The five CRITICAL things to do for your health and weight loss
I’m often asked what is the best diet, or the best foodprogram, best exercise program and which single best book torecommend to improve your health, fitness or weight loss.
The answer is that there is no best way to do it. There isno best book, and there is no right way or wrong way to do it.
The 5 Critical things you must do to achieve your health arethese
1. Continue to learn about health, fitness, nutrition andweight loss from a wide variety of sources
The single most important thing to do right from the start isto take action and begin learning about health, followed veryclosely by putting what you learn into practice. We are avery diversified bunch of people and what works for you maynot work for the next person. You have to find what works foryou from a wide variety of sources, expand your knowledge andaccept no one thing as being the best for your health. Keepreading, keep learning and keep what works for you and discardwhat doesn’t.
Knowledge isn’t power, but “knowledge in action is power!”
Some very simple things to keep in mind is that the body runson food and if you give it the best quality food, in whatevermanor that happens to be, then you’ll probably get some goodresults in general. Keep the nutrition to a maximum by eatingas close to nature as possible, organic where possible andeliminating processed foods and trans fats.
2. Find a mentor.
Someone who’s been there, done that and that you can model .
I realized at quite an early age that if we can model someonewho’s been there and done that and gotten results, then youcan “cut to the chase” as it were to find out what works foryour health and weight loss – what doesn’t and in doing so getresults faster.
Find a mentor, a role model for the things that you’re lookingfor. If it’s weight loss or to improve your health, findsomeone who’s walked in your footsteps and knows what you’regoing through. Model them. Do what they did, repeat theirprocess and contact them to ask what worked and what didn’t. You can save yourself a lot of time and effort by doing whatworks and skipping what doesn’t.
3. Apply the knowledge you learn about health on a dailybasis
This is where the taking action part comes in. You must beginto apply the knowledge you’ve gained from what you’ve readabout health or watched and by talking with people who’ve beenthere before you. If you do not put it into practice thenyou’ve become an information junkie and not someone whofollows through on their knowledge. You must begin to workthe principles you’ve learned on a daily basis and keep at it. Without the trial and error, you get nowhere fast and won’ttruly know what works and what doesn’t.
4. Repeat steps one, two and three
Remember, there is no right way or wrong way to lose weight,improve your health or get what you want. You must continueto learn and challenge what you’ve read. I’m told that what Iteach is wrong and I ask what were your results when you triedit? Well, they didn’t try it and so I then ask “what right doyou have to tell me what I teach is wrong”. It may haveworked for me or for many people I coach including yourself,but without trying it and challenging it, you won’t ever know.
Keep learning about health, keep reading, keep applying whatyou’ve read and this new knowledge. Begin the process offiltering for yourself what will and won’t work for you. Remember this is about you, not me or the other guy, but whatwill help you achieve your weight loss goals or your health. This may very well be about applying certain fitnessprinciples that sound so controversy that you figure theycan’t possibly work. One of my favorite sayings is “believenothing I say, but I challenge you to prove me wrong”. Myintent is to have you try it.
When I first begun my journey to lose 300 pounds, I read onebook and I preached the principles like they were the gospel. I was finally told to “shut up” and read something else, so Itook it upon myself to learn whatever I could about health andweight loss. I began to apply my new knowledge daily, foundpeople who had used the info before and what they believedabout it, what worked for them for their health and thendiscovered for myself what worked.
Finally, I discovered the ultimate secret to health and weightloss.
5. Never give up.
It never ends. In the large scope of your life, the next 30,40, 50 or more years, what is a few days if you happen to getoff track. Get right back on doing what you were doing, keeplearning, keep trying new things, go back to what worked whenit was working and keep up with your daily fitness routine. Probably the single most important fact about exercise orfitness is that our body is designed to move and we’ve gottenaway from that. We must do something on a daily basis toexercise our body.
Never give up. Never lose sight of the health you want andkeep working towards your goal.