Tennis tycoons serve aces with pungent power. Swimmerssplice and explode through water like turbopowered fish at an Olympicmeet. It's not just sport, but life out there, as superhumans battlefor records and recognition. Medels hang around athletic neckstrumpeting the triumphant Number One note.
The message in thosemedals is for every one of us. Fitness is round the corner, just a fewcalories away. Fitness echoes its muscular melody from the pulse of ourwrists. It's time to grab at the medals of health and stand firm andstrong on the pedestal of life. There is as much satisfaction in beingNumber One with oneself.
We are all born with our quota of fatcells. They are the constant factor that keep us from being honed downto our skeletal skin-and-bone selves. In times of famine, they provideenergy. But, on the other hand, we needn't act like famine is eternallydogging our heels. There's no need for that surplus fat to be stored.
ifyou're into a sedentary lifestyle, change it. Here's what happens whenyou don't exercise. Since you are not burning off enough calories,those ever accommodating cells spread and store the excess fat. Butunlike a tanked-up ship that sails the sea to use its fuel, you don't.On the other hand, a grounded ship would rust and if you continue tofill its tank with fuel, it will overflow. That's exactly what happensto an overeating, non exercising human. The overflow is the unseemlybulge. The rust is seen in different ways - tiredness, not lookingforward to the day, low spirits, poor health.
But then, aren'tfat people jolly folk always laughing at everything includingthemselves? Except for a few, most get into the ha-ha sphere becausethat's the only way they can cope.
Group therapies have shownthat almost all fat people admit to putting on a facade. What they aredoing, in essence, is switching on a self-defence mechanism. Bylaughing at themselves, they pre-empt the jokes against them by others.Their laughter is their fortress.
Psychologists have discoveredthat many overweight people are so due to various insecurities plaguingthem. They eat to satisfy a certain gnawing emptiness inside.
Thefeeling of emptiness could be due to some vaguely perceived, but notentirely understood, unfulfilled desires. It could be for larger things- like identity, or creative satisfaction, power, for a meaningful rolein society, or for recognition.
In Attitudes, a televisionprogramme, two fat women admitted that they deliberately put on weightto get attention. One said, "Every time I overeat and gain inches, myhusband buys me a new dress."
In short, the hunger is not forfood. It may sound like a peculiar reason to remain fat, but insecurityis the biggest plague of modern times. Sometimes such people go in forcrash diets, with, predictably, no or very little effect. They findthemselves getting increasingly snappish and moody. They feel deprivedand let down. They even feel that they were happier when they were fat.So it's back to food and more food to put the laughter back in theirlives. Or so they feel.
What fat people need is fire in theirminds. A strong, powerful self-image that grips them and makes them layless emphasis on food and appearance. It's when the self-image takesover insecurity that they will find the motivation to get into fitness.
Thebest way to break this vicious cycle is to start exercising. This feedsthe fire in the mind and makes them eat less, starting a morefulfilling cycle. As they burn more calories than what they take in,witness what happens in the body: The nervous, endocrine andcirculatory systems function smoothly together as a team and releasefat for energy. The nervous system jets out fat from the cells, thecirculatory system picks it up and carries it to the liver. The liverconverts it into energy which in turn is used by the muscles. Theresult: loss of weight. Simultaneously, muscles get strengthened andthe person feels tauter and healthier.
This way, the self-imagegets a boost. And as the Number One feeling grows, the world seems abrighter, more secure place. The message is complete. For, a healthylife itself is a medal.
