Discovering Your Route to Healthy Living

Living a healthy lifestyle isn't about discipline or will-power it's finally getting to the point where the decisions you make are based on what's best for your health, your body and your life! - Nicki

Last year, I did a piece for Family Circle Magazine. They interviewed health and fitness professionals that had lost a lot of weight and kept it off. Hence, I was interviewed based on my 50 pound weight loss close to 30 years ago. Someone asked me what was the deciding factor in agreeing to be featured as an "expert" in the magazine and I said, "My passion is to inspire others to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle and if I can do that with this article, I'm holding true to my mission."

Everyday I go to work I intentionally strive to inspire and motivate my clients to make the best choices possible for their body and their life. The minute they are able to relinquish the preoccupation with the scale and instead focus on choices that will serve them well, i.e. exercise and sound nutrition, it all starts coming together.

I was called by a newspaper reporter regarding my Family Circle article and she asked me, "So do you still stick to the changes you made over 25 years ago, staying away from fast food and fried food." And I told her that yes, I stay completely away from fried foods and she replied, "Wow, that must take a lot of willpower." So I asked her if she smoked and she said, "No," and I wanted to know if it took a lot of willpower away from cigarettes and she laughed saying, "No, they're bad for you and they stink." And I told her that's why I stay away from fried foods, it's not about will power it's the fact that their bad for you and yes, fried food sort of stinks too!

The point I was trying to make is when you finally decide to make healthy choices because they're simply good for you, it's no longer about deprivation or "control" it comes down to doing the right thing for your body, period end of statement. Eating well serves you well. Moving more, is good for you and good for your body and good for your life, why wouldn't you want to do it? I'll tell you why because we've turned it in to something that is either a success or a failure. Let me elaborate.

I exercise and eat well because it's good for me, it is the "wonder drug" for good health. No meds in the world can offer to my body what exercise and sound nutrition does. When you eat well and exercise in the name of weight loss, your motivation is misplaced, the essence of what you're doing is for all the wrong reasons and ultimately you quit, always you quit.

On the other hand if you begin to look at sound nutrition and exercise as important as the air you breathe it will change your life. You don't count how many times you breathe a day because you "just do it" because it's what keeps you alive, the same goes for exercising and eating right, "just do it" because it's the best thing you can do for yourself, now and forever.

Wherever you decide to start making changes, start with baby steps. Start with something you enjoy as you move forward in your journey of healthy living. You will learn so much along the way and if you educate yourself on the benefits, the likelihood of looking at a healthy lifestyle as a benefit rather than a punishment, you may just find out that healthy living is something that you really want, and that will go a lot farther in getting you the life you deserve!