why keep fit?

Table of contents

Fitness is not all about engaging in excessive exercise or enrolling in expensive gyms and the likes. Sadly some even believe when you choose to be fit you have to get ready to start starving yourself. whatever your definition of fitness is, it’s high time you learn about it.

We must promote the benefits of keeping fit, to help people understand why they should keep fit!

Fitness has to do with both our physical and mental health because the truth is our mental health would only be possible if our body is functioning well. In fitness, we deal with nutrition, physical activities, stress-coping method, good relationships, and career success.

Almost everyone will testify to the fact that keeping fit is very important, but only a few can tell you why it is important. When you understand it’s concept and importance, you’d find yourself naturally into it.
Our health is dynamic and is always changing, we all have times of good health, times of sickness and maybe serious illnesses. So if we take responsibility of our well being through fitness, we can improve our health on a daily basis.

Staying healthy physically helps you stay healthy mentally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. The two points I’ll be highlighting are Physical activities and Nutrition.

Physical activities:

Engaging in physical activities helps:

Burn excess calories.
Keeping our weight under control.
Decreases risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes type 2 and other diseases.
Promotes better sleep quality. Relief stress.
improves your bone health.
manage symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Increase relaxation. And the list goes on.

So, here we need to understand that going to the gym, spending lots of money on expensive equipment, taking part in team sports and the likes, are not the only forms of exercise. Try something simple and affordable: walking, jogging, dancing, yoga, swimming, skipping, skating and many other simple movements are also forms of exercise.

Nutrition/Diet: Include lots of fruits in your diet rather than juice, eat lots of vegetables, nuts and seeds, healthy protein either from animals or vegetables both works in a healthy diet so go with what works for you.

Increase intake of grass-fed or pasture-raised animal products because they are healthier than commercially raised animal products, eat healthy fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, olives, nuts, seeds, coconut, fatty fish (like mackerel, sardines, salmon) and other oils in smaller amounts like walnut oil, sesame oil, etc. and ideally avoid vegetable oil.

Whole grains such as quinoa and amaranth, and other non-gluten grains, can be part of a wonderful health-promoting diet, be careful on amount of intake, though not everyone is good with grains, some people are sensitive to them, others with metabolic issues may not do well with grains in terms of weight management, and others may have medical reasons for not eating them, so it’s an individual thing.

We also need to understand that fit people don’t Starve themselves to stay fit), but they embrace and make healthy/clean eating part of their lives. It can get really tempting wanting to eat sweets and junk food, but it is important we learn to strike a balance. We must avoid Refined sugar, processed food, refined flour, chemical flavor, colorants, and other additives.