Why Fitness Is Important and Why I Exercise Regularly
Most of us have some idea as to why exercise or fitness is important for our health.
Some major benefits include:
- Reduced risk of heart disease
- Helps us keep our weight in check
- It can prevent osteoporosis or loss of bone mass as we get older
- Promotes better sleep quality, giving you more energy
- Helps you maintain stronger muscles
Also, according to the well-known professor of Neural Science and Psychology DR. Wendy A. Suzuki, in her words, ‘Exercising is one of the most transformative things you can do to improve cognitive abilities, such as learning, thinking, memory, focus, and reasoning; all of which can help you become smarter and live longer’.
Deep down we all know that exercise or physical activities are good for us. However, for some just knowing about it is not enough to convince them to take up regular exercise.
Personally, I started exercising or working out when I turned sixteen. I became really fat and unhealthy after I fractured my left ankle bone, or talus to be exact, pretty badly while skateboarding when I was around fifteen.
After that, I was in an orthopaedic cast for 4 months and in a removal cast or walker boot for another 2 months before I could even walk around without any assistance let alone play or move around like other teenagers my age.
The first few weeks I did not think much of it and was really happy that I could skip school and play online games on the computer all day at home. I was by myself most of the time as my parents and siblings were busy with work or school.
However, after a few weeks of non-stop gaming without any social connections, I started to get bored of playing games all the time. I also started missing my friends, going out, playing sports, or doing other physical activities.
My friends did visit me from time to time and sometimes I did go out locally, but I could not participate in anything that involved physical activities.
During that period, I watched as my friends played sports or did other physical activities while I had to sit and watch them play or stay home.
I never missed being able to move around freely as much as I did in those times. To top it off, walking around with a cast in crutches while being fat and chubby meant other kids or people would stare at me, or at least I would garner some attention in public places.
I clearly remember it was during this period, I started becoming more self-conscious of my situation, my image, the way I looked, and the attention I was getting. I started disliking being out in public.
Most of the time I preferred to stay home and eat to make myself feel better as I could not do anything except wait for my body to heal. I became incapable of doing all the physical things I used to take for granted as part of my daily life, especially playing outside with friends.
Eventually, time passed and I started to walk around without the help of crutches while still dragging my leg around.
Slowly but surely my mobility started coming back.
It was then that I vowed to myself that I will never feel sorry for myself or let myself become fat and unhealthy anymore. I told myself that I will stop taking my physical state or movements for granted and be a physically fit guy till the day I die.
Fast forward to the present, I am writing a blog or story for my fitness page. So maybe one day I can convince someone on the internet to stop taking their fitness or physical mobility for granted.
I just want to say that you should start taking care of yourself and look after yourself because I don’t want you to feel like the little fat/chubby Sabin did when he became incapable of doing physical things every capable able-bodied teenager or person should be able to do.
I am not saying that you should all look like fitness models or bodybuilders because it is not realistic for the average person to look like them.
Many of these guys do it full time and some even use some form of enhancement as their livelihood may depend on it.
But what I am saying is that you should be healthy and include some form of fitness activity in your regular life so you can stay fit, healthy, and live a little bit longer because, at the end of the day, we only have one life that we get to live.
