times. Sometimes such people go in for
crash diets, with, predictably, no or very little effect. They find
themselves getting increasingly snappish and moody. They feel deprived
and let down. They even feel that they were happier when they were fat.
So it's back to food and more food to put the laughter back in their
lives. Or so they feel. What fat people need is fire in their
minds. A strong, powerful self-image that grips them and makes them lay
less emphasis on food and appearance. It's when the self-image takes
over insecurity that they will find the motivation to get into fitness. The
best way to break this vicious cycle is to start exercising. This feeds
the fire in the mind and makes them eat less, starting a more
fulfilling cycle. As they burn more calories than what they take in,
witness what happens in the body: The nervous, endocrine and
circulatory systems function smoothly together as a team and release
fat for energy. The nervous system jets out fat from the cells, the
circulatory system picks it up and carries it to the liver. The liver
converts it into energy which in turn is used by the muscles. The
result: loss of weight. Simultaneously, muscles get strengthened and
the person feels tauter and healthier. This way, the self-image
gets a boost. And as the Number One feeling grows, the world seems a
brighter, more secure place. The message is complete. For , a healthy
life itself is a medal.
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