Since it’s been almost a week since New Year’s I’m sure a lot of people who started the year with good intentions have already noticed some challenges come up to their new healthy eating and fitness plans.

Even if you don’t consider yourself an “athlete”, in a sense you are: you are training for YOUR LIFE as being a mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife, daughter or son. People NEED and depend on you and you need to be WELL to be there for them in meaningful ways or there for them PERIOD.

There are too many people dying early deaths that are diet-related. They are getting false information from their doctors that drugs will cure them instead of nutrition and are living lifestyle’s that they have been taught are innocuous but are death-dealing. You are training for your LIFE and this is no dress rehearsal.

Eat to fuel your body and not for entertainment. Some people put better quality fuel into their cars than they do their bodies. Train your body everyday just as you would tune up your car regularly. Exercise should be something we just DO. Losing your independence by gradually losing function of your body is not good.

And I don’t mean just becoming disabled. Most people become disabled gradually. It starts off with a blister or a limp or a pain in the side of the hip and it just progresses because we baby it. We never use it as an alarm signal that we need to take a look at what caused it and remove the cause.

We need to use exercise as a sort of barometer. If we have eaten something that makes exercise harder the next day, then that’s feedback that that food is not good for us. Our performance should be with ease during exercise and if it’s not, then instead of decreasing our performance and slowing down or quitting, we should eliminate whatever has caused a decline in performance and make sure we live in such a way so that movement is always with ease. Arthritis and pains are caused from diet and are removed when we eliminate whatever the food or drink is.

Like smoking. Or drinking soda. Or any other food that makes us stiff the next day or bloated or constipated such as animal foods or white flour or chemical-laden foods. Don’t just “live with it”, LISTEN TO IT and take heed and stop doing it so you can regain your child-like exuberance and energy.

In order to change, we must change. In order to “go places” and reach our goals, we must take action. Action is the opposite of inertia.

Keep your focus and work your plan. Don’t be a perfectionist and allow a relapse or temporary lapse to cause you to quit. An athlete wouldn’t do that. If they fell during a run, they’d get right back up and keep going. You do the same.

Lastly, this is not a temporary “diet” or “plan”, this is a way of life. A daily, life-long habit that we do just like brushing our teeth. VIEW IT THAT WAY and use words that reflect that type of commitment.