Your Fit Body: It’s Like an ATM

By Linda T. Gottlieb, MA, CPT, CET

Most of us are very familiar with ATM machines, those automated tellers that devour our checking deposits, spit out money in $20 increments and give us our bank balances in seconds flat.

I was thinking today that our bodies are a lot like an ATM. Stay with me, here…. Instead of plopping a few $20’s in your hands, this ATM could deliver health, fitness and emotional benefits, benefits that no amount of money can buy. Benefits everyone, especially cancer survivors, could use!

This ATM is fast, too- you know what it can do and you depend on it to work. How annoying is it when the ATM runs out of money? It’s happened to me, has it happened to you?

If your body were an ATM, would it be out of money? Energy is the currency of exercise, are you “depositing” enough exercise activity for your body to deliver energy when you need to withdraw?

We don’t expect the ATM to be able to give us money past our bank balance, and yet we sometimes expect our body to perform for decades without the good care of a regular exercise program that includes stretching and balance work, cardiovascular activity and strength/resistance training.

Think of 10 or 15 minutes a few times a day that you can move your body to improve your life. Your body wants and needs to move to deliver what you need to keep your “fitness bank account” stocked and balanced, and you don’t even have to remember your pin code.

#fitness #energy #exercise #cardiovascularactivity #strengthtraining