As you way have caught on by now, fitness is a journey. Over the centuries, pilgrims have trekked to distant places to answer some unknown, inner call. They have, toiled over stony paths, climbed mountains to reach their destination. So is fitness the answer - to your inner self. When any illness besets your body, it feels hemmed in as if the borders are narrowing, the boundaries are closing in. It's a time when growth not only may seem unattainable but also non-existent. It's a time when communication gets swamped by discomfort, pain, numbness. It is not a natural state of life. Medicines are useful because they turn you around from drifting purposelessly, from becoming too vulnerable. But after medication. doctors point you towards fitness. For it puts order back into the disordered state, it provides the healing touch to the diseased state, it identifies the goal lost in the mists of sickness, And that goal is health.

If you don't exercise, this is what happens to your insides. Since your body is in a state of rest, the energy produced by breathing is primarily directed to your internal organs-one of which is the digestive system. In this state, 80 percent of the oxygen-rich blood is flowing to these organs. That leaves only 20 per cent for your skeletal muscles-which are undemanding because they are not being exercised. Your digestive system signals its hunger pangs to your appestat - the brain centre that controls the appetite. This is the time you feel hungry. And as long as you do not exercise, you continue to feel hungry at regular intervals.

Of course, your ideal weight depends on your individual build. If you refer to it ,you have an approximate idea of what you should aim for.

Your mental dynamo has assimilated several facts and whirled out two simple messages - aerobic exercising and fatless food are vital for healthy living. The sleeper in you is awakening and your - ears can now catch that soft inner voice calling out insistently -urging you to act.