A discourse on health and lifestyle

What does it mean to live a healthy lifestyle? This question has different answers for different people. for some it means extending their life. For others it means attoning for past errors in their health brought on by bad eating habits and bad exercise choices. For some people it means changing their whole routine and attitude on life, maybe even changing their whole career and life's direction. Regardless of the answer you give to this question, almost everyone agrees that living a healthy lifestyle includes making smart choices with their nutrition and adding (or continuing) to be active, exercise, and maintain a strong physical body and keep unhealthy stress levels to a minimum.
Let's face it, none of us are any younger today than we were yesterday, and the longer we wait to be choose a healthy lifestyle, the more life we miss out on. In the grand scheme of things, do you want to look back on your life and say, "WOW, I sure ate some great meals!"? Or would you rather look back and say "Man, look at that, I climbed that mountain." or "I was able to run a marathon when I was 45 years old."? There's no reason to look back and wish you started a long time ago, that's already behind you, start now so you can say ten years from now "I'm so glad I started ten years ago!".
Motivation is great, and it can give you the extra push you need to reach a goal that you set, but we don't need to create artificial motivation to be healthy. Motivation can and will show up when you start setting expectations for yourself, self confidence comes when you meet goals, and better health comes when your goals and expectations center around a better you. Being proud of your body doesn't mean you are conceited, it means you've gained the mental strength to know that you've done your best and it shows in your body. It doesn't matter what that guy next to you thinks of your looks, it matter what YOU think of yourself. The next time you feel depressed or angry that you "fell off the wagon". Take a step back, analyze what you've done, and revel in your successes! I don't mean looking at how many pounds you've lost (although that CAN be one goal), I mean everything. For some the simple decision to change how you eat is a HUGE success, for others, there is no satisfaction short of complete and total annihalation of the goals you set for yourself. What ever your mindset, just remember that making the choice to be healthy is the most important thing you can do, not losing 20 or 30 or 40 pounds.
I have the utmost respect for a 45 year old woman (who wants to lose 60 pounds) that has been on MFP doing everything right, but in 3 months has only lost 8 or 10 lbs. Why? Because she's still here, she's still working hard, and even though she may not have met her own expectations, she continues to work hard. So remember, the next time you miss a goal, or don't do as many reps in the weight room as you wanted, or step on the scale and don't see the big number, don't dwell on it, resign yourself to the idea that this is a LONG journey, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to reach goals, it's only when you give up trying that you fail to succeed!

Best of luck to you all, and stay healthy!

-Banks