Fit, Healthy... and Thin?

Greetings,

Weight-loss seems to be a big topic no matter where we go these days. I can understand the urge to get fit and also the urge to get healthy, the urge to get thin, on the other hand, I don't understand. Being fit and healthy extends and improves your life simply because your body is able to work better. Simply as a result of getting fit and healthy there will be an aspect of weight-loss, but the obsession with weight-loss is not so great. Sure it is advertised for our the female counter-part as fashionable and necessary to be fashionable, but is it really healthy?

In general, the upper scales of fitness require some level of muscle, and muscle is heavy. One of the issues that every person who embarks upon weight-loss in the traditional manner encounters is that they change their diet and exercise and actually put on weight rather than take it off to begin with. This is because muscle is more dense, and thus heavier than fat, as you exercise you build muscle, which is going to make you heavier, but is necessary to burn fat. It is also necessary to move your limbs and other parts of your body. If you do not have some muscle mass you cannot be counted as fit.

Further can you be counted as healthy if your body is not getting the necessary nutrition that it requires? Fad diets and pills do not teach you how to eat properly. They may get you to lose weight, and lose weight fast, but what happens once you are off them? Will the same eating habits return? Yes, changes in diet are often necessary, but this must be combined with exercise, and the exercise must have somewhere to draw its fuel from. This means eating healthy. Often we must train ourselves to eat healthy and then stick to the training, this is a harder and longer process, but it is far more effective in the long run.

What needs to be noted is that we are not all meant to be shaped like super-athletes or supermodels. This is a good thing. There is variety in body shape, and people are not all the same shape, nor will they ever be. Aiming for these images and becoming obsessed with these shapes results in depression and obsession. The most important thing is loving the skin that you are in. This is in two ways, it is accepting what your body-shape is, and also treating it right.

There are ways of measuring what shape we should be and many graphs including the Body Mass Index, or BMI, the question is whether these graphs take into account all body-shapes and peculiarities. It is known that the BMI does not take into account bodies which are carrying large amounts of muscle. So, it is important that your shape is measured properly to get the correct measurements.

Are you happy with your current state of fitness? Are you happy with your current state of health? If you want to do something about these two then you really should. Focussing on aspects like simply losing weight is too focussed as it does not take into account the bigger picture. Losing weight must accompany a bigger picture for it to be a healthy process with a healthy end. Give yourself a realistic goal, give yourself a real reason and it is more likely that you will make it.

Remember, dieting yourself to thinness is not necessarily dieting yourself to health. Thinness is not health. Health is health.

Cheers,

Henry.