One of the things you can do to feel better about yourself is to take care of your health. Where you are in terms of the quality of your life five years from now depends on what you are doing now. The moment of Now is always the moment of power. It is the only moment that can affect both the future and the past. Think about that. Your Now affects the past by reviewing an experience, and rearranging your thoughts and emotions to, if needed, lessen a traumatic experience. Your Now affects the future too. If you work, come home, eat and then sit in front of the TV for the rest of the night you are affecting your future by injecting it with a sluggish, unhealthy bored version of 'you' that will one day be the person that you know as you. Your activity level is a main indicator of your ability to remain youthful and energized as time passes by. In fact, time can almost literally pass you by altering you very little as it moseys on its way.

Why take that walk or work out?

Going to the gym is not really about vanity or losing weight. Make no mistake, there are millions of people who go to the gym because they are vain or want to lose weight. But if you'd like the gym to become a life style, then those reasons won't sustain you because one day you will meet that target weight loss, and one day your vanity will- hopefully transmute into something less superficial. If you'd like exercising to be part of your life style, then you have to look at it in that way. Going there has to be about keeping your heart strong, your lungs at full capacity and your mind as quick as a whip! You have to get turned on by the idea of your blood circulating your cardiovascular system and feeding that amazing body that you've been given. In that these are things you can't see, you fair better at making this part of your life style because if these things motivate you, that means they've become your mindset. They become factors that you can't see, but that spur you on and fuels your motivation. Here's the great news, your bodies were made to age much more slowly than what you are accustomed to seeing. Henry S. Lodge, M.D., in his article, You can stop normal aging, states, "The hard reality of our biology is that we are built to move. Exercise is the master signaling system that tells our cells to grow instead of fade. When we exercise that process of growth spread throughout every cell in our bodies, making us functionally younger. Not a little bit younger- a lot younger." So what do you need to know? You need to know that when people live unhealthy lives, they tend to have less energy, they don't appear vibrant either. Living unhealthy life styles affects not only their brain functioning by slowing it down, but also the cells in their bodies that have the potential to produce wonderful skin, strong bones and normal functioning organs- youthfulness- in other words!

Get Motivated!

• Write down your goal to become or remain healthy on a piece of paper and post it somewhere that you will notice every day.

• Every day tell yourself your goal to be healthy is about a having a wholesome lifestyle.

• When you wake up in the morning for the next two months, tell yourself that you love living a healthy life. (whether you have begun your new regiment or not! This is called re-programming)

• When you begin going to the gym, don't start off with hard unpleasant things. Walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes, visit one or two machines then stretch or do yoga for 15 minutes. If there is a Jacuzzi there, reward yourself for what you've just done by taking a nice 15 minute relaxing dip.

• When you go to the gym, even if you don't try out new things, look around and say to yourself what you might like to try one day. Do this every time you go, then after a month or two, try one new thing to add to your regiment.

• Eventually increase your walking time and speed so that you break a sweat and get your heart rate up, add lifting weights that challenge you as well.

• When you don't feel like going to the gym, every one out of every three occasions, still drive there and park in the lot. You will probably find that being there changes your mind set and you become motivated.

• Compliment yourself every time you go to the gym; tell yourself that it feels good to love yourself!

Making poor nutritional choices day in and day out is literally aging you. You might want to think about taking your nutritional left over dinners to work so that you don't get so hungry you opt for fast food. Make a big salad that lasts enough for three lunches, put the fish or chicken to add to it on the side so that it doesn't get soggy, and then eat that for the next three days. Not taking that walk or using the steps is aging you too. Stop acting like an 'old decrepit' person and use your body for the purpose it was made for! Your body isn't a bag that is supposed to be carried around by cars, elevators and escalators it was meant to move! There is nothing wrong with being mature- in fact most mature people quite like it. Here's the point, however, why not be mature, feel and look great at the same time? It's time to start loving yourself by committing to a healthy life style. This is your life, make the most of it!

Copyright Donya Ture'

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