Beating the Bulge – Conquering “the Sad Story”

A work colleague of mine was telling me recently, in a candid and philosophical gym change room discussion, the battle he’s had with getting rid of his protruding gut.

As a young guy his metabolism took care of things, thank you very much. He says the story starts not long after getting married. Like the vast majority of married’s, his life got comfortable as he was lavished on home-cooked fare. Then came the kids and exercise took a decline momentarily. Then one day he looked into the mirror and said, “Who’s that?!” Since 1992 he’s exercised steadily, consistently, with little impact.

Most 30- or 40-something’s know the story. We lose the focus or a time and then the body clock takes over.

And what was my colleague’s advice to me? “We must maintain our fitness and diet from the time we’re young, right through life,” is how it could be summarised.

I’m fortunate personally that exercise and diet have played a consistent role in my life since I was twenty.

The rules are pretty simple:

~~ Start, continue, and don’t stop. Exercise and good attention to diet are habits; habits develop themselves if we are persistent.

~~ Start slowly and patiently, working our up in intensity. This is much overrated, but how many people lose heart after getting sore or an injury?

~~ Learn. Applying ourselves to gain knowledge of exercise and diet practices is an investment that reaps commandingly attractive dividends.

~~ Get into Rocky or inspiration music or film? Use them to exercise to.

~~ Forget about abercisers and other fancy equipment; you can maintain your fitness without a single piece of exercise equipment. In fact, the best ‘exercise equipment’ is a book on exercise that will educate, motivate and empower us.

If we want that fabulous body it’s not that hard, but it does require discipline. Again, the rewards are there to be had, but we have to believe it without seeing evidence for quite some time.

s

And who said getting a fabulous body had nothing to do with faith?

Copyright © 2008, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.