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Give body the help it needs

By the time we’re 30 years old and beyond, our lives have undergone a great deal of change. Often we are on our second career, we’re starting a family — whatever it is, it’s safe to say life has really changed.For most of us through our mid-20s to our mid-60s, much of our time is spent on our working life.
By the time we’re 30 years old and beyond, our lives have undergone a great deal of change. Often we are on our second career, we’re starting a family — whatever it is, it’s safe to say life has really changed.

For most of us through our mid-20s to our mid-60s, much of our time is spent on our working life.

Unfortunately, our bodies care little about the work we must do to support ourselves, much the same way your car doesn’t much care about the rising gas prices.

Don’t put gas in the car and it’s not going to run. Don’t work and it’s going to be tough to pay the mortgage and buy groceries.

But if you don’t give your body what it needs, it’s also likely to ache, hurt, wear out, break down or even die.

Sounds harsh but it is the simple truth, yet here we have a society where more are considered obese than not.

Your body is the most perfect thing on this planet, and your most valuable possession; yet our society seems to have thrown away the basic maintenance manual.

Food is not the enemy, no more than gas is bad for your car. You shouldn’t be afraid to eat often. What you should be afraid of is the ingredient list. Forget whether the ingredients are good or bad, instead just worry about the length — the longer the list, the less likely you should be eating it.

Exercise is critical. Exercise is not housework, exercise is not chasing the kids, exercise is not running around at work, though all these things may feel like it.

In addition to movement, exercise is about purpose and focused effort. It’s about elevating heart rate and keeping it that way at a sustained rate for sustained period of time.

This could be walking, running, yoga or anything in between.

Inversely, exercise is also about using resistance through a repeat path of movement for a sustained period of time, providing overlapping and different benefit than walking, running, etc.

The point is we hurt, gain weight or break down because we place more stress and strain on our bodies without ensuring it meets the necessary specifications.

We work longer hours, we eat poorer quality food. As careers have taken over, we don’t play sports or exercise as regularly as we used to, and when we do exercise it’s going through the motions without goal or purpose.

This winter many people were concerned about the weight of the snow on their roof.

The roof of your home is built to support snow, arguably maybe not as much snow as we had this year. But we could build a better roof or we can hope for less snow, or remove the buildup.

Our world isn’t slowing down, so my advice is to build your body to keep up!

Cabel McElderry is a local personal trainer and nutrition coach. For more information on fitness and nutrition, visit the Fitness F/X website at www.fitnessfx.com.