Aerobic exercise

Two types of exercise are necessary to build this new lean body of yours: aerobic exercise and resistance/weight training. Aerobic exercise elevates the heartbeat and requires additional oxygen intake. It includes:

• Cycling
• Running
• Dancing
• Trampolining
• Skiing
• Swimming
• Brisk walking
• Aerobic classes.

The most important thing is to pick an activity that you enjoy. Either opt for one type of exercise that you know you will do regularly, without the usual excuses, or go for a bit of variety to keep it interesting. Just make sure you do some form of aerobic exercise for 30-45 minutes three or more times per week.

Resistance training helps boost energy levels, burn fat and strengthen the joints; improves posture and bone density; stimulates the elimination of waste via the lymphatic system, thereby reducing cellulite; and increases levels of the rejuvenating growth hormone. Forms of resistance training include:

Free weights: either use weights attached to your wrists and ankles or straightforward dumbbells

Weight machines: these specialist gym machines exercise different muscle groups; it is important to work with an instructor because every machine varies and needs to be geared to your specific requirements

Rubber bands and tubes: these come in a variety of colours denoting their level of resistance; they are highly effective and are brilliant for use at home or when traveling

Gravity resistance: including push-ups, lunges, squats and sit-ups, which build muscle because you are working against gravity to increase strength

Water workouts: a very gentle form of resistance training, ideal for anyone with muscular or skeletal problems.

After one 60-minute session of weight or resistance training, your metabolism continues to burn fat for 24 hours. How about that for an incentive? You should be aiming to do three to four sessions per week. You may find that as your muscles begin to develop, you see a shift upwards onthe weighing scales — but don’t panic. Dense muscle tissue weighs more than fat, and you should judge your progress by the way your clothes fit, not by your weight.

When was the last time you had a good 30-45 minute walk? How many times have you opted to take the car or jumped on a bus to cover a distance that you are quite capable of walking in 20 minutes?

Okay, it’s the time factor – the world we live in moves at such a fast pace that we always seem to be chasing our tails. But exercise is vital. You might eat the healthiest diet in the world, take nutritional supplements, avoid alcohol and lay off the cigarettes, but your overall health will not be complete without physical activity.

The basic fact remains that in order to lose weight, less energy should be taken in than is expended. Even someone with a sluggish basal metabolic rate (BMR) – the rate at which we use up energy – can increase it by engaging in regular physical activity.

Exercise more, eat more

The trouble is that many of us view exercise as a chore. We dread it – even hate it. Time to change all that, because to lose fat you must partake in sustained, regular exercise.

The benefit of exercising is that as you lose fat and start to build muscle, you actually burn calories more effectively. Which brings us to the real bonus of all this physical exertion: the more you exercise, the more you can eat. The key factor in this equation is good old oxygen. The more oxygen your muscles is supplied with via the red blood cells, the more effectively they perform their calorie-burning role. A diet that is high in carbohydrates and fats will cause the red blood cells to clump together, slowing down the supply of oxygen and consequently making you function less efficiently.

Metabolism Q&A

Q. What is metabolism?

A. Metabolism is the rate at which your body burns energy. It varies from person to person — you may have a faster or slower metabolism than is normal for a person of your size and weight.

Q. What is basal metabolic rate (BMR)?

A. It is the rate at which you use up energy when you are sleeping or resting.

Q. What is the average person’s BMR?

A. As a rough guide, the average BMR is about half a calorie per pound of body weight, per hour. So if you weigh 1401b (63kg), you will use up approximately 70 calories an hour, or 1,680 calories per day if you are doing absolutely nothing.

Q. What makes someone’s BMR naturally higher than average?

A. The more you weigh, the higher your BMR will be, but it drops by about 2 per cent per decade, after the age of 20. People whose bodies contain a higher proportion of muscle to fat tend to have a higher BMR than those with lower muscle mass.

Q. Does a high BMR mean it is easier to lose weight?

A. All things being equal, the more energy you need to tick over, the more food you can eat without gaining weight. From that perspective, a high BMR should make it easier to lose weight.

Q. Does your BMR decrease when you start to follow a low-calorie diet?

A. Yes, because in response to fewer calories, your body lowers its BMR, thinking there is a famine. It literally slows down to conserve energy. This is why so many people hit a ‘plateau’ during dieting.

Q. Can a low BMR cause obesity?

A. Except in cases of rare metabolic illness, it not possible to blame obesity on your metabolism.

We are now getting to the office. If there is a lift try to void it. If our office happens to be on the thirtieth Poor, then we do not have time to walk up all those flights but we can go in the lift to two floors below and walk the last two. When we go out to lunch we could even, if there are floors above, take the lift from the bottom up to two floors higher and walk down as we have seen in exercise nine.

In our office we have many opportunities to exercise. Think how many times you get up from your office chair. Always do it without using your hands: sometimes slowly, feeling your thigh muscles work, other times fast with quick breath exhalation. We are here in our own private gym.

When you have to pick something up from the floor, only use your leg muscles. Bend the knees and let them do the work. Try to avoid bending and straining the back. When, on the other hand, we try to get something from a high shelf, we must stand on our toes, keeping our balance and try not to hold on as we take the article down. However, again if you have any pain in your back you must do this last movement in a simpler way.

Stand on a stool or stepladder to get the object at shoulder height and so take it down, using your legs to step downward first of all. If the article is heavy try to get higher and just use your legs.

Sit well at your desk – don’t slouch. Many office furniture firms are making better chairs now, especially for typists, because the business efficiency experts have come to the conclusion that the right sitting position means greater efficiency and less chance of back pain.

Always think of using your muscles in the same way as you might in the gym and you will leave the office at the end of the day in a less stressed and tired way.

1. While sitting on the edge of the bed straighten one knee to extend the leg in front of you — lock the knee and tighten the thigh muscle as hard as you can. Repeat with the other leg. Do five repetitions on each leg. Watch your posture in sitting!
2. Once you are able to stand up, without using your arms, repeat the sitting to standing movement a few times. It is always better for your balance to have the feet in a walking position — one pulled in underneath the bed, the other slightly forward. Transfer the weight from the back to the front foot as you get up. Alternate the legs. It is always easier to have the stronger leg at the back. Gradually build up the strength of the other leg until either one can be used as the back foot.

Walk Tall

While you are checking your posture in the mirror, make sure you do it both from the front and the side.

1. Posture points that would need attention:

- Poking chin

- Forward head

- Rounded shoulders

- Rounded upper back

- Excessive arching of the lower back – Protruding belly

- Hyper extension of the knees

Bad posture becomes a habit and like all bad habits, it’s hard to break. Be conscious of your posture and the ideal posture 24 hours a day.

1. Lean against the wall -feet about 30 cm away from the wall and slightly apart. Do the pelvic tilt exercise in this position. (Flatten the small of your back against the wall, while keeping the shoulders back, touching the wall.) Now stand away from the wall and do the same. Once you are able to do this repeat it often during the day when you have to stand for any length of time (cooking, peeling vegetables, standing in line at the post office, etc.) You can even stand this way in the public bar!

Unmentionables

While sitting on the lavatory, we can do our neck exercises.

1. Sit up straight, now lift the head back until you can see the ceiling not further back. Bring the head forward while you tuck the chin in.
2. Turn the head to the left as if you are looking over the left shoulder. Repeat to the right.
3. Drop the head to the side as if you want your ear to touch your shoulder. Repeat to the opposite side.

Put your hands on your shoulders and make circles with your elbows. Make the circles backwards which helps to strengthen and stretch the postural muscles in the shoulder girdle and upper back.

Do five repetitions of each exercise.

Teething

While you are cleaning your teeth, stand on one leg and do little knee bends. (Not more than a quarter of the way down.) Do not hold on, but stand close enough to the basin to grab onto it if you lose your balance.

Do two sets of 15 repetitions on each leg.

I have given you exercises which, as I said, assume that you are fit but, even if you are declared by your doctor to be in the best of health, there are some of us who tend toward high blood pressure and others who are on the low side. This must not be regarded as an illness when the readings are small and there is really just a tendency. However, the people who have low blood pressure will find the first exercise “Getting Your Blood Up” very beneficial and it will let them get out of bed with more energy and without the slight dizziness which can occur.

The ones who tend toward high blood pressure will not notice so much benefit from this exercise. Increased cardiovascular fitness/endurance though, decreases high blood pressure naturally.

As I said, if you ask a group of people over the age of thirty if they have ever had trouble with their backs, four out of five will say yes!

International medical experts are now convinced that this is largely due to stress, coupled with the lack of exercise, improper lifting techniques and poor posture when trying to cope with the movements of normal modern life.

I am giving you here a few supplementary exercises, which can be done in bed in the morning before you get out of bed or also when you get into bed at night.

1. While lying on your back, with your knees bent, raise one knee, clasp hands behind the knee and pull the knee towards the chest. Keep you back straight and, at the same time, feel your leg and back muscles stretching. Hold this for a few seconds and then repeat with the other leg.
2. Thereafter, raise both legs together and hold also for a few seconds. (Do not do this exercise with both legs together if it causes any back pain). The whole exercise can be repeated five times. Hold the position so that you are aware that the muscles are working but never so tight as to cause any pain. While stretching, you should only feel mild tension in the muscle, not severe strain.
3. Pelvic tilt exercise. Lie on your back, knees bent. Push the small of your back into the bed by using your stomach and buttocks muscles. Hold for a few seconds and relax.
4. Lift your head up with your back and legs stretched out on the bed. Hold it as high as you can without any pain for several seconds.
5. Repeat five times.
6. Lift one leg at a time with your knee bent. Then raise your leg straight up keeping your head and back firmly on the bed and your hands palm downby your side. Hold it up for several seconds. Repeat with other leg. Repeat this exercise five times. This is good for your back and also for your tummy muscles. Never lift both legs at the same time as this causes severe strain on the lower back.
7. Lie on your back with both knees bent. Put both arms out to the sides and then gently roll both knees from side to side. Keep the feet on the bed — close to your bottom. Contract your stomach muscles to control the movement better.

Turn on your tummy, hands under your chin and pillow under your waist. Lift each leg, one at a time, at the same time pushing the pelvis into the bed and keeping your knees straight. Now repeat with both legs together. Do not lift the legs too high as this could strain the back. Always hold the legs up for a few seconds. (Do not do this exercise if it causes any back pain).

Putting your foot in it

Now we come to dressing. The putting on of a shirt or brassiere or blouse is also a question of stretching and folding the arms and shoulders. These things become a routine whereby you are conscious of and enjoy the flowing of your muscles which you are keeping supple.

To put on our trousers or pantihose we must think about our balance.

The problem of standing on one leg is something which becomes more difficult as we get older. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, the balance capability in our ears seems to become less sensitive with increasing age. Secondly, the ability to balance on one foot is restricted by the ability of the muscles in our feet and legs to quickly adapt to weight changes.

Bend one knee slightly and raise the other foot high enough to put your foot into the trouser or panty leg. This is where the balance factor comes in. Try not to hold onto any chair or other help but always keep a chair or some other balancing possibility close at hand, in case you lose your balance and fall. (When you have mastered the little bends exercise shown in supplementary to exercise 5, you will find these movements easier). Having managed to get one leg in, repeat this tricky procedure with the other leg. It would, of course, be easier to sit on your bed while putting on your trousers but we are trying to get the maximum in physical fitness out of our day’s necessary movements.

These shoes are meant for walking

The next step might well be our shoes or slippers. Shoes are meant for walking! I have nothing against the most attractive fashionable shoes and slippers but never buy fashion at the cost of comfort.

Have you noticed that the man who retires in his sixties suddenly shuffles around in backless slippers with a stooped back although a few months before he was striding tall around his office or workplace?

Do you really like to wear shoes which have no laces? Shoes with laces can be selected to fit you better and the moccasin type can sometimes be chosen too small so that they stay on better. The fact is that many of us like the moccasin type because we don’t have to bend down to tie them!

The best way to put on your shoes, from a fitness point of view, is to put one foot in front of the other and bend the knees to a point where you are able to assist the forward foot into its appropriate shoe. If it is a tying shoe then you must stay in this position long enough to tie the laces. Then repeat for the second shoe with the other foot advanced.

If, however, you find this too strenuous, there are simpler ways.

Do you find it too much because you are a little too fat and bending over like this for a longer time leaves you short of breath? If this is so, then we will deal with that problem in a sitting position. Remember to sit down and stand up without help from your hands. Just use your legs!

Tying your tie and putting on a blouse or jacket is again done with a conscious use of the arm and shoulder muscles.

The stairway to health

We are now ready to go to breakfast.

It is possible, at this time that we have to go downstairs.

Here we come to one of the most important parts of our daily exercise plan.

We must now begin to put into practice the things which I have mentioned earlier, the things Prof. Fellinger had told me.

We are probably going down now. Here we can use our balance and breathing techniques as well as exercising our legs.

Stand erect, put one foot out with the toe pointing downward and place the toes on the next step, now lower the heel. Do not touch any banister but feel the upper leg muscle working. The slower you go from step to step the more the muscles work.

Now let us imagine that you forgot something! You have to go back up!

This is not only very good training for your legs and back muscles but of great value to your cardiovascular system.

Again, do not touch the banisters and put each advancing foot consciously down with the toe first.

As time goes on you can vary your way of going up stairs. You can go very slowly moving your weight slowly up with each under leg.

You can go quite quickly and keep on your toes the whole time. You can also make a point of going up two at a time.

The whole business of climbing stairs, which we must do anyway, is very rewarding for our overall fitness.

It’s not just what you eat, but also how!

When we eat our breakfast we must sit down without putting our hands on the table but just use our legs to lower ourselves onto the dining chair. We must sit upright at the table, not lounging, which is good for our muscles and our digestion.

I do not want to discuss diet here but it is important that whatever you eat, you eat slowly. The old fashioned way of putting your knife and fork down between each bite is very healthy. I had a grandmother who lived to be a fit ninety-one and she boasted that her back had never touched a chair. In many ways the Victorians had the right ideas of posture!

Having eaten, we get up again without any help from our hands. Let the legs do the work!

Autofitness in auto

Now we get into our car either to go to the office or to take the children to school.

Climbing into the car is another form of exercise. Don’t lower yourself by putting your hands on the door frame. Put one foot into the car and lower yourself without using your hands. This can be a difficult twisting motion and can become a very good flexibility exercise. Be sure that the seat back supports you well and lets you drive in a relaxed position.

When you look behind, for example when reversing, you can twist the body at the hips and make a swivelling exercise.

While you are driving you can squeeze your buttocks together and hold them like that for several seconds, this you can repeat as often as you like.

Deep, slow breathing is important.

A good hand and forearm exercise is to clench the steering wheel tightly for a few seconds and release it. This can also be repeated as often as you like.

When we arrive at our destination, we get out of the car without the help of our hands and stand up using only the legs.

Again, if you have back problems you need to take special care when driving. Four points should be considered.

1) Getting into the car is easier and gentler to your back if you stand outside with your back to the driving seat. Sit down and slowly turn around, lifting your feet one at a time into the driving position.

2) Be sure that the driving seat is not too far back as this can give you a one-sided back position as you press the pedals.

3) Be sure the driving seat supports your back. If the seat does not have adequate provision, take a small towel and place in the small of your back when driving.

4) The traffic authorities recommend that we make short pauses when we drive a long distance – this increases our concentration and helps to avoid accidents. These pauses are doubly important for your back: stop, stand straight and walk around for a few minutes, breathing slowly and deeply.

Unmentionables

We probably also at this time go to the lavatory. Even here there is a right and a wrong way.

Now you are probably going to say that I am going too far. After all, we have all been peeing and other things quite successfully all our lives. We learned these things before we could walk! The woman, and maybe also the man, will sit down. Be sure to sit down using your legs alone. Do not support yourself with your hands and try to sit slowly, feeling your leg muscles work. Don’t just flop down!

However, even if the man only stands there he can draw in his lower stomach muscles and release them several times and alternately close the cheeks of his bottom muscles several times (In later years this can help the flow of water). For the woman this is far more important. There are three groups of muscles which are often neglected. They are the rectal muscles, the vaginal muscles (particularly in need of exercise after a birth and an important sexual asset) and the urethral muscles. They should all be exercised several times when one is in a sitting position by concentrating on each group and tensing them several times and relaxing again

It is important at this point to do a minor exercise: hen we are passing water, it is very good to practise stopping the flow several times. Many of you will say this is ridiculous but there are other, older people, who sincerely wished they had done this more often. It is essential to keep control also of such muscles!

Teething

While the woman showers, let us imagine that the man cleans his teeth.

Even teeth cleaning is a form of exercise. Take your time, it’s not enough to change the early morning taste to that of some expensive toothpaste. Keep your tummy in and be aware of the muscles in your arms working. With time you will begin to identify each muscle as it works.

Then comes the massaging of your mouth with the rinsing water. This helps to keep the flexibility and vitality in your cheeks. Do it strongly, moving the water energetically around inside your mouth.

If you have a back problem, do not stand in a stooped position over the wash basin for any length of time. Bend your knees a little to get closer or support yourself with one hand on the basin (be sure it can stand your weight!)

Water ballet

In the shower the woman is now doing her private ballet.

If you have ever done aerobics or even watched them you will see that many of the flowing movements done in such exercises are a variation of the movements we do in the shower both washing and drying ourselves. Of course the breathing part of aerobics is missing but the movements remain the same and regular deep breathing is still essential.

We must be sure to stretch the arms out when we wash each one keeping the arms as straight as possible. As we wash our feet we must bow down by putting our bottom out at the back and keeping each foot a small step in front of the other. Now, in standing up, try to straighten the legs as far as you can before raising your body.

If you suffer any degree of back pain do not bend down like this. Rather rest your bottom against the wall and bend the leg up so you can reach each foot.

The floor of most showers are really booby traps — seeming to be specially constructed to cause many injuries. Be sure you have a non slip floor or secure floor mat.

As we wash our backs we can pull in our tummies and move the shoulders consciously and rhythmically.

As we stand in the shower and wet our faces and hair we can do the shoulder shrug! Raise your shoulders high and then drop them slowly down three or four times in a relaxed way. Do not drop them too suddenly as this can jerk your neck.

Now we begin to dry ourselves. This can really become a form of dance like the Chinese do with their flag-scarves or the disciples of Isadore Duncan in their natural Greek dancing.

You may feel that now again I exaggerate and, particularly if you tend toward a lower blood pressure, you may feel that the last thing in the world you want to think about is any form of dancing at a time when the day, with all its problems, is beginning. But this is the whole point of this programme. You may not feel like dancing and you may not feel like exercising – but you have to get dried after your shower! So we start by drying our hair (if you have washed it with the shower) elbows high and a brisk backward and forward movement from the elbows out.

Then we take the towel with one hand at each end and slowly dry our backs by extending each arm fully as we move the towel across our bodies.

To dry the front of our bodies, we move the towel in a similar way as with our backs, starting with our thighs and working up. Only when we come to the chest do we change to single handed up and down motions again, here keeping our tummy pressed in.

The lower legs and feet are dried in the same way as they were washed.

Once again, if you have back pains rather sit down on a bench or stool to dry the feet and lower legs.

What is your average day? I am not suggesting you change your whole working life, but take time to think about these questions:

• Do you walk, take the lift, catch a bus, go by car?
• Why don’t you currently exercise?
• When do you have uninterrupted time to exercise?
• Where are you going to exercise?
• What exercise will you do?
• How often can you exercise?
• Who can support or help you with your programme?

From those questions you will have some realistic answers about what you can currently do, so let’s look in more detail about how you will benefit from an exercise routine. Even the most modest amount of exercise has enormous benefit, but you need to know exactly what is the specific gain you are going to get. What do you want as well as weight loss? Below are just some of the benefits exercise can bring, but you need to think about what you would add to this list that would make you start, and keep on, exercising:

• increased energy
• improved sleep
• greater productivity
• better ability to cope with stress
• improved sex drive and performance
• reduced anxiety and depression
• 
• more positive outlook
• weight loss
• improved muscle tone
• ability to participate better in social activities.

When to Exercise

We will look at what kind of exercise to do later, but now it’s time to think about finding the time in your everyday life to exercise. What time of day is best for you? Consider two things. First, when do you feel at your most energetic and therefore most likely to have the get-up-and-go to exercise? Second, when are you least likely to get interrupted and find an excuse to stop? Balance these two factors out and decide when you think is going to work best for you.

If possible, early mornings can be ideal for three reasons. You are very unlikely to be interrupted, it cuts out the need for showering twice in the day and you won’t feel the sword of Damocles hanging over your head all day. You can hop out of bed, do a nice gentle warm-up activity (more of what to do later) and gradually build yourself up to an effort level where you’ll get slightly breathless. When you’re finished, step into the shower, feeling refreshed, eat a good breakfast and you’re ready for the challenges of the day.

To sum up, ask yourself:

• What time of day is best for you? Are you a morning or evening person?
• What best fits your ‘normal’ routine?
• When in a standard week could you confidently schedule some activity into your programme?
• Can you jog to the office, walk up the stairs, have a lunchtime swim?
• How can you plan for unusual circumstances?
• Will a business trip disrupt your routine?

Finding time in your usual routine is not usually a problem; it’s the unusual circumstances that can throw you off course. When you are travelling away, unusually busy, approaching year end, negotiating a big contract, producing a big report (i.e. most weeks!), how are you going to plan to succeed in looking after your health? Exactly where does exercise fit into your list of priorities?

And don’t imagine that exercise is just about the particular routine you have decided on. You’re always going to be looking for the opportunity to do some more, like climbing the stairs, parking the car further away from the office or getting off one stop earlier from the bus. Soon you are going to start to become opportunistic about exercise and grab any chance that comes your way.

How Long will Your Exercise Programme Take?

Once you have answered the questions about when you are going to exercise, you need to start thinking sensibly about the actual time it will take. If you want to keep a reasonably healthy body — particularly in terms of aerobic exercise — then theoretically you should probably do three to five sessions a week of a minimum of half an hour each. My philosophy doesn’t include setting hard-and-fast rules, but to start with three sessions a week is about right.

Where to Exercise

Once you have decided on the time you have available to exercise, you need to actually plan where and when you are going to exercise within your week. Whatever your intended form of exercise is, it needs to be fitted into your overall time management system. Once you have done that, it is easier to adjust the plan to suit your schedule on a daily basis.

There are plenty of options available for you to consider — at home, work and outside resources. At home you can use keep- fit and training videos, weights, exercise machines and outside the house you can go jogging and walking When away on business you can pack something light like a Dynaband, or your jogging shoes and make sure you stay in a hotel with a gym or swimming pool. Outside resources include gyms and swimming pools, cardiovascular classes, or sports facilities such as golf or athletic clubs and personal trainers.

What Exercise to Do

Here’s where a bit more science gets involved. Often this is the point at which the advice of an experienced personal trainer or fitness instructor will be useful. However, with a little bit of careful consideration and a sensible approach you can design an appropriate activity programme for yourself.

The first thing to consider here is your metabolism. You should be thinking about speeding up your metabolic rate whenever you get the opportunity — not just through exercise.

The basic premise for this is quite straightforward. The more habitual you can make your activity, the more you can incorporate some consistent behaviours that embed themselves into your lifestyle, the more chance you have of long-term success. Your body will be consistently using more energy than it used to and therefore creating increased output on the profit-andloss account of your body/business.

If you haven’t thought about exercise since you were at school, you may not see the point in it. Surely having a good attitude to food and diet is enough? Well, no it isn’t. Exercise is essential: if you don’t use your body, and particularly if you don’t use your muscles, they will atrophy. You need to keep yourself supple and moving if you want to enjoy longer and older age.

It’s an extraordinary thing, but it doesn’t really matter what age you are or where you are on the scale or what particular starting point you have, you will always be able to benefit from exercise. For example, a study in the US on very much older people showed that the regeneration of muscle can be quite phenomenal. People who were virtually bedridden could actually get up and enjoy a reasonable walk of a couple of miles all within a space of a few months. There is a great deal of evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, to support the view that increasing your levels of physical activity will increase energy levels, improve sleep quality, make you more productive, and enable you to manage stress more successfully.

There are also other, more obvious health benefits to regular exercise, including a reduced risk of premature heart disease, stroke and some cancers. Many people find that they are more able to keep up with their children, get around better as they become older, enjoy their skiing holidays more and recover faster from minor illnesses. Is that something that you also desire and aspire to?

The Wellness Continuum

We all have a perception of how healthy we are. The Wellness Continuum, illustrated opposite, shows a line upon which we all exist, somewhere along, the continuum. We all start out at a neutral point and can move in either direction according to the lifestyle we choose.

The general path of many of us today is towards the Illness end of the continuum. We all expose ourselves to risks and gradually our bodies adapt to that slothful and unthinking existence. There is good news though, because no matter where you are on the continuum you can reverse any trend that you have started. By becoming aware of positive behaviours, adopting them, obtaining reinforcement and developing a positive attitude towards your ability to control your life, you can become much fitter and more healthy.

Wellness can be seen as a behaviour rather than a result. It is a journey towards mastery as you define it. No one else can tell you what Wellness means to you. You can get advice, seek assistance and listen to expert opinion, but you are the one who defines Wellness for you.

You can enjoy your body far more if you do take exercise, but you don’t have to go to extremes. Your aim is to train and develop your body into the condition that you want it to be, for the things that you want to do. This means looking at the outcomes you hope to achieve from increasing your physical activity and enhancing wellness. Most fitness programmes only look at the outcomes you wish to achieve, but running alongside that is another very important factor. That is to make the process as rewarding, enjoyable and focused an experience as possible. It is not always realistic for exercise itself to be fun. But by setting out in the right way, with the right attitude and with the right goals, you at least give yourself a good chance of enjoying the experience through making real progress and seeing a gradual improvement in your physical condition.

• What are your outcome goals?
• Weight loss?
• Improved muscle tone?
• Stress control?
• Increased energy?
• General fitness?
• To play sports?
• To prevent illness?
• To slow down deterioration?
• To keep up with the children (or grandchildren)?
• What is the outcome you most want to achieve?

What time and effort are you willing to give to the achievement of these goals? What landmark goals can you set yourself? Think about these things, and develop your own thoughts, as you continue to read through this chapter. If you can be clear about what you want to achieve, right from the outset, this will help you when the going gets tough (as it inevitably will).