By Pilar Gerasimo / Experience Life Magazine (this is an extract)

You Want to Be Healthy?

Well, hey, that’s wonderful!

This article is designed to help you succeed. It will equip you with a clarifying sense of what you are up against and prepare you for the journey ahead.

And if you’re feeling a little ambivalent about getting started, it will also give you a friendly kick in the pants. That’s important because getting and staying healthy in the current culture isn’t easy. In fact, it’s a big challenge.

But who, you ask, has the time and energy for another big challenge?

Exactly. Most of us are running around on fumes.

We complain that we don’t have time to eat right or exercise or get enough sleep. We don’t have time to cook or relax or goof around. We don’t have time to get outdoors or connect with the people we love. Most of all, we don’t have time to learn how our bodies work and what it takes to keep them healthy.

And that’s a big part of why so many of us are getting sick. And fat. And depressed. And why we see so many friends and loved ones being diagnosed with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
Understandably, faced with the daunting prospect of changing our lives, most of us would just as soon put it off until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next.

And that’s precisely what about 80 percent of the U.S. population is doing right now. You can join them, watching as the pounds pile on, worrying as the blood pressure climbs, struggling as the energy flags, and fretting as the prescriptions and side effects and medical bills add up. And when things get bad enough, then you can think about changing.

Or, you can spare yourself years of downward spiraling misery and do something about it now.

If you’ve already set out on the path to health, or if you’re already as vital and fit as you want to be, rock on! You deserve a lot of credit — probably far more than you’ve been giving yourself.

And if you’ve been struggling in your attempts to get healthier, don’t beat yourself up about it. Let go of the self-recrimination for a minute. Prepare, instead, to take a clear-eyed look at the uphill battle you’ve been waging, and at why your successes may seem so hard-won.