Something that most people don't realise is that physically there is little correlation between fitness and weight. Your weight does not define how fit you are. Obviously if your weight is too high it has an effect on how fit you are, and it certainly has an effect on your health but the relation between weight and fitness is nowhere near as strong as most people believe.

The only things that will really affect whether or not you are fit are all related to how much exercise you can do.
(Of course, if you begin to really improve your fitness and get in shape, you'll probably begin to slim down).

Diet, although it is important, is often not the most important path to losing weight. If your goal is to slim down and avoid putting on weight again, you should examine how much exercise you get. Obviously you should look at your diet also, but often the most effective treatment is to work off the food you are eating. Making time for exercise in your day and making sensible choices on food are not two different ways to lose weight - they should be done together.

If you start with exercise, then you'll begin to build and tone muscle in your entire body first, instead of just trying to burn away fat. In fact, the worst thing you can do is to start on a diet first without exercise. Instead of burning away your fat, in that case, the chances are good that your body will burn muscle tissue instead. That is something that you definitely don't want to happen, since it will make exercising harder for you in the future.

If you get exercise on a regular basis the fact is you will be fitter than someone who gets no regular exercise, regardless of your weight. Taking this into account you should start exercising more when starting any new diet plan, this will get the most from your new diet.

If you want to really improve your fitness, then you'll need to do more than just a little bit of exercise. Also, you'll need to do more than just one type of exercise. You'll need to do both cardiovascular exercise as well as some basic strength training.

For your cardiovascular exercise - which is basically any type of exercise that increases your heart rate by considerable amounts - you should work on being able to exercise for a longer period of time than you could before.
This will enable you to build up some stamina.

You will also probably want to do some strength training exercises as well. While these will not increase your stamina necessarily, strength training exercises will still have a major effect on how fit you feel and will help you to tone your body.

This strength training does not necessarily mean lifting weights or hanging around a gym, you can do a really effective strength training workout in the comfort of your own home with little or no equipment. A small amount of training like this can make all the differnce in your fitness program.

In the end the most important factor in your fitness is whether or not you can do as much exercise as you'd like to be able to do. If you can then you are fit, if not then regardless of your weight the road to fitness need not be difficult, all it takes is a little determination.

Britannia Findlay is the Webmaster of FOCAL Fitness
You will find a lot of interesting articles and great resources at her site. For all the info you want, visit:
http://www.focalfitness.com