Fitness is not something that can be bottled and saved for a rainy day
Being fit is not something you can do once and hope that you will stay that way forever. Like most things it can't be bottled and saved for a later date. You either have it or you don't.
So how do you get it?
Unless you are a complete couch potato who's only exercise is to get off your butt to walk to the fridge, I would hazard a guess that most of you reading this would do some kind of exercise during a typical day. Walking to and around the shops does count - if that's all the exercise you get, but if you want to do more each day then you are going to have to become fit in both body and mind.
Why do we need to have a fit mind? Well when the body really doesn't want to do something it is the mind that makes the real decisions for it. You can set the alarm a half hour earlier so that you can go for a walk before breakfast, but it is your mind that prompts you to reach over and hit the snooze button.
So in order to get fit, first you need to re-educate the mind:
- Why are you doing this?
- What are your reasons?
- How many reasons do you have? You will be able to stick to your plan far easier if you have lots of reasons as to why you want to do something (and that goes for anything you want out of life, not just being fit).
So what can you do when you are not feeling up to the mark?
Most diets are based solely on calorie restriction - when they advise you not to exercise for the duration you know they are working on the principle that all you will be really doing is losing a lot of water in the first instance...Lose 10lbs in 2 days...As your body cannot sustain severe calorie restriction for a long period of time, you will soon go back to eating the same way you've always done and bang the weight comes straight back - usually with a bit more. The dieting industry is banking on you trying and failing - that's why they're in business...if they succeeded in helping EVERYONE to lose weight and keep it off they'd be out of business in 6 months.
Think of your body fat as a storehouse of energy. Energy that needs to be used and you will understand how much exercise you need to do.