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