Inline
Skating Newsletter Article Inline
Skating Newsletter Article Don't just train for one skate marathon or fund raising tour and then go back to your old ways: for long-term health, take up a fitness a lifestyle. Below is practical advice on how to get hooked. See Cityloop - Maximum Effort for the full text written by editor T. J. Murphy for the February 2004 edition of CitySports. -- Liz Miller
Getting into shape is one of the best things you can do for yourself. One barely has to look past the front page of the daily newspaper to get a report on the pitfalls of a sedentary lifestyle. The connection between obesity and diabetes—and a number of other diseases— has been proven by numbers that have been well crunched, and America’s not doing too good. Besides avoiding the associated medical dilemmas, being fit feels good, and a daily exercise fix becomes one of the favorite times of a reborn athlete’s day. Which leads us to the next grand truth.
Getting hooked on a daily workout is worth a million diet books. Here’s the great secret that could put all the best-selling diet books out of business: Once you get past the initial alarm of working out and keep it up for long enough, exercise sessions go from being dreaded to being craved. And once you start craving a daily workout, the rest falls into place. You lose weight, you begin to covet broccoli and brown rice rather than drumsticks and Doritos, you sleep better, you feel better, and you burn off a typical day’s stress rather than need to drown it at the bar.
The secret to getting hooked on consistent exercise: Performance psychology expert Dr. Denis Waitley says to truly ingrain a positive habit, like an exercise discipline, a beginner needs not three weeks, not six weeks, but an entire year to do it. Anything less doesn’t sink in the claws in deep enough. While this is more a rule and there are always exceptions, fully committing a year to an exercise discipline is a smart step toward making it a revolution to last a lifetime.
Comments or questions? Ask Liz