Physical activity is essential for weight loss and healthy weight maintenance. If you haven’t been doing any recently, don’t panic. Start with a walking programme and gradually build up. As it becomes a way of life, you’ll find you miss it when you don’t do it!

Background

"If some of the benefits of regular exercise could be procured by any one Medicine, then nothing in the world would be held in more esteem than that Medicine."  Francis Fuller 1705

Francis Fuller was clearly a man ahead of his time. In 1705 he published a remarkable book called Medicina Gymnastica, a discussion of the medical benefits of physical activity in patients with various diseases. Leafing through the pages of Fuller’s book today, one cannot fail to be impressed by his remarkable insight into the relationship between physical activity and health, all the more extraordinary because he was completely unaware of the complex bodily mechanisms by means of which the benefits of exercise are achieved.

Today we understand an enormous amount about the science of exercise and the biochemical and physiological processes involved. We know roughly how much activity is required to achieve a health benefit and we know that physical activity is generally quite safe, even for patients with heart disease. So why is it that the majority of us fail to take even the minimum amount of exercise to maintain a healthy weight?