What Is a Healthy Lifestyle Change?

When it comes to losing weight or getting fit, most  of us have all heard the following: "It simply has to be a lifestyle change."  I'm sure we would all agree that this sounds great but exactly what does it mean and how do you create a "healthy lifestyle change" after years of doing your own thing?

Some of you reading this blog may already have a healthy eating and exercise pattern in place.  You may be reading this blog simply to add on new ideas or re-enforce the great habits you've already incorporated into your life.  Good for you; that is awesome!  You fall into the approximate 33% of our nation that is not overweight or obese.   Sharon, the co-author of "Tame Your Inner Octopus" and I clearly did not fall into that category.  We were in the category of you better do something quickly to reverse the bad habits you've created over decades or you're going to stay fat and unfit for the remainder of your life!  We were in trouble but we are proof, that no matter what age you are in life, whether you are younger or older, you can most certainly accomplish your goals when it pertains to eating correctly or setting up a healthy fitness pattern for life.

Yes, we were with the approximate 67% of our nation that is either overweight or obese.  We were among the millions who evidently didn't have a healthy eating or fitness pattern in place.  We both had our "That's It - Enough is Enough!" moment.  We both knew it was a now or never situation.

We simply knew we had to create a personal LIFESTYLE CHANGE.  What we didn't know was how we were going to go about setting one up.  There was no such book that we could find that spelled it out in an easy to understand manner on a level that reached us personally with all of the information we greatly needed. 

Here are a few of the feelings we had when we had our "That's It - Enough is Enough!" moment.

• I cannot continue to eat in this manner.
• I'm tired of carrying the guilt and the burden of all of the extra pounds.
• I'm tired of having no control over when and what I eat each day.
• I have to make a lifestyle change in order to overcome the unhealthy habits I now have in place.
• I realize it may at first seem extremely difficult to turn this around but I'll get past that and accomplish my goals. 

How did we incorporate a new healthy lifestyle change into our lives?

• We changed our eating habits and began to slowly incorporate exercise on an almost daily basis.
• We became accountable for how many calories we ate each day.  We created a deficit in order to lose the weight and we stuck to that intake until every pound we wanted to lose was gone.
• We replaced feelings of guilt with feelings of control and elation as the pounds dripped off week after week.
• We removed unhealthy items from the house immediately and we wrote down everything we ate daily so that we would stay on track and meet our personal goals as we began to educate ourselves.
• We researched the food pyramid at http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and set up our own healthy eating pattern based on our own  personal favorite foods.

Of course, there is so much more and all of it will be within the pages of our forthcoming book, It's Never Too Early or Too Late to Lose Weight - Tame Your Inner Octopus! In 30 days or Less!

Have a great day everyone!