One area where we tend to be extra gullible and also faced with numerous ads, quick fixes and false information happens to be on the issue of Health and Fitness. It’s like all of a sudden, jobless housewives and your neighborhood slimming centre have become the authority on your health and fitness.

Just recently, I was exchanging thoughts with a Herbalife dealer, and it is sad to know that the entire focus on weight loss for them – is exactly that - weight loss, and not fat loss. Whether it’s HEALTHY weight loss or not, doesn’t seem to be much of their concern. That, for them, is being healthy and fit, and sadly, too many people have equated being thin/slim to being fit and healthy.

Friends, there are four major components of Physical Fitness:
1. Muscular strength and endurance – the maximal force you can exert, and for how long. Lifting heavy objects require muscular strength, while walking and climbing stairs require endurance

2. Cardiovascular/cardio respiratory endurance – the maximal capacity of your heart/blood vessels/lungs to deliver oxygen and nutrients to working muscles before becoming fatigued. E.g. those who can run consistently at higher speeds on the treadmill for a long durations show good cardiovascular endurance

3. Flexibility – the ability to move your joints through their normal, full range of motion. E.g. Ninie Ahmad would make most people jealous when it comes to flexibility.

4. Body composition – your proportions of lean body mass (muscles, bones, skin, blood, organs, nervous tissue) and body fat

Many experts also include ‘mind and body vitality’ as a fifth component to physical fitness.

Reference: ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription: 30th Anniversary Edition
By American College of Sports Medicine, Mitchell H. Whaley, Peter H. Brubaker, Lawrence E. Armstrong, Robert Michael Otto. Published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005

So with a Herbalife drink, or any other so called weight loss program that encourages you to drink so much of this stuff to replace your meals - you will lose weight without exercise due to its very low calorie content, but that tends to be mostly water weight, and loss of lean body mass – which is exactly the opposite of what you want.

Now that you know the four components of physical fitness – you tell me - can a powdered drink mix that comes in a variety of flavours make you physically fit?

I know that by now, I’ve already stepped on many toes here because there are just too many out there who believe that Herbalife, or and any other similar program is the answer to weight loss, fitness, and better health.

Exercise is the missing link to all our health problems.

Looking forward to hearing more about your own similar experiences, and how it’s affected your pursuit of achieving better health and fitness levels.