When you hear a doctor or a personal trainer say, Your body fat is too high, or you are borderline obese, what do you think? Does it matter to you? Does it motivate you to lose weight? Or are the numbers on the scale more important?

Most people will always have a love hate relationship with the scale in their bathroom. However, with the dramatic increase in diabetes and obesity cases in America the importance of keeping your overall body fat down becomes the most important issue to ones health.

What does it mean to be obese? This means that thirty percent or more of your overall body weight is fat. When this occurs, your body has already begun to shut down in many areas. Things that are affected by high levels of body fat are; blood pressure, cholesterol, bone density, energy levels, immune systems and on and on. This is the direct reason for the increase in heart disease, diabetes, and strokes in America.

What is happening behind the scenes is this; muscle burns more calories than fat. If you have less muscle then you are going to burn less fat in day. In addition, aging promotes a decrease in muscle mass naturally. The goal is to slow that natural process down. How do you do that? I call this, Having synergy in your workout and eating plan.

Having synergy in your workout plan is accomplished by incorporating all areas of fitness into your weekly activities. The four main areas are; good eating habits, heart exercising (cardiovascular), strength training (weights) and flexibility training (stretching). When all four areas are working well, you can not help but lower your body fat.

When you lower your body fat levels your; blood pressure, stress and cholesterol levels will lower and your strength confidence and stamina will naturally increase.

Are the numbers on the scale important? To your brain and ego maybe, but in the greater health of things, not as much as lowering your body fat levels.