Leslie Vandever who is a professional journalist and freelance writer with more than 25 years of experience. She lives in the foothills of Northern California where she writes for Healthline.
“80 percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
In this day of ‘round-the-clock fitness centers, boot camp-style training courses for suburban moms, and TV commercials blaring at us to get this fitness video or that muscle-building-fat-burning-coffee-making machine, we should all be as fit and healthy as Navy Seals, if not as uniformly rock-jawed. Yet, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, more than two-thirds of American adults are overweight and a third are obese—that is, they have a body-mass-index of 30 or higher—and roughly 17 percent of our children from ages two to 17 are obese as well.
It’s alarmingly clear that we need to do something about this pudgy—and growing ever-pudgier—problem. So how do we motivate ourselves to get some exercise?
Exercise Saves Lives
We can start with why obesity is so treacherous to our health and overall well-being. It’s the second-leading cause of death in the U.S.—only smoking kills more Americans. Abdominal fat is a top indicator of risk for obesity-related diseases, like cardiovascular (heart) disease and type 2 diabetes. Others include endometrial, breast, and colon cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, osteoarthritis, and gynecological problems. Several of these diseases and conditions are killers. And although exercise alone can’t prevent them, it can greatly reduce their risk when combined with a healthy, nutritious diet that focuses on healthy weight loss and maintenance. View Post
