Build Character Through The Challenge Of Sport: Run Into Wellness.
They say that exercise lengthens, strengthens and tones. If you do nothing then what happens? You put on a kilo a year–it is the easiest thing and you do that for five, ten years and suddenly your best self is way, way, way behind you.
Today, nothing signifies your status more than your fitness or your lack of it.
This obsession with the firmness of our abdominal muscles, quadriceps, the fascination with our muscle tone, the need to get on the scales at least once every day–frankly, it is a good thing.
“Men grow cold as girls grow old and we all lose our charms in the end,” Marilyn Monroe breathed in “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend." And now the terrible knowledge haunts men too. Isn’t that why our lives revolve around this pathological obsession with health, with fitness, with the definition of our physical body? Isn’t that why we spend longer time in gyms than we do devouring food? Because now we know it applies to us too. We all lose our charms in the end. Once being fit was about how young we were. Now being fit is about how we age.
What a strange, turbulent relationship we have with our bodies.
We can’t take you seriously unless you take your fitness seriously. Politicians are now obliged to be Olympian or actors. You have to at least be seen trying to work out. Throwing yourself into fitness can also backfire because you can’t always look cool when you are pushing yourself to the limit.
But it is not just an image.
Keeping fit brings down blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, reduces weight, extends your life and makes for better sex life. We don’t endure all this pain because we want to be fit. We endure all this pain because we want to be sane. With advancing age comes the inevitable expanding paunch. But it’s no longer only women who are under pressure to remain lean and lithe gym fanatic. For your amusement, here are some branding examples for the Big Sur Marathon foundation in Monterey, California.
