Live a healthy life: Watch your weight

Health & Fitness
Live a healthy life

Heather R

The Olympics are here and I have been enjoying the swimming and the athletics. The speeds at which these people run or swim are worth talking about and I was inspired by their bodies, particularly the women’s bodies. The six-packs on these female athletes reminded me of one of my resolutions for this year which was to get fit and toned. Yes, I am slim and slender but I am neither fit nor toned. Believe it or not, the little fat that I have is flabby and it jiggles.

  Those female olympians on the other hand, have firm thighs, upper arms and well defined muscles. I am not really interested in having a six-pack but I would like to be toned.

  Now, I do realise that these women spend a lot of time (at least six hours a day) on the track and in the gym preparing their bodies for athletic events.

  They are conscious of what they eat because they understand that without the correct diet, their bodies will not function the way they would like them to. The difference between an athletic woman and myself is that for her, the sexy and musculine body is not the goal. It is the by-product of her “job”.

  When I was watching the pole vault, I was intrigued by the way the competitors used their abdominal muscles to launch themselves over the bar.

  Swimming is also great because there is never a time when you do not engage all your muscles, the reason being that, you need to engage all your muscles to keep yourself afloat.

  I know I am not the only one who has been re-energised by the Olympics. We still have 136 days to do something about our fitness goals, be it through eating right, or exercising. I always watch my mother and her friends, who seem to be on a mission to lose the weight they have accumulated over the decades. This could be because they no longer want to be overweight or because they have been instructed by the doctors to do so. However, the undelying reality is that it requires a lot of hard work.

  I encourage those of us who are still young to watch our weight, eat right and exercise so that when we are older we have less to worry about. For instance, knees and ankles usually present problems to old people because of they are constantly strained by the weight of the body.

  Other health problems which often come with old age and overweight are diabetes or colon cancer; a disease caused by having a diet high in fat and low in dietary fibre.

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