By Cherilyn Hearn

Physical fitness for the overweight

Although physical fitness is important for everyone, when you are suffering from any ailment, already unhealthy or overweight, the challenge is not only seemingly more difficult, but also much more of a change of pace. Unlike most good habits we try to adopt, reversing normal activity and eating habits or what is normal to any one individual can seem impossible.

It’s never just physical

Even though the focus is physical fitness, the myth that one can affect real change with only exercise or only diet is highly improbable. It is like an investment. Why exercise if you are not going to try and eat better? Why change your diet if you are not going to get your heart pumping? To really do for our bodies like we should, we have to do both.

Move your weight

Physical fitness, by its definition, is so much more difficult when someone is overweight. Moving our bodies is like lifting weights, except we cannot just change the notch or pick up a smaller set. We have to carry our own body weight around with every move we make. Here is perhaps the only benefit to being overweight. In the beginning, you can do less. That is right; not a whole lot less, but less. You are already making a big change, asking a lot of yourself and your body, so it is best not to set your expectations too high. If a three-hundred-pound person walks for fifteen minutes, just normal walking, not running and not for an hour, they are going to burn a lot more calories and fat than an average-sized person. It is a good thing, since at fifteen minutes they will probably feel like quitting. If you expect too much too soon, you will quit. Of course, once you start losing some weight or feeling better, or whatever your goal is, you will have to step it up to keep it up, but thanks to your success, it will grow easier and easier to do more and more!

Society can be against the overweight

Celebrity and time have certainly brought society a long way, but it is still hard to be overweight and even harder to try and do something about it. Workout clothing, fancy gyms and sometimes even medical advice appear to throw hurdles and embarrassment in the face of anyone trying to change their lifestyle. The only solution to this is to rise above the criticism. You can workout in any clothing. You can workout anywhere. It may be best not to discuss your goals or your plans with anyone at first, aside from your doctor. It is a big deal, so let yourself get used to it first. Do not announce that you are going to go walk a mile when you might only make it a block. Once your mind and your body have some time to get on the same page, you can set attainable goals and share realistic ideas and plans, with no fear of having to eat your words later.

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