Losing weight can be difficult. It is easy to put on a little more weight than you’d like, but losing it is often altogether much tougher. The reality is that it is requires a lot of discipline, hard work, and dedication. The US Department of Health and Human Services reports that more than two in three adults are considered to be overweight or obese (with 1 in 3 being obese). Not only that, one in three children aged six to 19 are considered to be overweight or obese. Carrying around too much weight can cause all sorts of unpleasant medical problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and cancer. This list only includes the physical problems that overweight people may face and does not include the plethora of psychological difficulties. The societal bias against people who do not conform to the conventional ideal of beauty is quite pronounced. Overweight people can get paid less at work and be offered fewer promotions. This may not be fair and it may not reflect the sort of kindness and consideration that is an aspect of the society to which many people aspire to, but it is often the reality.
Exercise is crucial to increased health and achieving an ideal weight, but if you’re not comfortable or interested in going to a traditional gym or health club, you have plenty of other options. One alternative is to consider outpatient physical therapy services such as the ones available at http://www.boshphysicaltherapy.com. Or … you could try club sports, studio classes, hiking, swimming or running through the outdoors!
- Rather than run on a treadmill for a while or lift weights, you could go to an exercise class. Losing weight is easier when you are doing it with other people, and you can make friends at the same time. You could lose weight while learning to box or get your groove on listening to anything from jazz to hip hop. The possibilities are endless.
- Aside from the personal benefit to you, you could help others while exercising by sponsoring yourself. You do not need to run a marathon to raise money for people. You could try a 5km walk in your city or try something more adventurous like a triathlon.
- If you take up a sport, you can learn a new skill while making friends as well as competing. Everyone wants to win, and if you get into the competition mindset, you may not remember that you’re there to lose weight. Besides, the idea of exercise is not to just do it when you want to become a little slimmer. You need to do it throughout your life to remain healthy. If you join a team and enjoy doing exercise, you will not want to give it up once you’ve reached your target weight.
