"I'm beggin' ya" is the plea of last resort. It's hard to ignore the pathetic wail of "I'm beggin' ya". If you're wavering about trying to start an everyday exercise habit, I'm beggin' ya to read this page. I'd make puppy dog eyes at you if I could. If enough people read this, it could change the world. Sappy and unlikely, but I had to make the heading work.

Really think about the years and years before you; "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" sounds great, but a more cynical and alarming version is: "You'll never be any younger than you are right now". Or how about "In every day in every way, you're getting older and feebler". Your physical condition declines little by little, then functionality, then you die. Dying, or course, is inevitable, but if you exercise and eat right, you can drastically slow down the other. But going by most people, you probably won't.

Or, to put it another way: A lot of horrible things can happen to you between now and when you die. You can decrease the chances they will. But, going by most people, you probably won't.

Grim, grim, grim. So what could be more important than increasing the odds it will be less grim, or maybe not grim at all? Well, unfortunately, just living your day to day life. It's impossible to remain scared by one threat materializing so slowly you can't even perceive it and another that's invevitable.

So now I'm sure you're gnashing your teeth and wailing. "Is there no hope for us; we who cannot turn away from our most cherished tradition, hours and hours of sitting or reclining?"

If you try to stay motivated by knowing you're getting more feeble moment by moment, then no, there probably isn't. Quite rationally, we sedentarians are into enjoying the here and now and we don't want to go overboard into putting effort into the distant, hypothetical future. What do I mean by hypothetical future, and what's distant? For answers, see my "What if I get hit by a bus?" scenario.

But there is an alternative. If you want to remain in denial about old age but prepare for it anyway, use my approach of starting gradually in learning an exercise that's fun and focusing on the extra energy it brings into your life. Once that desire is internalized, getting enough activity to satisfy it will also increase your odds of staying healthy and fit long into the future, which is why you started in the first place.

I'm going to try to alarm you enough with tales of diabletes and metabolic syndrome and sleep apnea and asthma and what not, and convince you these things can really happen to you and literally ruin your life and your family's life; maybe you'll give my ideas a try. You have absolutely nothing to lose. At worst you'll never feel any extra energy and give up. I hope you'll give it a good earnest try before you do, because we're talking about your life here.

If I can stick with this, you know it's gotta be easy, 'cause that's who I am. To digress a bit, I've always found arguments about free-will and predestination to be irrelevant in anything other than a philosophical context. In the real world, other than the mundane details of day to day life, all one should care about is "what's the best thing to do next for me and the people important to me?" Obviously, all my past life will influence my decisions, but I'm still free to do what's best "right now", no matter what's gone before. Just because you couldn't get motivated to exercise before doesn't mean you can't now. Whether free will or predestination, you're reading this paragraph right now. Let it be the stimulus to get you started literally saving your own life by trying one more time with a new approach.

So, you know what? Today really is the first day of the rest of your life, and in at least this one way you can get better every day. But you can't just think about it. You actually have to do it. And, in my opinion, you have to do it every day. That's why I made it so easy to get started and why it's so helpful to find an exercise you actually enjoy.

I'll be adding links to articles and other references to back up the dire consequences of junk food and lack of activity. Remember I'm just trying to jump start you into beginning. Once you get locked into the energy you get back from workouts you can forget all the grim stuff and just enjoy.

Many companies are passing on health costs to their employees through monetary fines for those who are out of shape or rewards to those who are fit. Health costs are already spiralling out of sight. As fitness and obesity related illnesses increase that's where the financial penalties will be applied. And who knows what draconian measures the government could come up with. Better to get out ahead on this one. You'll feel better all the way around.

This is a review of a book, "Rich and Thin: Slim Down, Shrink Debt, Turn Calories Into Cash." The review itself discusses only one company that provides rewards for fit employees, but it mentions a number of other cost issues related to health and fitness, including food itself. I don't recommend the book one way or another, it has 4 mixed reviews on Amazon, so it probably depends on whether you could really get interested in tracking your costs as a motivation to get fit.

The feds are already making it easier for companies to force their employees into healthier lifestyles, or at least penalize them if they don't comply. Although the same article shows that at least one company prefers rewards over penalties.

Here are more examples of companies inflicting penalties and a few offering rewards.

It seems most are not being that helpful, so in the end you need to do it for yourself. There's not only the expense, but there's the earnings lost to illness and/or lethargy.

This article is on the subject of anti-obesity ads being too soft, which is ominous enough, but here's a quote:

"... drama is lacking in the obesity spots -- for example, none have ... shown a person complaining about how a fat neighbor's medical bills are costing taxpayers."

Great. As the pressure mounts and the medical system fails, we'll turn to class warfare, or more laws:

"...spot in which doctors yank a pizza ... away from ... intently eating fat boy... same doctors haul away fatty foods from a restaurant called Chubby's"

I assume that means new laws; maybe they're encouraging vigilantism. How about:

"The U.S. government doesn't have the guts to go after junk food producers,"

In the context of the article, he's not talking about advertising, he's talking about their products. So if these guys get their way, we'll have legislators deciding what we get to eat. And who do you think will be pressuring them. Look up the organizations and people you see quoted in the article - yep, that's who'll be busily and self-righteously trying to eliminate anything interesting from our diets. I have sympathy for most of their issues, but not their zealotry.

I hate to think that any of these approaches are necessary, but it seems people en masse are incapable of controlling themselves when food is involved. Personally, I think the approach of combating fat through fear and ridicule is wrong-headed. Energy-focused exercise, which means an emphasis on mood and energy and at least starting a workout of some kind everyday, is the answer for individuals, or so I believe. That philosophy extends to focusing on how diet affects mood and energy as well. I stumbled on how well this works by accident, but almost anyone could do the same with little initial effort. And, in my opinion, that's the key. Jumping into an ambitious workout schedule is intimidating and ultimately depressing unless you like that kind of thing.

If a massive campaign could reach enough people and convince them to try this approach and give it enough time to take effect, it could actually reduce the problem. Maybe that's a pipe dream. But it's had such a profound affect on my life I can't help believing a lot of people could get the same benefits. I want to serve as the example since I have objective evidence that it works; ie. I'm in extremely good shape at 60 - you'd have a hard time finding a sedentary person over the age of 40 who can do what I demonstrate on the site, or have as much fun doing it. That's no praise for me. That's praise for the simple principle I stumbled onto called Quest For Endorphins which led to JumpRock.

It's like voting. I don't flatter myself that my vote makes a difference. But it makes me feel better to at least have my say, and if enough people feel that way, then you have an election, and taken together all the votes do make a difference. By the same token, you can make an effort to feel better about yourself and have more energy without worrying about making a difference other than that, and if enough people feel that way, then you solve an obesity epidemic.