Hello Finland!

Blogger allows you to see where people are in the world that view your blog.  I hit a new country today and thought I'd say, "Hello!".  Thus, the blog title.

I've been meaning to write about my favorite exercise benefit of all time: how you feel.  And, ironically enough, I haven't been feeling well lately and so I've put it off.  I re-started an exercise routine early in the year and I was quite frustrated that I wasn't "seeing" any benefits.  The scale barely moved at all.  I've spoken with friends and family a lot about their weight loss goals and that always seems to be the biggest complaint.  "I'm not seeing any change!" 

In my limited personal experience, I was feeling the same frustration.  However, I did notice one thing different.  It may not make any sense, since there were no physical changes yet, but in my first few weeks of working out, I felt different.  The perfect way to describe it would be that I felt less fat.  My skin felt tighter, I felt more compact.  Four weeks into my work out schedule, the scale still hadn't moved but I lost inches.  Not in all the places that I was "feeling thinner" but enough to give some motivations to keep going.

In my battle with anxiety and depression, I've also noticed that the way I feel when I'm on a regular exercise schedule is like waking up to a sunny sky every morning.  Its been my best cure to a bad mood or frustrations with life. 

Now I'm the first to tell you that I don't believe in cure-alls.  This blog is called "The Balance" because I sincerely believe that happiness in daily living comes from a balance of all health aspects (Social, Spiritual, Physical etc).  But I can tell you that when one is lagging, like Physical, the others suffer as well.  And the opposite holds true.  When one is improved, it improves the others.