Why am I so unfit?

Something has compelled you to think about your health and your lifestyle. You may be overweight, recovering from a long term illness or simply feel that you should be out there doing something. Whatever your reason is it's a good thing you're here. In today's society we have busied ourselves inventing machines that can ease our physical workload. We drive everywhere, we have elevators and escalators, we get all our food under one roof and we don't even need to stand up to change the t.v. channel. This is good news for easing our hectic lifestyle, right? While it is true that in today's society we are working harder than ever before and it would seem that necessity being the mother of invention mirrors modern living, but it might also seem as if we are alleviating the symptoms and not curing the problem.

Perhaps you are a young person in your mid twenties. You work 9 to 5 in an office. You wake up in the morning, drag yourself out of bed, make a nice cup of coffee to take the edge off the bleary morning and then get in your car and drive to work. It's now 9.00 a.m. and while the computer starts up you go and make another coffee to kick start the cerebral pathways into action. Unfortunately you remain sedentary for the best part of 8 hours after that. Then the imaginary bell rings at 5 o'clock and you start to move faster than you have all day with the lure of dinner and an evening in front of the box. Then you wake up the next morning and do it all over again. Okay, so this is a generalisation and some jobs are certainly more physical than others. We might guess that the guy laying bricks on the construction site might be a little healthier, but not necessarily where it counts. He's probably getting a good anaerobic workout, but that's only half the battle.

The human body is an amazing piece of equipment and no wonder. It is millions of years in the making and something that takes that long to perfect must be good at what it does. However, in the last couple of centuries we haven't been using our bodies in the way that mother nature intended. In fact we are not using them enough and this is having a detrimental effect on our health. So how have we reacted to this? Well this is where innovation plays its part again. We invent new medicines and treatments to combat all kinds of diseases that plague us and many of these illnesses are due to our bad diets and sedentary lifestyles. We even pat ourselves on the back when we come up with new ways of cheating nature out of a few extra years of life. But is it a healthier life? Is it an enjoyable, pain free life or are we just existing longer with the help of miracle tablets? It seems as if we have adopted a 'cross that bridge when we come to it' attitude.

So what can we do to change our habits? Can we turn back the clock and live in the way mother nature intended back in antiquity? Probably not. It seems we are all victims of our own intelligence. Human innovation moves much faster than human evolution and there is no evidence to suggest that this pattern will change in the future. So how do we keep our bodies in better condition when it seems the very world we live in is hell bent on making us unhealthy?

Easy – exercise.

It doesn't have to be a lot, but it will make a lot of difference. Walk to the local shop instead of jumping in the car. Go for a jog – it's free! Walk up and down the stairs 10 times every morning. Whatever you decide to do you have to stick to it for life. If you do you will wonder how you ever got by without being active. You'll have more energy, your immune system will be in better shape, you will even feel a little younger. And you might even lose a little weight too. All these little things add up to less sick days, less chance of cancer, less chance of obesity. The list goes on and on.

So if exercise has all these positive effects on the human body then there's really no reason not to get out there and start making some positive changes for the better.

You won't look back.