| Pick up a newspaper or turn on the local news on | | | | Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, Texas, |
| any given day and you are liable to hear a report on | | | | "There is a misdirected obsession with weight and |
| how Americans are getting fatter. Government | | | | weight loss. The focus is wrong. It's fitness that is |
| statistics tell us that approximately 60 percent of | | | | the key." |
| Americans (127 million people) are overweight. Many | | | | Fitness is also a word that has been presented to |
| women who enroll in martial arts or fitness clubs have | | | | the public at large. Go to any gym in America, what |
| a primary goal of losing weight. Unfortunately, some | | | | do you see? Weights and cardio machines, not much |
| expect instant results. If they don't see immediate | | | | more. The only thing you can do is train strength and |
| weight loss they become discouraged and inpatient. | | | | endurance; that's not enough for true fitness! And |
| Some even drop out altogether. | | | | how about the gyms with Yoga classes? Great, add |
| In my 20 plus years of training men, women and | | | | flexibility to the list, if your lucky. You see Yoga |
| children of all shapes and sizes, I have learned that | | | | teachers are a dime a dozen in America, especially in |
| diets just don't work. If they did, we wouldn't have | | | | fitness gyms. Finding a good teacher is like finding a |
| an obesity epidemic. The diet industry continually | | | | needle in a haystack, and they're not at your local |
| makes promises that they can't deliver and is fleecing | | | | "Fitness" Center! Truth is many of the "Yoga" |
| the public at the tune of $40 billion dollars a year. The | | | | instructors in gyms don't know a great deal and could |
| diet industry doesn't want to tell you the truth. And | | | | actually end up hurting you. |
| why should they with the kind of money they're | | | | Fitness is far more in-depth then most people are |
| taking out of people's misery? The truth is that | | | | looking at. If your not improving in all areas of human |
| weight loss is difficult for many people to achieve. | | | | performance: strength, endurance, flexibility, |
| Weight loss is a personal struggle, complicated by an | | | | coordination, balance, body unity, grace, speed, hand |
| individual's upbringing, eating habits, metabolism, | | | | eye coordination, reactions (and the list goes on) you |
| genetics and psychology. Yo-yo dieting and subjecting | | | | are not completely improving your fitness. |
| the body to strange eating regimes is much more | | | | You will notice that with a good well rounded system |
| detrimental to one's physical and mental health than | | | | of exercise, you will start having more strength, |
| maintaining a steady weight. | | | | more endurance, and more flexibility, and all the other |
| I'm not here to sell you the same bill of goods as the | | | | benefits mentioned above. If you want to lose |
| diet industry. What I will do is encourage you to | | | | weight, it will take patience, exercise, sensible diet |
| develop a healthy lifestyle and feel better about | | | | changes, and sacrifice. There is no way around it. |
| yourself. When you train, go with the attitude that | | | | Focus on fitness, moving, breathing, stretching, |
| you want to move, breathe and stretch. What's | | | | feeling strong and enjoying your martial arts or |
| important is that you focus on wellness. According to | | | | fitness routine. |
| Steven Blair, director of research at the Cooper | | | | |