Fitness is about staying healthy in the body, with the muscles, bones and the super-structure strong, the endocrine systems secreting the right amount of fluids, the blood coursing through in exactly the right quantity and basically remaining in a high state of energy throughout the day.Health is also about awareness of the changes that are happening in the body and the environmental surroundings. This awareness works like a perfect disaster warning system, which will alert you to take the necessary precautions to avert a crisis and even handle it better. Fitness is a wholesome process that involves not just one individual, but the whole lot of people around every one of us - the family, the work environment, society, country and nations as a whole. It is a collective energy. Individual fitness practices can at best work like a micro-climate under a tree.
Despite the pounding heat from the sun, it feels really cool to stand in the shade of a tree and breathe some fresh air that wafts through its leaves. But it is a very momentary and limited experience. Many people who aim to lose weight have achieved that aim successfully by fasting, dieting, exercising and other means. But they have also found that some other member of the family who has been very fit and fine, has suddenly begun gaining weight and losing all interest in keeping fit. Fitness is more a collective consciousness that needs a critical mass to catch up with people and help them succeed in their efforts. Till such a critical mass is reached, remaining fit is going to be a tough job.How does one reach this critical mass? It is through awareness and there is no limit to increasing one’s awareness. It is by reading books, magazines and newspaper articles that focus on your health and well being and also by constantly seeing fit people. We have to learn how to do this from our children who love to put up pictures of Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan or Hrithik Roshan on their cupboards or walls where they can see everyday. And if you have already started thinking with your mind conditioned against having such pictures, you must remember that film actors have become so popular not by some magic swish of a wand, but really sweat it out in their gyms and studios to stay in shape. Spending money on good health and keeping fit (consciously setting apart a portion of your income for health), will help you in not having to spend all the money later in handling disease! Fundamentally, all our fitness programmes will work out well automatically when the collective consciousness is raised to the optimum level. And if the increasing number of walkers in parks and along the beach are any indication, then this has begun to happen.
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