1 . When I started the Fit Nation programme, I was a big guy. Seven months later, I'm still a big guy. I've run endless miles, biked endless hills and swum endless laps. Is there _______ of me? Yes. Am I fitter? Yes. Am I healthier? _______ . But am I finished? NO WAY！

There has been quite a debate ranging in recent years about _______ you can be "fat and fit” . There's no easy answer to that question. Perhaps the answer varies from person to person as our goals _______ .

Over the years, everyone in the Fit Nation family has achieved great success, but in many cases, the pounds don't always dramatically _______ . We've all gained strength and improved our cardiovascular(心血管的)health, but I never _______ this as a weight-loss programme. At least for me, the real changes have been in my body（more muscles and less fat）, my overall endurance and my mental _______ .

I've learned that being healthy is ultimately about being honest with myself. It's about being honest about what I can accomplish and what I can _______ to accomplish in the short term and in the long term. While I'm _______ now than I was at the beginning of the year, I still have improvements to make and fitness to ________ . I hope to continue making gains for the rest of my life.

Setting goals is really pretty simple when you think about it. A ________ is something for which you're willing to work. And you get what you want by planning and putting that plan into ________ . I have more goals to set and more success to ________ .

The only true measure of my accomplishment is how far I've come and how much farther I have to go. Most ________ , I've come to understand that fitness is a journey and not a ________ .

2 . Fitness experts weigh in on whether it’s safe to skip this sometimes annoying step in your exercise routine.

One of the most important steps in your fitness routine comes at the conclusion. Many know the importance of properly warming up and preparing to exercise, but experts say that incorporating a cool down routine is just as important. According to the Mayo Clinic, cooling down allows for your body to recover and return to its normal, _________ state.

Though cooling down isn’t proven to _________ muscle stiffness or soreness, it can prevent dizziness and allow your heart rate and breathing to ease back to a normal rate, Harvard Medical School reports. Phyllis Mammarelli, personal trainer at the Shenango Valley YMCA in Sharon, Pennsylvania, works with each of her clients on a cool down routine as she says it’s a (n) _________ part of exercising.

“Cooling down allows your body to gradually return to a low-intensity activity level, slowly reducing your respiratory and heart rate until it’s equalized and back to normal” she says.

_________ the recovery phase of a workout isn’t proven to be harmful to your body, but Mammarelli warns that without cooling down, the body will take longer to return back to the low-intensity level activity level you began your workout with.

There are also non-threatening side effects that could occur as a result of forgoing a cool down. Mammarelli warns that blood can gather or pool in your lower extremities and lead to dizziness and _________. Additionally, ACE says to keep an eye on your _________ soreness and stiffness. While soreness after a workout is to be expected, _________ onset muscle soreness can occur 24 - 28 hours after your workout and cause “uncomfortable debilitating pain”. Side effects are mostly seen in the elderly or those with cardiovascular disease and can be _________ by warming up and cooling down. Here are some other signs that you might be working out too much.

Allow five to 10 minutes at the _________ of your workout for a cool-down routine. During this period, continue your workout session, but at a much reduced rate. If you’re __________ for time during your workouts or unsure how to allow your body to recover, Mammarelli suggests stretching muscles in a pain-free range of __________. Here’s an easy stretch __________ to try.

Tacking on a few __________ minutes to your workout for cooling down may seem like a(n) __________, but the benefits outweigh the cost of finding extra time in your __________. If you need inspiration for scheduling the time to workout and cool downlook to these women who work out every day.

3 . How Exercise may tame our anxiety

To better cope with all the dispiriting news this winter about rising Covid-19 _________, you might want to get out and play in the snow, according to a new report. The large-scale study of almost 200,000 cross-country skiers found that being physically active _________ the risk of developing anxiety over time.

Science already offers plenty of encouraging evidence that exercise can lift our _________. Experiments show that when people (and lab animals) start _________ they typically grow calmer, happier and less apt to feel sad, nervous or angry than before. Studies that focus on the links between one type of activity or behavior and various aspects of health or longevity, likewise find that more exercise is linked with substantially lower chances of developing severe depression; conversely, being _________ increases the risk for depression. A remarkable neurological study from 2013 even found that exercise _________ reductions in rodent anxiety, by prompting an increase in the production of specialized neurons that release a chemical that soothes over-activity in other parts of the brain.

_________, most of these studies were small, short term or mainly relevant to mice, leaving _________ many questions about what kinds of exercise might help our mental health, how long mood enhancements might potentially last, whether men and women _________ equally and whether it is possible to work out too much and perhaps increase your likelihood of feeling emotionally worse off.

So, for the new study, which was published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, exercise scientists at Lund University in Sweden and other __________ decided it would be worthwhile to __________ the long-term mental health of the thousands upon thousands of men and women who have raced Sweden’s famous Vasaloppet cross-country skiing event over the years.

The Vasaloppet, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this winter, is the largest series of cross-country ski __________ in the world, with crowds of racers annually lining up in the woods of central Sweden to fastly move and glide through races __________ in length from 30 kilometers, or almost 19 miles, to 90K, about 56 miles. Because this kind of endurance event requires abundant health, stamina and training, researchers previously have used data about Vasaloppet racers to study how exercise influences cancer risks, heart __________, and longevity.

The skiers, the researchers found, proved to be __________ calmer over the decades after their race than the other Swedes, with more than 50 percent less risk of developing clinical anxiety. Their results indicate the link between exercise and reduced anxiety is strong.

4 . In the sport of track and field, athletes compete not only with one another but against themselves to achieve a new personal best. Aiming to ______ his own record, Cerveny pushed himself hard. However, his legs cramped(抽筋)and ______   him with only 200 meters to go. Determined to ______, Cerveny rose from the ground and continued on, only to fall again after another 50 meters.

______, his coach asked Cerveny if he wanted to stop. He didn't. With great ______ Cerveny pulled himself up and with a(n)   ______ pace, moved forward for one final push. ______, it wasn't enough. 100 meters from the finish line, his legs simply ______ .

Before his coach could ______ him, another runner- Brandon-was at his side to help. His first attempt to get Cerveny up failed, but he   ______ to quit too. With a second pull, Cerveny was ______. At a measured jog, the two completed the final 100 meters of the course, with Cerveny holding Brandon for ______ Brandon even made sure Cerveny crossed the finish line first,securing his______a faster time

In today’s ______ world in which the emphasis in athletics is so often put on breaking records, it was ______ to see that for an athlete like Brandon, the value of true sportsmanship still had legs.

5 . In the sport world, athletes usually compete to achieve a new personal best. For one Nebraska teen Brandon Schutt, his personal best turned out not to be about marking the fastest time but _______ the biggest heart.

Before the race, Schutt knew if his time was good enough, he had the _______ to be the winner. _______, a mile into the 3.1-mile race, Schutt realized he wasn't going to _______. Rather than risk injury, he _______ to a comfortable pace to simply enjoy the day.

Meanwhile,another runner, Blake Cerveny, aiming to _______ his own personal best record, was running a very different kind of race with all his _______. With less than 400 meters to go, Cerveny's legs _______ him.

His _______ did not. Determined to finish, Cerveny ________ from the ground and continued on, only to fall again after another 150 meters..and again, he got up. This time he'd run only 25 meters more before going down. Taking great ________, he pulled himself up and moved forward. However,about 100 meters from the finish line, he lay curled (蜷缩) on the ground. His legs had simply ________.

Before medical workers ________ him, Brandon Schutt was at his side to offer a helping hand. He failed to get Cerveny up at first,but like Cerveny, he too refused to ________. With a second ________, Cerveny was on his feet. With Cerveny holding Schutt for support and Schutt helping Cerveny keeping ________, the two completed the ________ 75 meters of the race.

In today's ________ world where the emphasis (重点) in athletics is so often put on breaking records, it was ________ to see that for an athlete like Brandon Schutt, the value of true ________ still shines.

6 . It’s 6:15 a.m. on a school day, and Jocelyn Murzycki has two kids and she needs to get out the door in an hour. As the sky begins to _________, Murzycki doesn’t manage a few more minutes of sleep. _________, she’s heading out in the freezing cold on her daily plog—a run to_________ litter.

First, the _________ are: a litter grabber and a reusable shopping bag, one side for landfill and the other for _________. Covering herself up, Murzycki jogs _________ down Main Street, stopping briefly to pick up a plastic cup. She usually needs to stop halfway through her 20-minute run to _________ her bag. Within a few hours the street will look littered again. But she isn’t_________—it just adds fuel to her plogging fire.

The word “plogging” comes from plogga, a _________ of two Swedish words that mean to pick up and to jog. The activity was ____________ by Erik Ahlstrom. When he moved to Stockholm, he felt ____________ at the amount of litter in the streets and began gathering friends to clean up the neighborhood while out for runs. Now Mr. Ahlstrom is traveling the world, publicizing the ____________ of plogging. In the U.S., social media and running groups are ____________ people to get out and plog: the “plogging” tag (标签) alone has more than 40,000 posts.

Murzycki has been doing this for a few years even before the trend hit the U.S. “It really is super ____________ if you go out every single day and just pick up litter,” she says. But she’s figured out how to make it fun by jogging with friends and adding the ____________ finding a tiny glass bottle adds one push-up (俯卧撑).