Make More Money by Getting Fit

Now what’s that about!? … People who are fit make $1.42 more per hour than those who are not.

I read that in a recent issue of Money magazine. I was as stunned as you are perhaps. That difference of $1.42/hr adds up to an additional $56.80 per week and a whopping $2,953.60 per year considering a paid vacation. Wow!

Here are my educated guesses as to why people who are fit make more money than those who aren’t. I’ll give you the negative reasons first then finish with the positive.

There are always exceptions … but in general people who are fit weigh a lot less than those who are not fit.

Everywhere you look you’ll find articles about the negative health effects of being overweight. Did you know that the Surgeon General is now more concerned about people’s weight than he is about the damaging effects of cigarette smoking?

Simply stated … all of the diseases that ruin your quality of life and eventually kill you are related to excess weight – diabetes, cancer, dementia, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease.

It just makes sense if you think about it. Here’s a question. If your body’s busy either developing a disease or dealing with the problems that erupt with disease … will you have the energy to compete for a higher salary? Will you have the energy to promote your business to increase your income? Probably not.

Now here’s the positive side.

On the other hand, it’s known that exercise helps prevent diabetes and will even reverse it by stabilizing blood sugar levels and improving insulin uptake into your cells. This means that blood sugar gets metabolized (used up) instead of clogging the arteries in your kidneys, eyes, heart, sex organs, and legs. Those are just some of the body parts damaged by Diabetes.

Exercise improves the strength and responsiveness of your immune system. A strong immune system not only leads to fewer colds and flu … but also decreases your chance of developing cancer. Instead of sitting around like couch potatoes -- with exercise -- your immune cells are primed to recognize abnormal cells that might develop into cancer and instead … destroy them.

Exercise promotes circulation to defeat artery clogging plaques that lead to dementia, strokes and heart attacks. The good fats in your blood, like HDL’s, increase while the bad ones, like triglycerides and apolipoprotein A, decrease to preserve the health of arteries in your brain … as well as the rest of your body.

Does anyone need to be convinced that exercise helps build strong bones? You can take calcium – which by the way is only one of the many important minerals for bone health -- but … if you don’t stress your bones with exercise, they won’t get strong. You need weight-bearing and strength training exercise to stimulate the calcium that you’re taking to enter inside your bone cells and strengthen your bone structure.

Most people can’t resist a bargain. Exercise is a real bargain. With regular exercise you get a multitude of positive effects for the action of only one – exercise. You’ve known for a long time about the health producing effects of exercise. Now that you know it also increases your income, perhaps you’ve got the motivation you need to make exercise a lifetime choice!