If you were qualified to give advice and a friend in poor health or unhappy came to you for direction or guidance but you were allowed to recommend one thing only - what would you tell them? Of course you already know that.
The most effective and helpful thing you could urge them to do is - proper exercise.
Agreement is building among health care providers of all sorts and especially those trying to help others become saner, happier and healthier that the sheer weight of research tells us that there is not other comparable activity that can do so much for our physical, mental and emotional health and well-being.
But before we give recommendations to other people we need to also look at our own attitude towards health, fitness and well-being and ask ourselves the same questions we would ask others if we were giving them advice.
We need to be aware that our own exercise and healthy eating decisions that we make every single day will also affect us somewhere down the road.
Whether we do or not live a no-exercise lifestyle and eat mainly natural foods or processed foods affects how fast we age and whether we weaken and become vulnerable to disease and illness.
The decisions we make daily can be ones that we will pay for dearly in the future.
Often it is not until it is too late that the wrong decisions towards our own health and fitness are made because of our own attitude and these determine the quality of life we are left with.
It never hurts to periodically take stock of where we are and what we want from our life.
After all being healthy is not a decision you make just once.
It is one you make every single day.
So, when you find that you are lapsing with your exercise program or you are slipping into lazy eating habits, just ask yourself, 'Is this going to get me the results that I want?" Our habits are the accumulation of the things we do daily, much of the time without thinking about them.
Most of the thoughts we think today are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before that as we are indeed creatures of habit.
Many times we do what is familiar and convenient because we believe it is quicker and easier.
The reason we do not do what we need to do in the way of exercise and healthy eating is simple.
We have made a habit of not doing it.
Many of us do not have a plan and because we do not have that plan we never move toward our fitness and weight loss goals.
You know you should make time for 2-3 proper exercise sessions each week but it is so easy to say "I don't feel like it," or "there's too much going on right now.
" It is a habit to flop down on the couch and it is a habit to make excuses.
One might even say, well I don't like to exercise.
And guess what? People who successfully reach their goals do not automatically like to exercise or do the other things necessary to reach them either So to change your health, manage your weight, and improve fitness, strength and energy all you have to do is make sure your attitude is compatible with your goals and it becomes so much easier to reach those goals.
When you do so you can expect to live life to the very fullest.