Why Do You Exercise?

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Exercise has many incredible benefits even later into life!(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So you’ve started exercising. Great, and hopefully that’s giving you a ton of benefits. But did you ever think about your primary motivation for starting this lifestyle change? So many now enter into fitness merely to lose weight and that’s simply too bad because weight loss, among other things, is just an effect of exercise. And conversely, being overweight, weak, having bad posture, and so on may also be the effect of NOT exercising.

The “why?” of fitness can be complex and rather individualized. When we look at exercise as a whole, we need to think of it as a host of health benefits, rather than something isolated. A body in motion tends to stay in motion as the saying goes, meaning strength, endurance, energy, immune response, mental health, mood, sleep patterns and thousands of other benefits are realized automatically. Eat right while doing so and you should never have a weight problem. It simply goes along with the territory.

However, and this is a big caveat, you can’t expect to stuff fried chicken, pretzels and beer into your mouth and expect to train hard enough to get rid of the accumulated calories. Exercise will help your diet, but can’t replace it. If you follow some magic exercise plan & practice sloppy eating, forget your results!

Luckily, for most of us, the debate of “can I look better” (lose weight) versus the overall benefit of “being healthy” can be easily optimized through a marriage of clean eating and fitness. Once you start to understand that moderate eating and movement are all that’s necessary, you never have to worry about dieting. If you’re not happy, change something because that something is causing your problems – whether too much food, the wrong type of foods, the wrong food combinations, wrong quality, etc.

 Just how much quality does fitness add to health and longevity can now be confidently answered through a slew of research. Science shows us that exercise produces buoyant mental and physical states as much being sedentary induces unnaturally depressive brain chemistry environments. In other words, one has positive and one has negative effects. None is primarily isolated – they run in tandem with effort to bring our body back into, or stay in balance.

It’s not like we really need the studies to prove these things to ourselves though. Anyone who exercises regularly can speak to its impact on mood, mental function and increased energy on the body. We can look at the transference of positive effects simply by improving and developing the willpower to drive ourselves. In order to achieve physical improvement, we have to repeatedly convert the expression of our will (becoming healthier, stronger, etc) into action. This effort (yes there is a cost), can be measured tangibly and undeniably, with both immediate and long lasting results.

 Fitness, ultimately, exercises and develops the will. Shakespeare said, “Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners.”

Ultimately, your new-found lifestyle change will cultivate deeply ingrained characteristics of achievement , emotional self-control, confidence and responsibility. These traits are attained because fitness (along with proper eating) overcomes obstacles through exercising the will – the act of turning your desires into action in a continuous chain of efforts. The effort is the cost and the achievement is the value contained within your struggles towards your goals.

Sadly many today believe in a lifestyle independent of productivity and achievement. They want their hand patted and told it’s not their fault that excess weight has crept up on them. So they live in a dream separated from reality. Fitness, like hard work, nourishes strong mental fortitude. Weight loss and other health benefits are aspects of mental fortitude in action.

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