Britney Spears and your favorite Super Bowl stars

People like Britney and your favorite football players have a great incentive to keep fit - lots of money, and their performance is watched by millions. But overdoing it, as we have seen, can result in knee injuries. Whether we are trying to get fit or lose weight, a gradual approach is better a crash program. For fitness, it is better to start out by gradually increasing your physical activity throughout the day. It is also better to mould a habit of exercising for just five minutes or less every day. If we effortlessly increase exercise by a minute or so per day every week, we will find after a year that we are much fitter without forcing ourselves to exercise. The same applies to losing weight. It is better initially to add one healthy item of food each day and gradually add to this over time. Since we eat the same weight of food every day, we are likely to consume fewer calories. Also, after a while we can decrease or drop one unhealthy food or drink at a time, and wait until we are comfortable with that.