I see it every day. First thing in the morning, people arerunning up and down my street to stay in shape. Whether or not it is raining,freezing cold, whatever, there are folks out there doing ?road work.? I knowall of them feel good about themselves, and why not? Taking such a consistentapproach to staying in shape is something that should be heralded. The onething about all these people though, and it drives me a little batty, is thatwhile I see them run every day, for some it has been YEARS now, well, they lookabout the same. Yes, they run every day, no question. They are obviouslyexercising, but their bodies still look the same. The older couple who wear theblue jumpsuits still have their poochy bellies. The blond haired lady with theearphones still has?well'a little extra baggage in the back. How can thisbe?  They are running, exercising,staying in shape, so why don't they look different?

They are so many myths about getting into shape, and one ofthem is that simply doing ANYTHING active for a certain period of time will getyou into shape. This is simply not true. You see, your body is built to adaptto things. If you do something long enough, your body will get used to it. Itwill change for a short time in order to make your body more efficient at doingthe activity, but once you have done it long enough, your body will simply adaptand stop changing, it's true! The fact is you have to keep pushing your body toachieve results. This is known as PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE training. Simply put,do something for awhile, increase the workload, do it some more. The key tothis type of training is to continually make your workouts harder or morechallenging. If all you did was lift a pink  5lb weight, pretty soon, that weight will betoo light for you. If you continue to lift it, you will not make progress. You mustkeep lifting heavier and heavier weights to make progress.

Ok, so you now know why some of these runners are not makingprogress, but, is there anything else to the equation? You bet there is!Getting into shape is a process that really requires you have a program that ismulti-faceted. What I mean by that is, running alone is ok, but running,combined with some weight lifting, stretching, combined with eating nutritionalfoods to support your muscles and encourage fat loss is a MUCH better plan. Whoknows, maybe some of the people who regularly run in my neighborhood arestarting each day with 3 donuts followed by a milkshake. Your diet is one ofthe most important elements of your plan to stay in shape. It is also one ofthe most neglected. Most people think that if they are doing SOME sort ofphysical exercise, they can eat whatever they want; this is simply not true.

So, while running will not necessarily get you into theshape you want, it IS a great start. Just about any exercise can be thefoundation of a good program to get into shape. To be truly successful though,you must continually work to increase the amount of work you do, as well ascouple your exercise with a healthy well balanced diet.