My husband is a pilot, so I’ve had a chance to hear some flying analogies in the year we have been married.  I thought this one applied well to the world of fitness…

On takeoff, the engines of an airplane work tremendously hard even though the plane really isn’t moving that fast.  If you were to take a snap shot of the airplane just beginning to take off, you might think it may never get airborne.

But once the plane picks up enough speed to leave the ground and climbs to altitude, the engines throttle back and the airplane can cruise comfortably up where it belongs.

We belong in a state of health in our bodies, in our mind and in our spirit.  If we have allowed ourselves to stagnate, it can take a tremendous amount of energy to get going again.  With time and consistent effort, we can make that climb, and the effort to sustain our healthy state won’t be nearly as much when we started and seemed to be making very slow progress.

It’s a process, but ask someone who’s been through it.  Ask them if it was worth it – I’ll bet they’ll say it was.