I suppose most people want to be fit, and everyone wants to be healthy but isn’t it amazing that we don’t try very hard to achieve either? We bumble along putting off exercise schedules and programs and delay health checkups as if these were causes of the problems not the solutions. Don’t deny it!

Part of the difficulty are the fanatics and nuts! Yes I am going to be really unpopular here in Bali where there are legions of yoga babes, organic vegans and workout slaves, but it’s true. Mr. and Ms. Average can sometimes be intimidated by your exposed abs, as well as your proud and public preference for veggies.

What we need is encouragement, not comparison – or worse, arrogant dismissal. That doesn’t help at all. Yes you may be fit and beautiful and ready to flaunt your body at Finns, Manarai, Omnia or Potato Head, so that us humble beer swelters will salivate over your abs, but that just doesn’t make you a nice person. Let’s try to be both – please! Have mercy on us fatness fanatics!

It’s great to be fit, and being fit helps to be healthy and eating correctly helps to be both, but there are many who are just here on holiday, relaxing from a tough 9 to 5 job, no gym in sight, no vegan health store on the corner, so Bali is their point of discovery of the benefits of that lifestyle when they come here. Let’s make that change to a better way accessible, friendly and helpful. That’s what I’m fanatic about, or do you think that I’m just nuts? 

Enjoy Bali everyone! I hope this month’s issue of NOW! Bali, ‘Sports & Fitness’ shares some inspiration to stay fit whether you’re on holiday or living on the island.

Read and download online for free here.

Alistair G. Speirs

Alistair G. Speirs

Alistair G Speirs, OBE, is the Publisher of NOW! Magazines. He has been in the publishing, advertising and PR business for the last 25 years. He started both NOW! Bali and NOW! Jakarta as each region's preferred community magazine.