When I first started regaining weight and losing my good health, the first thing that dropped off was my mental energy. I was stressed and thus made some poor decisions, which had negative ramifications on my well-being, on my business and on my life. As my mental energy went from positive to negative, it started negatively impacting everything else.
This was a blessing and not the curse I believed it was. Now, more than before, I understand recidivism. I had kept my weight off for three and half good years and was never close to backsliding --- but I have been humbled and relearned that the battle with obesity is a fight for a lifetime. I am also much stronger in my conviction that it isn’t about weight management --- it is about overall physical and mental fitness.
The man who taught me to be a chiropractor, Dr. Violini, was very fond of saying, movement is life.
Movement is everything he would elaborate --- from moving our lungs, to our hearts, to even our bowels, if movement ceased --- so would the person. He further taught me that the most important thing a person could do for themselves was to exercise. Exercise caused everything to not merely move, but to move better. When I stopped moving my body, everything else began to slow down.
I have been quoted many times as saying that “Weight loss is a side effect of fitness.” I continue to believe that wholeheartedly. Because as my fitness level suffered, so did everything else, including my diet. As I was less and less active, I started craving and eventually eating the foods that would fuel my indolence. Since my discipline for physical improvement was faltering, discipline in eating also became unimportant. It is then I came to a very stark realization, one that I’m sure many will not like me saying or writing, but unpopularity of an opinion has never stopped me before.
If weight loss is a side effect of fitness, conversely laziness is a side effect of being unfit.
Many who are overweight are often accused of being lazy, but through my latest ordeal, I have come to the realization that it is a lack of good diet, good exercise and good mental energy that lead to the eventual sluggishness that is perceived as laziness. My only concern is that when people start to eat correctly, without embracing fitness --- slothfulness continues to remain evident.
I read plenty of information and blogs, and I am astonished to note, much of it from the low carb community, with which I share so much passion, the unimportance of exercise. Science writer extraordinaire, Gary Taubes, even goes so far to imply that exercise may cause weight gain.
I must ponder the questions; are these people anti-exercise because they are genuinely uninformed, or worse, are they so opposed to exercise because their brain has been programmed for idleness?
Exercise is not solely a component of effective weight loss, it is important for maintaining overall health and wellness. When the human body is properly conditioned, it functions much more optimally --- any other implication is some type of odd justification, distortion or just flat out bullshit.
I do not adhere to the calories in calories out theorem; however, I do ascribe to an energy in energy out mindset. Yes, excess carbohydrates are bad, very bad for us --- not simply with regards to weight management, but overall health. But you can’t tell me that consuming in excess, any macronutrient, is any healthier. If you fill a gas tank with fuel, the fuel which is not burned for energy must be stored somewhere --- in the human body it is stored as fat.
So, why eschew exercise? You can’t have improved physical fitness without exercise; so why avoid or downplay its importance?
We should not allow the conditioned state of sloth to remain present.
We must conquer it by moving our bodies every day.
Get out, exercise, and become fit.
Hell, it worked for Jack LaLanne.
