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Fighting Obesity: Why Moving More is Crucial
Part 3 in a four-part series on obesity and weight loss

Are you sluggish and lethargic? If you are seriously overweight, you probably don’t exercise. It can be very difficult for an unfit person to muster up the motivation to move. And you may have good reasons for staying put:

• Your joints may hurt

• You may feel like you don’t have the energy to exercise

• You may be embarrassed to work out around other people

• You may hate to exercise or find it so boring you can’t stand to do it

• You may feel like you have no time to fit in extra activity

• You may be discouraged at the thought of exercising because it’s never worked before

• You may find exercising too darn difficult, and who likes to do something that feels bad?

All of these are justifiable explanations for why you don’t exercise, and there may be many more. In Part 1 of this series, I pointed out that there may even be a genetic or biological basis for your tendency to be sedentary. But nothing changes the fact that you must find a way to move more—now.

Every day that you sit more than you move is another day that you allow your healthy body to deteriorate. If you can no longer tie your shoes, if you avoid getting on the floor because it is too difficult to get back up, or if doing something simple like grocery shopping tires you out, then you have reached a point where you are losing natural functions. It will only get worse.

Harsh, I know. But you simply must start taking care of your most important asset—your body. If you approach getting fit properly, moving more will be easier than you think. You may not ever become a world-class athlete, but you can become healthier, stronger, more energized and leaner simply by being getting off that chair.

Always talk to your doctor before starting an exercise program. This is especially true if you have any medical conditions, such as arthritis, hypertension, back problems or heart disease. Some drugs or medical treatments may affect your workouts by affecting your hydration status, your heart rate or your balance, for example. Your doctor will give you the guidance you need.

Once that chat is out of the way, don’t worry about how much exercise you should do, just start doing something. The key is to move more every day. And if for you that means moving for five or 10 minutes, so be it. During any workout, be it on a spin bike or walking around your backyard, if you feel dizzy, faint, weak or nauseous or feel any pain, slow down or stop. Start by doing super-short spurts of activity every day and add a few minutes more each week. View this as a long-term goal: Start from moving for 5 minutes a day and adding one minute per week, so that in a year’s time you have worked up to 60 minutes a day. You can do longer sessions all at once, or in different chunks throughout the day. Start small and take baby steps to progress.