There's More To Fitness Than How Much You Weigh

One of the most important things to keep in mind if you feel that you weigh too much is that fitness is not directly related to your weight. Of course, your weight will have some effect on how fit you are, especially if you're exceptionally overweight. However, this is not nearly as significant as most people would guess.

In reality the only real way to tell how fit you are is to see how much exercise you can do. You will find that if you begin an exercise program and begin to increase your fitness significantly, your weight will come down.

If your goal is to not only lose weight, but to keep that weight off, and to keep it off in a natural way - not using some fad diet - then you should look at increasing your overall fitness level, and the level of exercise you get everyday. Diet and exercise go hand in hand, diet will not be truly effective without exercise.

When you start exercising you dont just burn fat, you also strengthen and tone your muscles. This will increase the rate at which you burn fat also. It can be disastrous to start out dieting without a corresponding increase in your exercise. This will often end up burning your muscles instead of your fat. So you will lose weight, but not fat, and in fact your body will naturally burn less fat as a result of having less muscle. This will make it harder for you to exercise and lose weight in the future.

In any case, if you've been exercising regularly, you'll be more fit than somebody who does not exercise at all, regardless weight considerations. For this reason, no matter what diet plan you're starting, you should make sure that you start exercising as well.

If you want to really improve your fitness, then you'll need to do more than just a little bit of exercise. Also, you'll need to do more than just one type of exercise. You'll need to do both cardiovascular exercise as well as some basic strength training.

For your cardiovascular exercise - which is basically any type of exercise that increases your heart rate by considerable amounts - you should work on being able to exercise for a longer period of time than you could before.
This will enable you to build up some stamina.

The strength training exercises are important also, they will not really increase your actual fitness but they will tone your body. They will also increase your strength making you feel and look fitter, this will give you a much needed confidence boost.

Of course you don't need to be lifting weights! A small amount of strength training that doesn't even need equipment can make all the difference in your strength and confidence.
You can do this exercise in the comfort of your own home.

Regardless of your weight, you can be at a suitable fitness level just by adding a suitable amount and type of exercise to your daily life.

Britannia Findlay is the Staff Writer of FOCAL Fitness
There are a lot of interesting articles and great resources at her site. For all the info you want, visit:
http://www.focalfitness.com