Let's Face It

If you're serious about turning your life around, about getting healthy, reshaping your body, and taking responsibility for your life and health, then you need to have a realistic view of what it will take.

The cold hard facts are that it WILL be hard and take lots of work. There is no miracle diet pill that will reverse a lifetime of poor choices. There is no miracle diet where you can "eat everything you love and still lose weight" and have it last. Until you understand that, and embrace the work involved, you won't succeed. Here are the realities to reshaping your body and taking control of your health....you CAN do it!!!

1. Let's face it, you need to get your body moving in a big way to see any visible change in your shape. Taking a 1/2 hour stroll three days a week is good, better than nothing, but it WON'T produce a drastic change in your shape. To actually build muscle and burn fat, it will take exercising about an hour a day, in a very aerobic way (you should be working out hard enough that you can still talk to someone near you, but you don't want to because of the exertion). This scares people who aren't used to exercise. But there's really nothing to fear....remember: You can build up slowly! Start with an hour of exercise a day - but make the exertion level heavy for only as long as you think you can take it, then back off until you feel you can amp it up again. But keep to an hour no matter what. Before long, you'll be finding you can keep that exertion level up longer and longer for that hour. And as you build muscle, you will begin to rev up your metabolism - you'll be amazed at how much better your body burns fat!

2. Let's face it, you will need to sacrifice and change what you're used to eating. Yes, that daily chocolate bar or bag of chips is NOT a good thing! Eating those batch of freshmade chocolate chip cookies dipped in whole milk in front of your favorite nightly TV show is NOT a good thing! Munching weekly on fried chicken from the local KFC is NOT a good thing! This is not healthy for you, nor are they positive habits. You WILL have to "give up" some poor habits - but instead of looking at it as "giving up", look at it as "learning better!" Look at it as moving in a more positive direction! Look at it as taking control of your life! You will have to make some hard evaluations here - some honest assessments. Again, you can start slow here, taking some baby steps. Change ONE poor nutrition habit. Get that down well, then begin changing another poor habit. You'll be amazed at how strong you feel when you conquer your desires and when you notice your desires change over time! Fresh fruit suddenly becomes something you crave instead of a Snickers bar. A fresh salad hits the spot over a greasy burger. Yes, that does happen - but not by chance. It takes chipping away at your weaknesses and at your lifetime of poor choices little by little. But IT'S TOTALLY POSSIBLE AND IT'S ALL UP TO YOU!

If you acknowledge that reshaping your body and taking control of your health is going to be work, and you're ready to embrace the effort and control it will take, CONGRATULATIONS! Your success is virtually guaranteed with that attitude! You are ready for the adventure of your life. Get mark, get set, GO!