Aerobic - Move it to lose it

To be totally fit, you can pursue activities that make you stronger such as to lift your single suitcase aboard on your international flight, faster such as to chase down the last bus home, more flexible such as to fold yourself, yoga-style, into a super compact car, more agile such as to keep up with a four-year-old child at the playground, and provide endurance as you can hit every store at the shopping mall. Only sustained activities provide what you need most, however: whole-body fat-burning and aerobic heart-and-lung conditioning.

Activities that accomplish this are as close as the nearest fitness class. People who would never routinely climb on a bike or jump in a pool are easily lured into a gym after work to sweat and sing along with their favorite singer. With a quality videotaped program, you can burn calories in the comfort and privacy of your own living room, at any hour of the day or night.

Don't overlook the rewards a group has to offer, however. You will make new friends, and in a semi-crowded class you will also discover there is no such thing as an average body, much less an ideal one. Instead, you see infinite variety in size and shape--from gazelles to gorillas. (It is interesting that gazelles can be awkward and clumsy while gorillas can be delicately graceful, and both can become aerobically fit.) When you unconditionally accept everyone else's shape and fitness level in a relaxed sociable setting, it helps you accept your own luck-of-the-draw as well. If you are intimidated by muscle-and-fashion-show aerobics, keep hunting until you find a program that allows for, and encourages, individuality. Somewhere there is a class that is exactly right you.