The Fitness Operating System

Like your eating operating system, your fitness operating system is far more than you think, and a full update goes well beyond working out. Fitness involves being able to perform at your best mentally, spiritually and physically. It determines how you literally show up to the world — and as a result it is responsible for the people and the life you attract.

As with all system updates, this one requires that you build a lighthouse. Look deeply at your beliefs about fitness, your vision for who you will become and the life you will lead as a fit person, and get in touch with your real purpose for becoming fit.

This is a start, not a complete update, and it focuses on physical fitness. For a full update, develop a set of mental, spiritual and physical rituals or disciplines, read many books, study with masters, drink plenty of pure water, and restore yourself with good food and rest.

Perhaps it is an oversimplification, but physical fitness can be seen as three overlapping categories. All are equally important, and together they let us navigate our physical world with balance and grace.

• Endurance — raise your heart rate.
• Strength — challenge your muscles.
• Flexibility — seek to move in new ways and beyond what is comfortable.

Some of the best examples of mastery across all three are high-level martial artists and yoga gurus. Few of us reach that level, but the principles of training are the same for everyone.

As you examine your beliefs, what do they tell you about the word exercise? Most people break into a nervous sweat just thinking about it. Ask them to actually do some and the excuse machine goes into high gear.

Think carefully before you issue your usual barrage of "buts." But I hate to sweat. But I have back pain. But my leg hurts. But I do not have time. Everything just beyond your "but" stinks — and every time you even think the word, your butt gets a little bigger.

Nobody here is pretending to know you or your medical issues. But after more than two decades as a physical therapist, Dr. Russ is confident that it is possible for just about anyone to exercise. Sometimes that means working with a professional. Sometimes it means getting up and taking a walk.

According to Hippocrates, "walking is man’s best medicine." That is certainly true for lasting weight loss.

There is seemingly conflicting information about the role of exercise in weight loss itself — you cannot exercise off a super-sized burger meal. But research shows exercise is absolutely essential to keeping weight off. Participants in the National Weight Control Registry who have kept their weight off all report that they exercise. From the data, exercise appears to be the number one predictor of lasting weight loss.

And the number one exercise? Walking. It is fairly easy to do, accessible to just about everyone, and requires no special equipment.