There's More To Fitness Than How Much You Weigh.
Something that most people don't realise is that physically
there is little correlation between fitness and weight. Your
weight does not define how fit you are. Obviously if your weight
is too high it has an effect on how fit you are, and it
certainly has an effect on your health but the relation between
weight and fitness is nowhere near as strong as most people
believe.
The only true test of fitness is how much exercise you can do.
As your fitness improves, you will have greater stamina and be
able to do more exercise. And as your fitness increases you will
almost certainly start to lose weight.
If your goal is to not only lose weight, but to keep that weight
off, and to keep it off in a natural way - not using some fad
diet - then you should look at increasing your overall fitness
level, and the level of exercise you get everyday. Diet and
exercise go hand in hand, diet will not be truly effective
without exercise.
If you start with exercise, then you'll begin to build and tone
muscle in your entire body first, instead of just trying to burn
away fat. In fact, the worst thing you can do is to start on a
diet first without exercise. Instead of burning away your fat,
in that case, the chances are good that your body will burn
muscle tissue instead. That is something that you definitely
don't want to happen, since it will make exercising harder for
you in the future.
If you exercise regularly you will be more fit than somebody who
gets no exercise, this holds true no matter what your respective
weights are. So no matter what diet plan you begin you should
accompany it with extra exercise.
Of course if you want to really increase your fitness then you
will need to do more than a casual bit of exercise. You will
need to be more methodical in your approach to exercise and do
more than one type of exercise. You will need to be doing some
cardiovascular exercise and some basic strength exercises.
For your cardiovascular exercise - which is basically any type
of exercise that increases your heart rate by considerable
amounts - you should work on being able to exercise for a longer
period of time than you could before. This will enable you to
build up some stamina.
Strength training will tone your body and increase your
strength. While it won't necessarily make you fitter, it will
make you look and feel better and give you visible,
confidence-building results.
This strength training does not necessarily mean lifting weights
or hanging around a gym, you can do a really effective strength
training workout in the comfort of your own home with little or
no equipment. A small amount of training like this can make all
the differnce in your fitness program.
Regardless of your weight, you can be at a suitable fitness
level just by adding a suitable amount and type of exercise to
your daily life.
Britannia Findlay is the Webmaster of FOCAL
Fitness There are a lot
of interesting articles and great resources at her site. For all
the info you want, visit: http://www.focalfitness.com