4 ways to finally get fit

If you want to get fit, working out at the gym isn't enough. You need to change your lifestyle and outlook: follow these four easy tips to learn how.

• Tell your family, friends and co-workers about your fitness goals and encourage them to ask you how you're doing with meeting them.
• Knowing that everyone is watching you provides great motivation to stick to your goals, says Lindsay Wombold, Healthy Horizons program assistant at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.

• This isn't something docs are very good at, so it's up to you to start the conversation. Ask about your health and how becoming more physically fit can help you become healthier. Then ask for some advice.
• A government study found just three hours of advice and counselling by doctors and other health care professionals over two years boosted couch potatoes' physical fitness.

The exercise industry makes more money when everyone thinks of fitness only in terms of formal workouts. But even if you spend three hours a week in the gym, what of the other 100-plus waking hours we have each week?

Truth is, fit people go about their entire day living in a high-energy way. Not only is it fun and motivating; these ongoing spurts of everyday activity add up to a whole lot of fitness. So how do you live fit? Here are some easy examples.

• Stand up and walk around whenever you get on the phone.
• Always take the steps, not the escalator or elevator.
• And when you take the steps, try for two at a time!
• Stand up and move around during every TV commercial break.
• Routinely stretch your arms, legs and back.
• Carry stuff more often: garden supplies, groceries, laundry.

• There are so many ways to measure fitness that you can quickly become paralyzed by them all. Is it my weight? Body mass index? Pulse? Is it mileage covered, pounds lifted, calories burned, minutes of activity?
• For maximum motivation, focus on what matters most to you. Do you feel better than you used to? Do you look better than you used to? Are your clothes less tight? Can you see a difference in the mirror? Are your improvements getting noticed by others?