“Keeping fit is a simple start to better health”
HOLLYWOOD WONT GIVE YOU BETTER HEALTH
You can’t base your goals on what you see in the movies. There is one thing that you need to get out of your mind right now: you should not compare yourself to the actors and actresses you see on the movie screen when it comes to your body shape and the progression of aging. These people are paid an absurd amount of money for a few reasons, some of which are their talents but another reason is because they have a sort of “other-worldliness” about them that sets them apart from everyone else in society. 
You can’t look at a fifty year-old actress and then get mad at yourself because you don’t look as good as she does (and you’re forty). You don’t know if this person is actually healthy or not…remember that a svelte physique is not necessarily indicative of good health. For all you know, this actress may head to the medicine cabinet to load up on laxatives every time she eats in an attempt to maintain her physical status. She may also have had several operations to keep her face looking as young as possible.
A radiant glow in Hollywood does not necessarily mean that the person glowing is healthy; instead it may just mean that this person has paid a lot of money to a lot of people to help her achieve a certain youthful look. If you base your idea of healthiness on what you see in the movies and in the media then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Your goals should revolve around what you think you can do to make yourself healthy, and not what you figure is healthy based on what you see when you watch a movie. If you spend a lot of time obsessing over what you think society expects of you when it comes to being healthy then you’re setting yourself up for a vicious cycle where you never really figure out what healthy means. You may know what “attractive” is, but your concern should be aimed toward health, not attraction.
You’re setting yourself up for failure. Sure, you know that the images you see in the movies and on television are ridiculously unattainable to most people, but that probably doesn’t stop you from wanting to achieve the same image for yourself nonetheless. It’s okay if you want to derive some motivation from a certain actor or actress as long as you aren’t basing your entire motivation on wanting to look like this person.
This type of motivation is dangerous on many levels. Maybe you simply don’t have a matching physique to this person no matter how much you work out…remember that everyone has a certain body type that they fall into and there are some genetic predeterminations that just can’t be overcome. The disappointment you will inevitably experience when your hard work does not pay off by making you a replica of the person you idolize might be the thing that derails you because of the vast disappointment you feel.
Your motivation needs to come from other sources, and if you want to toss in a little motivation from hoping to someday look a little more like your favorite Hollywood star then that’s fine. Just make sure that you aren’t putting all your eggs into one basket and basing all of your motivation on one specific look. Remember that your goal is to get healthier, not to look like a certain person who, by the way, couldn’t care less about you. Choose your motivation carefully, and don’t set yourself up for failure.
These people have endless resources. Hollywood stars will deny this until the end of time, but most reasonable people know this as fact: much of what you see on the movie screen and on television is a product of plastic surgery, airbrushing, great makeup and hairstylists, and sadly a product of actors and actresses who simply don’t eat unless they have to. When these folks do eat they have brilliant chefs who know how to design scrumptious meals based on the advice of knowledgeable nutritionists who can make sure that the actors and actresses are getting just the right amount of the nutrients they need, and nothing more.
Yes, there are some Hollywood stars who work out like mad and who earn their bodies the old fashioned way, but remember that these people also have the resources to pay for personal trainers and all of the latest equipment to keep them fit. If they get assigned a movie role that requires them to lose ten pounds then they can take the time – as work – to lose that weight with all the professional help they need. Do you have these resources?
Can you take time off from work to lose weight? Do you have a chef who makes sure that your meals are all nutritionally balanced in addition to being delicious? Do you have a stylist who can make sure that even when you have missed a few hours of sleep you still appear radiant? The most likely answer is that you don’t have these resources. If you did, you too might be able to achieve the enviable looks of the people you see in the movies and on television. The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of people to make one person look so good, and since you don’t have these resources you certainly can’t expect to join the ranks of the uber-attractive no matter how much effort you’re willing to put into the process.
It bears repeating: attractive and slim does not necessarily translate into healthy. Yes, you will probably look much better when you pay more attention to your health and your body, but a lot of the improvements you gain will be internal. Do not allow a quest to become attractive to be your sole motivation to getting healthier. If anything, you can motivate yourself to get healthy and then move on to working on your physical appearance if it still means that much to you. You certainly won’t be able to achieve a healthy glow if you’re not healthy (and you don’t have an army of stylists to help you achieve said glow).
So what does “better health” mean to you? Does it mean that you are physically fit and can run a marathon? Or does better health refer to an overall state of being that you have when everything within your body is balanced? Once you figure out what your idea of better health is then you’re ready to get motivated and jump right in on a quest to improving your overall health, and as a result, living a fuller life.
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Motivate yourself to better health (doctors can help)
“Pill popping will not make you healthier”
MEDICAL ADVICE 
Talk to your doctor. You’re probably familiar with the phrase that is plastered all over exercise equipment, diet plans, and anything else that is designed to help you get healthier: “Consult a physician prior to beginning any new program.” You have probably chuckled at the thought of calling your doctor’s office to let your doctor know that you’re contemplating hopping on a treadmill for a short walk.
The truth is that you really should consider making an appointment with your doctor if you are starting up a new plan to get healthier. This is especially true for anyone who has been inactive for an extended period of time or for people with previous injuries that may limit the activities they should do. So although it is a pretty absurd idea to call your doctor to ask permission to climb onto a stationary bike at the gym, you may be surprised at the valuable advice your doctor may have for you regardless of your previous health history. Your doctor may be able to recommend a specific plan for you to follow that will make your quest to get healthier easier. By the same token, your doctor may be able to steer you away from another plan that you have been considering but did not realize it could be detrimental to your health. Some doctors may actually want to conduct a full physical on patients before giving a recommendation, so don’t be surprised if your doctor starts thumping on your knee or ordering some laboratory tests. You should consider your doctor an ally when it comes to achieving your goal of being healthier. For this reason you should be sure to be completely honest with your doctor. Don’t fib on the number of cigarettes you smoke or the level of activity you currently have. Your doctor isn’t there to judge you, so there is no reason for you to try to make yourself look like someone you aren’t. Just be honest with your doctor and take heed of the advice your doctor gives you because it can certainly help. Besides, you can always use the goal of never having to come into your doctor’s office again for this type of consultation as a great motivator…instead set your sights on amazing your doctor at how healthy you can get.
There may be reasons why you shouldn’t jump right in. There is a joke among medical professionals that the advent of Viagra actually saved the lives of many men…not because it improved the sex lives of men but because men who hadn’t been to the doctor in ages actually went in to get a prescription of the potent pill and had to agree to a physical examination. It was during these examinations of male patients who wanted Viagra that many of the men were discovered to have serious health issues, including heart disease. Without the physical examinations and subsequent testing, these conditions may never have been discovered and the ailments may have resulted in early death. The moral of the story is that you never really know what is going on inside your body, and sometimes the only way to find out is to book an appointment with your doctor and succumb to some testing. If you have an unknown condition within your body – such as a heart ailment or some other illness that you aren’t aware of – and you hop on an exercise machine and do some serious exertion then your underlying health condition can cause some real problems. It may be something as serious as a health condition that can prevent you from certain exercises, or something as fixable as a nutritional deficit that should be corrected prior to starting a new diet. For example, you may discover that you’re anemic and therefore should think twice before hopping into a vegetarian diet unless you know how to get iron from non-meat sources. Most issues can be discovered by your doctor relatively easily so you don’t really have to worry about extensive and invasive testing when you go in for your physical examination. Just be sure to let your doctor know about any symptoms you have (shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, et cetera) and additionally about any family history of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or any other ailment of concern. This will make it easier for your doctor to figure out what he or she should emphasize when screening you for issues.There is no magic pill,you know.
When you make your appointment to go see your doctor you should not show up at the office expecting to be handed a fat-burner pill or multivitamin and being told that there is nothing further you need to do beyond popping this pill once a day. Getting healthy takes hard work, and any competent doctor will tell you that. So ignore the advertisements you see that make losing weight and getting healthy as easy as taking a pill every day…if you read the directions on these pill programs you’ll notice that the vast majority of them direct users to take the pills in conjunction with a diet and exercise program, so that blows the theory right out of the water that the pills alone can whip you into shape. Don’t get too excited when you hear media reports about new pills on the market for losing weight, gaining energy, getting healthier, or any other number of claims.
There are certain vitamins and supplements that can certainly assist you in your quest to get healthier, but there is probably not one single pill on the market that can make you healthier on its own and without any other effort on your part. If you are going to take pills then take them in conjunction with other healthy lifestyle changes and make sure that your doctor knows about what pills you’re taking. Even herbal supplements can have contraindications with other medicines and supplements you may be taking, sothis isn’t something you should hide from your doctor. When you are looking for some extra motivation to get healthier you should know that anything worth having is worth working hard for, and consequently you should not feel discouraged that there is no magic pill that can solve all your health issues. Let your motivation center around the results you get from your hard work and fortitude, and not from the results you see from popping a pill.
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Motivate Yourself to Better Health (do it yourself)
“Don’t look for somebody else do it yourself” 
Don’t do this for someone else. It’s a common scenario: you decide that you want to attract a certain person and in order to do so you’re going to embark on a radical program to get healthier and more attractive. Or perhaps your spouse decides that you need to lose a little weight and hassles you to get serious about getting healthy. These instances can certainly be a catalyst to get you up and running (unless they just make you resent the other person) but you should not allow the desires of another person to be the only reason for wanting to get healthier. It’s just not the most effective motivation. You have to do this for you, and anyone else who gets jolly over your healthy transformation is simply an added bonus for your hard work. There are two reasons why you can’t allow someone else to be your only motivation. The primary reason is because you will be much more apt to follow through and stay motivated if your decision to get healthier is a decision you made yourself. The other reason is because people come and go – spouses leave, friends wane, and objects of affection can fizzle as quickly as they started. What would happen if your sole motivation to get healthy was to attract the eye of a co-worker, and then in the middle of your hard work toward a healthier self this co-worker was transferred to another location? There goes your motivation. Make your own decision to get healthy. If someone else wants to be involved in the decision then tell them they can join you in the quest, but they can’t dictate the actions you’ll take while you’re trying to get healthier.
A little healthy competition is fine, but shouldn’t be your sole motivation. 
You may find an exercise buddy or a diet buddy who helps you stay motivated and this is great. The problem arises, however, when the competition becomes your only reason for continuing on the path of improving your health. For example, if you and your sibling decide that a little healthy competition to see who can do the most pull-ups is a fantastic way to measure who is getting healthier then you may start to focus solely on the pull ups and not so much on the other things you should be concentrating on. Also, consider what might happen if your sibling (or whoever you have the competition with) decides to drop out and not work towards getting healthier anymore. If the competition was your only motivation then your motivation is essentially gone in this instance. Youcan’t rely on someone else to keep you motivated. A good portion of your motivation should come from within and not from someone else. Having said this, there is nothing wrong with allowing a little bit of competition to be a motivating factor. If you are competitive by nature then having someone else to compete with can be a great motivation in addition to being a lot of fun for you. Just make sure that you are getting healthy because you want to get healthy and you know that it’s for your betterment…don’t rely solely on your competition with someone else to keep you going.
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Motivate Yourself to Better Health (motivation goals)
By being motivated you goals are realised
Motivate, motivate, motivate. Have you figured out yet what motivates you? It really doesn’t matter if your motivation comes from silly things or deep things or even if your only motivation is to be able to run a mile within a certain amount of time. If you know your motivation then embrace it and use it for all it’s worth. Do you feel silly that you think you might be motivated by a shopping expedition as a reward for achieving some goals toward getting healthier? There is nothing silly about it. If it’s what is going to push you through and keep you on track then go ahead and promise yourself that shopping spree when you have reached your pre-specified goals. This will give you the motivation you need until it’s time to set some other goals and use some different motivators. You can use the image in your mind of you happily waltzing through the store, picking out different items for purchase, all with an amazingly satisfied grin on your face because you worked hard for this moment. The thought of a shopping spree may not be your cup of tea, but you need to figure out what will work best for you. For some people, the image of a healthier and happier self is all that they need for motivation to get healthy, and if that’s the case for you then that’s great. If you are like most people, however, you need a few rewards along the way and there is nothing wrong with that. Figure out what rewards will help you avoid the bad foods and incorporate exercise into your day, and then use these rewards as motivation to keep going. Remember that your motivational rewards do not necessarily have to be noble in nature. As long as the motivation works for you that’s all that matters.
WHAT IS “BETTER HEALTH?”
Better health can mean different things to different people. When you say that you want to get motivated to better health, are you saying that you want to experience less illnesses in the year, or that you want to lose some weight, or that you need to have more energy to make it through your day? Better health for you may be different than better health for someone else because your starting point is different. You may already be relatively healthy and just want to improve your health a little, or you may be completely unhealthy and require an overhaul of all your health habits (or lack thereof). Remember that better health for you is a unique goal, and it’s a goal that only you can set because you know where you are now and where you eventually want to be.
YOU SET YOUR OWN GOALS 
You can follow a plan, but follow your heart. There are countless books that outline plans that are designed to get people healthier. Oftentimes a certain book will cause a stir and get plenty of attention for a while only to eventually be either discredited after extensive use or replaced by a different program that catches the eye of the public. If you decide that you want to follow a plan in your quest for better health you should make sure that you aren’t doing something just because it’s the latest craze. Since there is an abundance of programs designed to get people healthier, there is no reason why you should choose a program that doesn’t seem quite right to you. For example, if you talk yourself into following a cleansing and detoxification program simply because your favorite celebrity endorses it, you may find yourself sprawled out on a table awaiting a detox colonic and wondering how in the world you wound up in this situation. Choose a program that makes sense to you. If you read the back cover of a book that claims to be the be-all and end-all guide to better health and some of the aspects of the program just seem a little fishy to you then move on to a different program. If you know someone who followed a program with great success then you may want to ask that person about the difficulty of following the program. For example, if you cannot go a day without consuming red meat then you probably don’t want to jump into a completely vegan diet on the recommendation of a book. Look for programs that have stood the test of time, and ignore celebrity endorsements if you can. You also want to steer clear of programs that are wildly contrary to current scientific ideas. A book that tells you that sunscreen causes cancer or that you should eliminate all fruits and vegetables from your diet is a book that is attempting to lure people in by being shockingly different from every other book on the shelf. Don’t jump into any program that tells you to do things that just don’t seem right to you because you won’t be motivated to follow through. A program that is designed to get you healthier using methods that you’re comfortable with and that don’t leave you feeling deprived or violated is the type of program you should follow for maximum results.
This is the 10th article in our series of articles to help you change your life. And don’t forget to look out for the next part in this series
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Motivate Yourself to Better Health (attitude is everything)
“Health & Motivation are the keys to success”
DO YOU EVEN KNOW YOUR EXCUSE?
Figure out what’s stopping you. You may think to yourself, “my kids don’t stop me from being healthy, and neither does my job.” At this point it’s time to figure out what exactly it is that is stopping you from taking the necessary steps to have a healthier life. Are you just lazy? That may seem harsh, but if that’s the case then it’s a good idea to recognize it and then figure out what you need to do to get over your laziness. The motivation to get healthy – in theory – should be easy to obtain. You just think about how much better your life will be, how much longer you could potentially live, and how much more effective a parent/worker/friend/whatever you can be if your health is great. If this doesn’t motivate you then there is obviously something stopping you; this is the point when you need to figure out if it’s sheer laziness or if there is something else going on. Maybe you’re scared because you have never lived a healthy life and you don’t want to deviate from what you have always known. Perhaps you are reluctant to get healthy because you aren’t sure what steps to take and you have heard so much conflicting information that your head is spinning. These problems are all relatively easy to address and solve once you recognize the issue that you’re dealing with. Even if it turns out that simple laziness is what is holding you back then at least you understand why you’re having problems getting motivated. The good news is that the healthier you are the less lazy you will probably be.
Can you overcome your obstacles? Once you figure out what’s keeping you from getting healthy you need to figure out if it’s possible to toss the obstacles aside and get healthy. There are plenty of excuses that are common yet not things that should actually stop you from getting healthy – too busy, too lazy, too concerned with other things – and there are excuses which really have some merit but still should be things that you can overcome – in a bad relationship, having money problems, taking care of an elderly parent – if you are willing to make the changes necessary to do so. Perhaps you have a chronic health condition which means that you will probably never actually achieve a state of great health. If this is the case then you should figure out a way to get healthier in conjunction with dealing with your condition. You may never achieve optimum health, but there is probably room for you to have better health than what you have right now. You just need to decide if you are able to overcome whatever it is that is holding you back. There is one thing that you should know about overcoming any obstacle in order to get healthier: it’s worth it. Without a doubt, making the effort to get healthier is something that is certainly worth the effort. You can use this surety as motivation; you know that it will all be worth the effort.
Keep yourself accountable.
You may be the kind of person who needs to enlist several close friends and family members to help you stay accountable in your actions, or you may be the kind of person who is able to keep yourself accountable without slipping. Figure out what it is you need to do to stay accountable in your efforts to get healthier and then use those resources. Some people take it as far as going on a reality television show and announcing to the world that they want to be healthier and let the entire viewing audience keep them accountable. If this is your style then go for it, but if you’re like most people you may just want to enlist the help of one or two people that you can trust. Find someone who isn’t going to coddle you…if you’re out to dinner together and you order a triple bacon cheeseburger with a side of ranch dressing to dip it in then this is when your friend should jump in and stop you before you do something that is going to make your arteries weep in anguish. Your comrades should check on your periodically to make sure that you are exercising, eating right, and taking the time necessary to take care of yourself and improve your health. It’s even better when someone joins you in an attempt to improve health, especially if it’s a spouse or roommate who can keep you accountable constantly. If you decide that the best option for you is to keep yourself accountable on your own then just be sure that you’re actually doing it. Don’t slack off just because nobody else is looking over your shoulder and keeping track of what you should or shouldn’t be doing. Remember that disappointing someone else can be uncomfortable, but disappointing yourself is just sad. Try to stay motivated and accountable, and you’ll have a much higher likelihood of staying on course.
TIME TO END THE EXCUSES 
Enough with the excuses already. At what point do you stop trying to analyse yourself and just look in the mirror and say, “Enough! Time for a change!” You should be nearing that moment if it hasn’t already occurred. It is certainly important to figure out why you have the health behaviors you have, but there comes a time when the analyzing needs to come to some fruition so you can get busy with getting healthy. If you’re the type of person who does well with a militant style when the time comes to make a life change then maybe it’s time to get tough with yourself. Stop making excuses, figure out what you have to do in order to get healthier, and get going. Motivate yourself by having a mantra that you can refer to whenever you start to feel as though you aren’t giving the effort one hundred percent. Something like a small note that says something like “No excuses!” or “Do you want to dieyoung?” may be the kind of motivation that you need in order to stay on track with your quest for better health. Just know that although there comes a time for everyone when excuses and analyzing need to take a backseat to actually doing what you need to do, if you are not a fan of a direct motivational approach then it may be best to avoid carrying around a confrontational note that will do nothing more than annoy you and maybe even thwart your efforts. If a tough approach works for you, though, by all means give it a try and see if that type of motivation is what you need. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different motivational methods until you finally find one that actually works.
Know your triggers. Do you have one certain friend with whom you always wind up getting so sloppy drunk that you end the evening throwing up in the bathroom? Or maybe you have a certain time of year – such as the anniversary of a breakup or death – that always derails you and makes you sad enough to hole yourself up in your home for a couple of weeks, not exercising and eating entirely too much. If you understand that you have triggers that keep you from advancing in your quest to better health then you have already partly won the battle, but the rest of the win comes with avoiding these triggers or learning how to deal with them effectively. In the previous examples, one solution might be to either avoid going out with the drinking friend or find a social event the two of you can do together that does not involve drinking at all. With the depressing anniversary scenario you might think ahead and prepare yourself for the upcoming time by scheduling plenty of fun outings or maybe even an active vacation during that time. Or, even better, you might decide once and for all that you aren’t going to allow this anniversary to have an adverse effect on you anymore and then move on with your life. This is probably easier said than done, of course, but you’ll never know until you give it a try. You may be surprised at the power you have to take control of situations you once thought you had no control over, especially when they are for the betterment of your health.
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Traveling does not mean you can’t exercise
Traveling and exercise are a good thing
Anyone who travels a lot might find it difficult to continue exercising while on the road. One of the best ways to ensure that you are still getting exercise while traveling is to make sure to leave adequate time in your schedule. If you have the time, there are lots of creative ways to get a little bit of exercise while you are traveling. Some of the best options are for different types of travelers, so take a look at the different categories of travelers listed below in order to find some of the most popular options for different types of travelers.
The Youthful Traveler
One of the best options for great exercise for young people is to go to a club or some other place where you can dance all night long. Although the air is not exactly healthy air to be breathing, what with all the smoking going on in some of these places, dancing all night long can be really healthy if paired with only moderate alcohol consumption. On the upside, many such clubs and bars are going smoke free in recent years, so in a short amount of time, it should be possible to dance the night away in a smoke-free venue in no time. If you are traveling in Europe, don’t count on this happening anytime soon.
Youthful travelers often are adventurous travelers. Even if you don’t quite consider yourself an adventure traveler, check out the tips for adventure travelers below and you just might find yourself fitting the category more and more often as you go.
Adventure Travelers
For those who like to hit the slopes or hit the cliffs, there are so many options for adventure travelers that there are really limitless possibilities. Among the most popular are skiing, biking and climbing. If you are planning a trip, don’t forget to schedule all kinds of this kind of activities not only because it’s a healthier kind of trip, but also because it is frequently the best way to see all of the beautiful places to which you are traveling. Touring Europe is never better than done on bicycle and on foot. Skip the tour bus and rent a bike instead. Not only will you see more, you’ll also get closer to the locals on a bike than you will on a tour bus. Even if you don’t consider yourself a true adventure traveler, set yourself the goal of walking everywhere instead of taking the subway. You’ll see a lot more of the world that way, not to mention burn off all of the calories of yummy local food you consume.
The Business Traveler
The key to getting exercise on a business trip is in scheduling the time to spend your lunch break walking to a place to get a meal or leaving time to stroll around the airport (and not having so much carry-on luggage that you can’t comfortably stroll around the airport). Instead of sitting in your hotel room all night, take a walk and see the sights of wherever you are. You’ll feel less like a business traveler and sleep better because you’ve gotten a little exercise.
The Family Traveling Together
Nothing is more fun for kids than wandering around a new place, not to mention that the more energy the kids use up in physical activity, the lese energy they will have to fight you at bedtime and argue with each other. Try to avoid dangerous activities, try to keep it to adventurous fun like moderate hiking trails instead of climbing rock cliffs. Keeping it adventurous, but always safe, like biking on tarred trails instead of down gravel mountain trails will make it so that everyone’s having fun, but Mom and Dad aren’t scared that someone’s going to break a leg.
Regardless of the type of traveler you are, keeping it fun and seeing the local sights is what keeps a traveler motivated to exercise.
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Why not use a pedometer to help
Pedometer an exercise benefit
Using a pedometer is a good way to keep track of fitness goals on a very manageable level. If you set yourself a goal in the number of steps that you take each day or the number of miles, the good news is that the pedometer counts it all. Those who set the goal to run two miles or to walk two miles on a given route that is calculated at two miles will not be able to integrate their fitness plan into their everyday lives. If you wear a pedometer, you can make sure to count all of the activity that you do in a day. After all, fitness should be a lifestyle, and not just something that you do each day after you polish off a lunch of prime rib and cheesecake.
Using the Pedometer 
In order to meet your fitness goals by using a pedometer, it is important to set intermediate goals for oneself. If you begin with the goal of walking five miles a day, and in the first few days you see that you only walk slightly more than one mile a day, it is easy to quickly become frustrated with yourself and with the plan you had devised for yourself. On the other hand, it is also possible that one the first day you will see that you walk much farther than you had initially set your goal. The best way to come up with your initial goal is to wear the pedometer for a few days without having any goal. Record your daily totals for a few ‘typical’ days and then average them to find out how much you generally walk in one day.
Once you have found out what your typical day looks like in terms of distance walked, it is possible to start setting some goals for yourself. If you feel that you are in pretty good shape and you really want to see some real results quickly, you could set yourself the goal of doubling the distance you walk in a day. If this seems too large a goal for you, or if you are overweight or out of shape, you could start yourself at walking 1.5 or 1.25 times the distance that you walk as your computed average distance.
Regardless of your starting goal, after a week or two of the initial goal, you can step your goal up a notch. For example, if doubling your distance was just about a piece of cake and you enjoyed it, step it up to triple your average daily distance. On the other hand, if your initial goal seemed very difficult, you can either reduce it or you can keep the goal the same until you feel that meeting that goal has become quite easy for you.
Spicing it Up
In order to keep things interesting, because, well, it can get quite boring to use a pedometer to get to the same distance each and every day, you can vary your goals for each day of the week. Days when you have more free time you can set yourself a higher goal than days when your schedule is already pretty full. Another option is to set yourself a weekly instead of a daily goal. Each day, record your daily total and work towards your weekly goal. On the weekend, whatever amount you are short of your weekly goal should be the distance of your weekend hike.
Another good way to keep things interesting is to vary your speeds and vary your terrain. If walking three miles a day
is do-able, try running one mile and walking two. Alternatively, try walking one mile on the beach and two miles on the sidewalk. All of these differences will not only make your workout more likely to burn fat and calories, but it will also keep your workout interesting, which is the absolute key to long-term weight control and weight-loss success.
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Motivate Yourself to Better Health (feeling healthier)
“Feeling healthier is a great motivator”
KIDS AND WORK: THE USUAL EXCUSES 
Time consuming, yes, but not a valid excuse. Nobody in the world understands sheer exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and constant worry like the parents of babies and young children. If you are blessed to have a child or two or more in your life then you are undoubtedly torn between wanting to be the best parent possible and wanting to take care of yourself. By the time the kids head off to bed the last thing you probably want to do is to head off to the gym or sit down to plan a healthy menu for the coming week. Having acknowledged that being a parent is a satisfying yet demanding occupation, prepare yourself for this statement: Having kids – no matter what age or how many you have – is not a valid excuse for being unhealthy. Whether or not you agree with this statement, it’s still true. If anything, having kids should make you want to be even healthier because you want to be able to keep up with them and lead by example. Do you want your kids to grow up thinking that it’s okay to ignore the health needs of your body? Don’t you want to have kids who think that health is a priority? As a parent you probably feel as though you need to suffer and sacrifice for your kids, but if you are sacrificing your health then you’re only being a martyr while also setting a horrible example for your kids. Remember that someday your kids are going to grow up and leave the home, and you’ll be left with a wrecked body that you ignored for too long. Now is the time to get motivated to get healthier, whether you are out-to-here pregnant, or living in a home teeming with children, or if your youngest child has just headed off to college. You can’t allow your position as a parent to stifle your quest to be healthy.
Don’t let work be the death of you. Even sillier than ignoring your own needs for your kids is ignoring your own needs for a job. You may have a fantastic career that pays you oodles of money and affords you great prestige within the community. If you are using your job as an excuse to not be healthy, however, then this dream job of yours can turn into a nightmare. Here is the truth: jobs can come and go, no matter how secure you feel or how much time and effort you put into your career. If you sacrifice your health for a job then you’re really setting yourself up for a bad situation. No matter what your occupation, you need to try not to let your job take over your life. You’re putting too much stock in what you do for a living when your job trumps your need to be healthy. Do you sit for hours at a desk, seldom allowing yourself breaks for a short walk or fresh air? Do you often miss out on sleep because you’re working extended hours? Do you find that you often turn to caffeine or cigarettes in order to get the boost you need to get through your day? Don’t let your job turn you into a working zombie. You may have a great job that you love, but how are you going to love your job if you wind up sick because you work too hard? You need to get your priorities straight and figure out a way to balance work with your need for physical well-being.
The healthier you are the better parent/worker you can be. It is so much easier to be effective in whatever it is you’re doing – working, parenting, or both – if you are healthy. This does not merely pertain to your weight. Yes, you may have an easier time running around after your kids or keeping up with your workload if you aren’t carrying around a bunch of extra weight, but your health is about so much more than how much you weigh. How do you feel throughout the day when you are dealing with your kids or with your work? Now think about how much better you would probably feel if you were doing all these things in better health. If you need some motivation to get healthier then just think about how much more effective you can be as a parent or worker if you are healthier. Running around after kids of any age can be hard work, and if you have a job that is also physically demanding then you will definitely benefit from a healthier lifestyle. Your job doesn’t even need to be all that demanding for you to benefit from a healthier lifestyle. If you’re healthier you’ll probably have more energy and get sick less often in addition to having a sunnier disposition. Most occupations can benefit greatly from all these things. So the next time you feel guilty about leaving your kids with your spouse so you can go to the gym or missing out on a not-so-important meeting because you needed to spend some time in the fresh air then think about the big picture. You’re more effective in what you do when you can do it with a healthy body.
Integrate your healthy regime into your routines. You may say it’s impossible to incorporate a healthy lifestyle into the things you do now, but the truth of the matter is that it’s only as hard as you make it. You may think, for example, that there is no way for you to get any exercise in with your small children in the house, but have you actually ever tried? You may be surprised at how entertaining an exercise DVD might be for your kids. You should also try to jump right in and actively play with your kids because you’ll get some great exercise doing that. If you feel as though you can’t integrate healthy foods into the menu for what your kids love to eat (macaroni & cheese, hot dogs, et cetera) then you need to remember that you’re the parent. If they’re hungry enough they’ll eat what you put in front of them, even if it is healthy. If your issue isn’t kids, but rather the long hours you put in at your job, then you need to find a way to squeeze in the time to get some exercise and eat right. Pre-planning can solve a lot of the issues with your diet because it isn’t difficult to pack some meals that are healthy for you to eat at work. The problem arises when you don’t plan ahead and you find yourself standing in front of a vending machine at eight o’clock at night, starving and trying to decide if dinner will be a candy bar or a packet of cookies. Finding time to exercise can be a little trickier when you spend a lot of time at work, but you need to figure out what your priorities are Really, if you have a job that is so incredibly time consuming that you can’t even take a half hour walk at some point during the day then it may be time to look for a different job for the sake of your health.
This is the 8th article in our series of articles to help you change your life. And don’t forget to look out for the next part in this series
If you would like to purchase the book this article is from http://quickinfoebooks.com/wellness/better-health/#ordernow
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Motivate Yourself to Better Health (self esteem no excuses)
“Why not use motivation for achieving better health”
SELF ESTEEM ISSUES
How do you feel about yourself right now? You probably would balk at the idea of abusing someone that you adore and love. On the same hand you should wonder why you would abuse your body with lack of exercise, poor eating habits, and other bad behaviors which are to your detriment. The process of maintaining an unhealthy lifestyle is an ongoing process. You may start out by slipping into an unhealthy lifestyle because of something that makes you feel a little less sure of yourself – such as a bad breakup or something equally demeaning – and then as you get less and less healthy your self esteem goes lower and lower. As a result you wind up allowing your health to slip more and more, and then you eventually wind up at a point where your health is poor and your self esteem is worse. Of course, this may not describe your situation at all…maybe you have fairly good health and you are simply trying to find some motivation to improve your health even more. If you are in a situation where your health and self esteem are concurrently low, however, then you need to realize that there is a definite correlation between the two. This is actually good news, though, because as your health increases, there is a good chance that your self esteem will increase too! When you take the time to care properly for your body you can’t help but feel better about yourself in more ways than one. So you should understand that even if you feel relatively low about yourself right now there is certainly hope for your situation. If you have a hard time getting motivated to begin treating your body better then try to keep in mind that you will not only be helping your health, but your self esteem as well. Consider it a nice bonus for your hard work.
Even if you look okay, are you okay with yourself? Maybe you don’t really have a problem with being overweight or underweight, and if that’s true then you should consider yourself fortunate. Just because your weight is fine, however, does not mean that your self esteem is where it should be. This is not to say that getting healthy is an absolutely concrete way to solve any self esteem issues you
may have, but you should really take the time to examine how you feel about yourself even if your body shape is ideal by current cultural standards.
Sometimes it can actually be more difficult for people to get motivated to follow a healthier lifestyle when they don’t have a body image that needs vast improvement. Someone who appears to be of an ideal weight may find that friends and family balk at the effort, saying things like “you look great, what are you worried about?” or “stop obsessing about how you look.” What these people need to realize – and perhaps what you need to realize as well – is that being healthy is not just about how you look on the outside. You may look fabulous on the outside, but if you often feel like you don’t have enough energy to get through your day, or if you often feel sad, depressed, or restless, you may be able to improve your emotional well-being along with your physical well-being. For this reason, you should not allow yourself to lose the motivation to get healthier just because you like what you see in the mirror. “Better health” does not merely refer to your physical appearance…it means much more, like your emotional well-being and your ability to get through your day without aches and pains (physical and emotional).
Self-destructive behavior is not conducive to a healthy Lifestyle
You may read that sentence and think to yourself, “Well, I’m not cutting myself with razor blades, so I’m not doing anything self-destructive.” Self-destructive behavior is much more than simply overtly and intentionally hurting yourself. Do you do any of these things?
- • Do you smoke cigarettes or anything else?
- • Do you drink alcohol more than you should?
- • Do you eat food even after you are full?
- • Do you constantly consume foods that aren’t good for you?
- • Do you avoid doctors, even when you are truly ill?
- • Do you engage in unprotected sex?
- • Do you exercise to the point of exhaustion on a constant basis?
- • Do you use illicit drugs and prescription pills beyond their intended use?
- • Do you avoid physical activity?
- • Do you live or work in an environment where you are bombarded by toxins?
As you can see, self destructive behavior is not limited to intentional behavior.
The list is much more extensive than is listed here, of course, but this brief listing should get you thinking about the decisions you make and how they affect your overall health. If you are emotionally troubled – and not just in a clinical sense; perhaps you just have some issues that are troubling you that you can’t shake – then this may have an effect on the rest of your health. Most mental health experts will tell you that mental issues often manifest into physical issues, so if you know that you are engaging in self destructive
behavior that is bad for your health, but you aren’t entirely sure why you’re doing it, then perhaps the first place to look is to your emotional well-being. If you have some issues to work out then you may have to do that before any attempt at getting motivated to improve your health is going to have any profound effect on your life.
Better health is not limited to how many laps you can run without getting winded or how often you can wake up without the flu. Your health is an all-inclusive system that needs to include your emotional health as well as your physical health. You can’t ignore the issues that may be slowing you down. You will probably find that once you address any emotional problems or issues that need your attention everything else will start to fall into place. Think of your emotional and physical health as one system with many parts…and remember that one part relies on the other to function well so that the entire system can function at its best.
WHAT IS YOUR EXCUSE?
There has to be some reason why you aren’t as healthy as you can be right now.
Maybe you are a really busy person and don’t feel like you have the time to put toward getting yourself healthy, or perhaps you have always been unhealthy so you don’t know any other way of living. Regardless of what your reasoning is for your current lifestyle, it’s easier to toss your excuses aside once you acknowledge what has been stopping you from getting healthy. It’s a great idea to examine why you are the way you are and what you can do about it to get yourself motivated.
This is part 7 of our series of articles to help you change your life. And don’t forget to look out for the next part in this series
If you would like to purchase the book this article is from http://quickinfoebooks.com/wellness/better-health/#ordernow
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Motivate Yourself to Better Health (Poor diet health problems)
“Why shouldn’t every body enjoy better health using motivation”
HEALTH PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH A BAD DIET
You are what you eat. It’s easy to get carried away with the things you eat.
After all, a good amount of foods that are yummy just also happen to be
detrimental to your health if you eat them in excess. Whether or not you want to acknowledge it, every single thing you ingest into your body is going to have some type of effect on it. Think of all the routes your ingested food travels throughout your body. You just can’t expect to fill yourself up with a bunch of junk food and not have it change the way you feel. When you load up on healthy foods (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, et cetera) then your body can function at its best. Your body is getting the nutrients it needs to function optimally. If instead, you choose to load up on junk food (candy, fatty foods, et cetera) you’re filling up on empty calories and you aren’t hungry to eat the food that your body can really use. So even if a candy bar makes you feel full, you’re filled up with the wrong type of stuff to help your body. Add to that the fact that your body now has to deal with all the sugar and other ingredients that are now working their way through your body, and you can see how junk food is not really the best option. Sure, there is a time and place for yummy, decadent foods. You need to eat them in moderation, and the good foods you eat should far outweigh the amount of junk food you allow into your body. Think of it this way: if you truly are what you eat, then what are you? Are you a powerhouse of healthy foods or are you a sluggish glop of goo? Try to keep this in mind when you are trying to motivate yourself to steer clear of junky foods and to put more healthy foods into your body.
A poor diet can make other health conditions worse. If you have underlying health conditions that you may be aware or unaware of there are some foods that can make these conditions progress faster or at the least can make it to where you feel the effects of your ailment more because of what you are eating. How much does your food matter to you? Is it enough to lose your life over? Your doctor may tell you to steer clear of foods high in sodium if you have hypertension issues. If you just love potato chips so much that you can’t stand to follow those directions so you indulge in salty chips on a constant basis, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. Doctors do not restrict diets to be mean. They restrict diets to try to keep their patients alive and to lessen the effects of certain ailments. The problem with some poor diets is that oftentimes the person may not even realize that there is a health condition at all. Consider someone who has developed Type II Diabetes, but has not realized it yet because there has been no diagnosis from a doctor. Indulging in sugary, fattening foods on a regular basis is going to make the condition worse in several ways, including the fact that the condition will probably progress faster than it would have if the person’s diet was not so bad. So if you have absolutely no motivation to improve your diet – perhaps you are one of the few people who can eat whatever you want and not gain weight so there is no outward problem – you should consider what may be going on inside your body. What you eat can have a profound effect on your physical health, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. If you are going to insist on having a poor diet then you should go ahead and schedule an ongoing appointment with your doctor to get screened periodically for the many ailments you are opening yourself up to
.Convenience can lure you in. It is ridiculously easy to get a full meal in less than a minute with the endless fast food drive-thru restaurants peppered throughout the country. If you are a busy person then the lure of a quick meal that you don’t even have to cook yourself is quite strong. An occasional meal like this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as your “occasional” fast food meal doesn’t mean every other day. Even the menu items offered through these restaurants that are marketed as being healthy are not necessarily the best idea.
The salads are sometimes laced with sugar and the salad dressings are dripping with fat. If you insist upon eating at fast food establishments – whether due to the convenience factor or because you just like these places a lot – you should try your best to pick the healthier options. A quick Internet search will reveal to you the calorie and fat counts of your favorite fast food items, and you will also be able to find healthier options offered by the restaurants. Sometimes a small change can make a big difference, especially if it’s a change in something that you do repeatedly. When you are trying to get motivated to eat better at places like this, remember that it doesn’t take huge leaps to get healthier.
- • Buy the smallest size available. Allowing the employee working the register to talk you into a larger size is only expanding your waistline and taking more money out of your wallet. Try buying one of the meals designed for kids, because these are often quite satisfying even though they have less food than the adult meals.
- • Drink water instead of a soda or some other sugary drink. Not only will you have less sugar intake, but it’s cheaper and your body needs water.
• Omit some of the more detrimental ingredients. For example, ask for no mayonnaise on your burger, or don’t grab ranch dressing to dip your French fries in.
- • Split your meal with someone else. Even some of the smallest fast food portions are too big, so if you can convince someone to eat a meal with you then it will help your body in addition to saving you a little bit of money.
- • Forget dessert. If you insist on having dessert then find out what the best option is at the place at which you choose to eat. Some of these restaurants feature fat-free soft serve, which is a viable option if you absolutely need to have something sweet after your meal.
Realize that these small changes will help you regardless whether or not your plan to get healthy includes losing weight. Remember that you can be of an ideal weight yet still unhealthy, so eating right isn’t just for people who need to lose weight. Even if you are in a situation where you are considered underweight you still need to take into consideration the fact that eating right isn’t just for people who are considered overweight.
This is the 6th article in our series which will cover all the above aspects with ideas and solutions so please don’t forget to look out for the next part of this series
If you would like to purchase the book this article is from
http://quickinfoebooks.com/wellness/better-health/#ordernow
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