Even now there are a lot of people who hold to the opinion that fitness exercises make you healthy as well. No need to care about wholesome nutrition and enough sleep because exercises do all this for you. You can eat everything you like, go to sleep in the morning or don’t sleep at all, never see a doctor and pay absolutely no attention to warning signs of your body. All this will be compensated by persistent efforts at the gym. As physical exercises make you fit, then it is obvious that you become healthy. Is that right? Absolutely, it is not.
To understand it, we should first understand the difference between fitness and health. Let’s define fitness as the ability to perform physically – to run, jump, lift, press, throw or catch. And health will be the immunity, metabolism, proper functioning of the body, no signs of diseases and good clinical tests. As you see, they are quite different things. You may feel fit but not entirely healthy. Haven’t you read recently about heart attacks, serious illnesses and even passing of outwardly fit people? Probably, you have and not once.
So, why do people sometimes mix up these two things: when they are fit and when they are healthy? Well, maybe it happens because physical exercises have such impacts not only on our bodies, but also on our minds, that we don’t want to think about any problems which may occur. If our bodies change for the better, it seems to us that we are acquiring strong health. It’s just the psychology. If something makes us happy, it should always be something good.
Certainly, physical training is the core component of good health, but only a component. We can strengthen our muscles or increase the vital capacity of lungs. We can train our heart or endurance. We can develop our abilities to the utmost. And if we do it right and use no forbidden pharmacology, we contribute a lot to obtaining good health. But all this is not everything that you need to be healthy. Training alone can’t build ultimate health.
There are a lot of other factors that influence our state of health. First of all, it is our diet. If we overeat, we are sure to gain weight, bad weight – fat. So, it is very urgent that we watch the amount of calories eaten. The diet should always be wholesome, low-fat and rich of vitamins. And we can’t sleep less than it is necessary for the body to operate. In effect, our bodies are but mechanisms that need protective care, i.e. sufficient amount of nutrients, sufficient amount of rest and so on. If something goes wrong, the body always gives warning signals. And the last but not the least, we should visit a doctor regularly, even if nothing worries us. Just to be sure.
So, fitness is necessary for all of us. Our bodies are designed to move and act. And as we lack it in our everyday life, fitness is a real way out. But try to think about it as a physical supplement, which, being very important, at the same time is only a supplement. Sometimes it may ruin your health when used thoughtlessly. And, of course, it is not a substitution of health, as it is only a vital part of it.