On Fri, 02 May 2008 20:46:52 +0200, andrel wrote:

>> [E.g., I've never been to one in my entire life.]
> 
> The fact that you don't do maintenance on your muscles and skeleton does
> not imply that it is not necessary. Some people don't maintain their
> cars and in general those cars don't live as long and healthy as other
> cars.

Absolutely true.  The only physical activity I used to get was walking to 
the car and back and the occasional bike ride.  Started going to the gym 
about 18 months ago (Andy, keep in mind that I'm 38 this year), and I've 
had much better energy levels, been able to walk further than before, and 
overall have felt better.

I could well have continued with no physical activity, and probably would 
have been fine, but I am - without a doubt - better off now that I'm 
getting regular exercise.

You want something that's good for stress management?  Go outside and go 
for a run or a bike ride.  Or get a gym membership and go down and lift 
weights for 30 minutes.  Physical activity is a *great* way to relieve 
stress - and if you'd have told me that 2 years ago, I'd have said you 
were nuts.

Before you say "but I don't know how to lift weights", I didn't either.  
That's one of the benefits of going to a gym; you can ask people who know 
these things for help.  That's what they get paid to do.  I've worked 
with trainers a couple of times (note that this isn't a cheap thing to do 
- working with a trainer, that is - the gym membership costs us about £10/
month, and gives us access 24x7 to one location.

One important note, though - if you do start exercising, you need to be 
sure you're eating well as well.  Just like when you run out of petrol in 
the car, if you haven't taken in enough calories, you'll run out of gas.  
One thing that surprised me was that when working with a trainer, I was 
eating *5* times a day, but I was *losing* weight.  As one of my trainers 
put it to me "in order to burn fat, you've got to feed the engine".

Jim

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