An interesting thing happened at a local fitness center recently: someone visiting the facility remarked to the facility’s owner that they had seen so many people lose weight at the facility — and a lot of weight — that they knew for sure it couldn’t be from just a change of diet and exercise. Instead, this person said the weight losers had to be taking some sort of pill in order to pull off peeling the pounds away.

That person couldn’t be more wrong.

There was once a time when the physical work done on a daily basis by the average person would keep people fit. There was also a time when the foods most people ate were simply that: real food, meats, fruits, vegetables and fresh baked breads, not food products chock full of artificial this and that, high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. There was a time when people walked to get where they needed to be. There was a time when people recognized that only hard work — and time — led to results. For many people, that time is long gone.

The last 60 years or so have been one long descent into convenience. Convenience is not a bad thing — far from it. But when personal convenience wins out over any type of exertion every single time, that’s where the problem starts.

Why waste time cooking a homemade meal when stopping at a drive-thru or popping a prefab dinner in the microwave is easier? Why walk to the corner store, when driving is so much more comfortable? Why take out that old push-mower when a riding lawn mower takes much less time and much less sweat? Why put up with going up and down a flight of stairs 100 times a day when a single story takes that much less effort?

Why, indeed?

Movement is healthy, that’s why. The more one moves, the easier it gets. Stairs don’t seem insurmountable; a walk to the store doesn’t appear too far; a bike ride doesn’t seem like an uncomfortable, sweaty event; spending countless minutes circling a grocery store parking lot looking for the spot closest to the door no longer seems like a good use of time.

The people you see working out in fitness centers recognize that their everyday lives do not provide the level of exercise they need in order to stay healthy. Anyone who has struggled to lose weight the right way — through diet and exercise — knows that it takes discipline and drive.

It takes work; it takes time — neither of which can be construed as convenient. While it may be inconvenient to eat right and exercise, ultimately the point is not about losing weight. The point is to protect one of the many gifts of the human body: its health.