What Is "Better Health"?

Better health can mean different things to different people. When you say that you want to get motivated to better health, are you saying that you want to experience less illnesses in the year, or that you want to lose some weight, or that you need to have more energy to make it through your day? Better health for you may be different than better health for someone else because your starting point is different. You may already be relatively healthy and just want to improve your health a little, or you may be completely unhealthy and require an overhaul of all your health habits (or lack thereof). Remember that better health for you is a unique goal, and it's a goal that only you can set because you know where you are now and where you eventually want to be.

YOU SET YOUR OWN GOALS

You can follow a plan, but follow your heart. There are countless books that outline plans that are designed to get people healthier. Oftentimes a certain book will cause a stir and get plenty of attention for a while only to eventually be either discredited after extensive use or replaced by a different program that catches the eye of the public. If you decide that you want to follow a plan in your quest for better health you should make sure that you aren't doing something just because it's the latest craze.

Since there is an abundance of programs designed to get people healthier, there is no reason why you should choose a program that doesn't seem quite right to you. For example, if you talk yourself into following a cleansing and detoxification program simply because your favorite celebrity endorses it, you may find yourself sprawled out on a table awaiting a detox colonic and wondering how in the world you wound up in this situation. Choose a program that makes sense to you. If you read the back cover of a book that claims to be the be-all and end-all guide to better health and some of the aspects of the program just seem a little fishy to you then move on to a different program.

If you know someone who followed a program with great success then you may want to ask that person about the difficulty of following the program. For example, if you cannot go a day without consuming red meat then you probably don't want to jump into a completely vegan diet on the recommendation of a book. Look for programs that have stood the test of time, and ignore celebrity endorsements if you can. You also want to steer clear of programs that are wildly contrary to current scientific ideas. A book that tells you that sunscreen causes cancer or that you should eliminate all fruits and vegetables from your diet is a book that is attempting to lure people in by being shockingly different from every other book on the shelf. Don't jump into any program that tells you to do things that just don't seem right to you because you won't be motivated to follow through. A program that is designed to get you healthier using methods that you're comfortable with and that don't leave you feeling deprived or violated is the type of program you should follow for maximum results.

Don't do this for someone else. It's a common scenario: you decide that you want to attract a certain person and in order to do so you're going to embark on a radical program to get healthier and more attractive. Or perhaps your spouse decides that you need to lose a little weight and hassles you to get serious about getting healthy. These instances can certainly be a catalyst to get you up and running (unless they just make you resent the other person) but you should not allow the desires of another person to be the only reason for wanting to get healthier. It's just not the most effective motivation. You have to do this for you, and anyone else who gets jolly over your healthy transformation is simply an added bonus for your hard work.

There are two reasons why you can't allow someone else to be your only motivation. The primary reason is because you will be much more apt to follow through and stay motivated if your decision to get healthier is a decision you made yourself. The other reason is because people come and go - spouses leave, friends wane, and objects of affection can fizzle as quickly as they started. What would happen if your sole motivation to get healthy was to attract the eye of a co-worker, and then in the middle of your hard work toward a healthier self this co-worker was transferred to another location? There goes your motivation. Make your own decision to get healthy. If someone else wants to be involved in the decision then tell them they can join you in the quest, but they can't dictate the actions you'll take while you're trying to get healthier.

A little healthy competition is fine, but shouldn't be your sole motivation. You may find an exercise buddy or a diet buddy who helps you stay motivated and this is great. The problem arises, however, when the competition becomes your only reason for continuing on the path of improving your health. For example, if you and your sibling decide that a little healthy competition to see who can do the most pull-ups is a fantastic way to measure who is getting healthier then you may start to focus solely on the pull ups and not so much on the other things you should be concentrating on. Also, consider what might happen if your sibling (or whoever you have the competition with) decides to drop out and not work towards getting healthier anymore.

If the competition was your only motivation then your motivation is essentially gone in this instance. You can't rely on someone else to keep you motivated. A good portion of your motivation should come from within and not from someone else. Having said this, there is nothing wrong with allowing a little bit of competition to be a motivating factor. If you are competitive by nature then having someone else to compete with can be a great motivation in addition to being a lot of fun for you. Just make sure that you are getting healthy because you want to get healthy and you know that it's for your betterment…don't rely solely on your competition with someone else to keep you going.

MEDICAL ADVICE

Talk to your doctor. You're probably familiar with the phrase that is plastered all over exercise equipment, diet plans, and anything else that is designed to help you get healthier: "Consult a physician prior to beginning any new program." You have probably chuckled at the thought of calling your doctor's office to let your doctor know that you're contemplating hopping on a treadmill for a short walk.

The truth is that you really should consider making an appointment with your doctor if you are starting up a new plan to get healthier. This is especially true for anyone who has been inactive for an extended period of time or for people with previous injuries that may limit the activities they should do. So although it is a pretty absurd idea to call your doctor to ask permission to climb onto a stationary bike at the gym, you may be surprised at the valuable advice your doctor may have for you regardless of your previous health history.

Your doctor may be able to recommend a specific plan for you to follow that will make your quest to get healthier easier. By the same token, your doctor may be able to steer you away from another plan that you have been considering but did not realize it could be detrimental to your health. Some doctors may actually want to conduct a full physical on patients before giving a recommendation, so don't be surprised if your doctor starts thumping on your knee or ordering some laboratory tests. You should consider your doctor an ally when it comes to achieving your goal of being healthier. For this reason you should be sure to be completely honest with your doctor. Don't fib on the number of cigarettes you smoke or the level of activity you currently have. Your doctor isn't there to judge you, so there is no reason for you to try to make yourself look like someone you aren't. Just be honest with your doctor and take heed of the advice your doctor gives you because it can certainly help. Besides, you can always use the goal of never having to come into your doctor's office again for this type of consultation as a great motivator…instead set your sights on amazing your doctor at how healthy you can get.

There may be reasons why you shouldn't jump right in. There is a joke among medical professionals that the advent of Viagra actually saved the lives of many men…not because it improved the sex lives of men but because men who hadn't been to the doctor in ages actually went in to get a prescription of the potent pill and had to agree to a physical examination. It was during these examinations of male patients who wanted Viagra that many of the men were discovered to have serious health issues, including heart disease. Without the physical examinations and subsequent testing, these conditions may never have been discovered and the ailments may have resulted in early death.

The moral of the story is that you never really know what is going on inside your body, and sometimes the only way to find out is to book an appointment with your doctor and succumb to some testing. If you have an unknown condition within your body - such as a heart ailment or some other illness that you aren't aware of - and you hop on an exercise machine and do some serious exertion then your underlying health condition can cause some real problems. It may be something as serious as a health condition that can prevent you from certain exercises, or something as fixable as a nutritional deficit that should be corrected prior to starting a new diet. For example, you may discover that you're anemic and therefore should think twice before hopping into a vegetarian diet unless you know how to get iron from non-meat sources.

Most issues can be discovered by your doctor relatively easily so you don't really have to worry about extensive and invasive testing when you go in for your physical examination. Just be sure to let your doctor know about any symptoms you have (shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, et cetera) and additionally about any family history of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or any other ailment of concern. This will make it easier for your doctor to figure out what he or she should emphasize when screening you for issues.

There is no magic pill, you know. When you make your appointment to go see your doctor you should not show up at the office expecting to be handed a fat-burner pill or multi-vitamin and being told that there is nothing further you need to do beyond popping this pill once a day. Getting healthy takes hard work, and any competent doctor will tell you that. So ignore the advertisements you see that make losing weight and getting healthy as easy as taking a pill every day…if you read the directions on these pill programs you'll notice that the vast majority of them direct users to take the pills in conjunction with a diet and exercise program, so that blows the theory right out of the water that the pills alone can whip you into shape.

Don't get too excited when you hear media reports about new pills on the market for losing weight, gaining energy, getting healthier, or any other number of claims. There are certain vitamins and supplements that can certainly assist you in your quest to get healthier, but there is probably not one single pill on the market that can make you healthier on its own and without any other effort on your part. If you are going to take pills then take them in conjunction with other healthy lifestyle changes and make sure that your doctor knows about what pills you're taking. Even herbal supplements can have contraindications with other medicines and supplements you may be taking, so this isn't something you should hide from your doctor. When you are looking for some extra motivation to get healthier you should know that anything worth having is worth working hard for, and consequently you should not feel discouraged that there is no magic pill that can solve all your health issues. Let your motivation center around the results you get from your hard work and fortitude, and not from the results you see from popping a pill.

IGNORE HOLLYWOOD

You can't base your goals on what you see in the movies. There is one thing that you need to get out of your mind right now: you should not compare yourself to the actors and actresses you see on the movie screen when it comes to your body shape and the progression of aging. These people are paid an absurd amount of money for a few reasons, some of which are their talents but another reason is because they have a sort of "other-worldliness" about them that sets them apart from everyone else in society. You can't look at a fifty year-old actress and then get mad at yourself because you don't look as good as she does (and you're forty). You don't know if this person is actually healthy or not…remember that a svelte physique is not necessarily indicative of good health. For all you know, this actress may head to the medicine cabinet to load up on laxatives every time she eats in an attempt to maintain her physical status. She may also have had several operations to keep her face looking as young as possible.

A radiant glow in Hollywood does not necessarily mean that the person glowing is healthy; instead it may just mean that this person has paid a lot of money to a lot of people to help her achieve a certain youthful look. If you base your idea of healthiness on what you see in the movies and in the media then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Your goals should revolve around what you think you can do to make yourself healthy, and not what you figure is healthy based on what you see when you watch a movie. If you spend a lot of time obsessing over what you think society expects of you when it comes to being healthy then you're setting yourself up for a vicious cycle where you never really figure out what healthy means. You may know what "attractive" is, but your concern should be aimed toward health, not attraction.

You're setting yourself up for failure. Sure, you know that the images you see in the movies and on television are ridiculously unattainable to most people, but that probably doesn't stop you from wanting to achieve the same image for yourself nonetheless. It's okay if you want to derive some motivation from a certain actor or actress as long as you aren't basing your entire motivation on wanting to look like this person. This type of motivation is dangerous on many levels. Maybe you simply don't have a matching physique to this person no matter how much you work out…remember that everyone has a certain body type that they fall into and there are some genetic predeterminations that just can't be overcome. The disappointment you will inevitably experience when your hard work does not pay off by making you a replica of the person you idolize might be the thing that derails you because of the vast disappointment you feel.

Your motivation needs to come from other sources, and if you want to toss in a little motivation from hoping to someday look a little more like your favorite Hollywood star then that's fine. Just make sure that you aren't putting all your eggs into one basket and basing all of your motivation on one specific look. Remember that your goal is to get healthier, not to look like a certain person who, by the way, couldn't care less about you. Choose your motivation carefully, and don't set yourself up for failure.

These people have endless resources. Hollywood stars will deny this until the end of time, but most reasonable people know this as fact: much of what you see on the movie screen and on television is a product of plastic surgery, airbrushing, great makeup and hairstylists, and sadly a product of actors and actresses who simply don't eat unless they have to. When these folks do eat they have brilliant chefs who know how to design scrumptious meals based on the advice of knowledgeable nutritionists who can make sure that the actors and actresses are getting just the right amount of the nutrients they need, and nothing more.

Yes, there are some Hollywood stars who work out like mad and who earn their bodies the old fashioned way, but remember that these people also have the resources to pay for personal trainers and all of the latest equipment to keep them fit. If they get assigned a movie role that requires them to lose ten pounds then they can take the time - as work - to lose that weight with all the professional help they need. Do you have these resources? Can you take time off from work to lose weight? Do you have a chef who makes sure that your meals are all nutritionally balanced in addition to being delicious? Do you have a stylist who can make sure that even when you have missed a few hours of sleep you still appear radiant?

The most likely answer is that you don't have these resources. If you did, you too might be able to achieve the enviable looks of the people you see in the movies and on television. The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of people to make one person look so good, and since you don't have these resources you certainly can't expect to join the ranks of the uber-attractive no matter how much effort you're willing to put into the process. It bears repeating: attractive and slim does not necessarily translate into healthy. Yes, you will probably look much better when you pay more attention to your health and your body, but a lot of the improvements you gain will be internal. Do not allow a quest to become attractive to be your sole motivation to getting healthier. If anything, you can motivate yourself to get healthy and then move on to working on your physical appearance if it still means that much to you. You certainly won't be able to achieve a healthy glow if you're not healthy (and you don't have an army of stylists to help you achieve said glow).

So what does "better health" mean to you? Does it mean that you are physically fit and can run a marathon? Or does better health refer to an overall state of being that you have when everything within your body is balanced? Once you figure out what your idea of better health is then you're ready to get motivated and jump right in on a quest to improving your overall health, and as a result, living a fuller life.

On the next page we will talk about Motivational Health Tools.