The five crucial things you should do for your health and weight loss

The five crucial things you should do for your health and weight loss

I am often asked what is the best diet, nutrition program, exercise program and what is the best book to recommend to improve your health, fitness or weight loss.

The answer is that there is no best way to do this. There is no best book, and there is no right or wrong way to do it.

The 5 critical things you must do to achieve your health are these:

1. Continue to learn about health, fitness, nutrition and weight loss from a variety of sources

The most important thing to do right from the start is to take action and start learning about health, followed by putting what you have learned into practice. We are a very diverse bunch and what works for you may not work for the next person. You need to find out what works for you from a variety of sources, expand your knowledge, and accept nothing but what is best for your health. Keep reading, keep learning, and keep what works for you and discard what doesn't.

Knowledge is not power, but “Knowledge in action is power!”

Some very simple things to keep in mind are that the body is fueled and if you give it the best nutrition no matter what the situation then you are likely to get some good results in general. Keep your diet to the maximum by eating as close to nature as possible, organic if possible, and avoiding processed foods and trans fats.

2. Find a mentor.

Someone who was there did that and you can model that.

I realized at a young age that if we can model someone who has been there and done that and gotten results, then you can "go on the hunt" so to speak to find out what works for your health and weight loss - what doesn't and get results faster.

Find a mentor, a role model for the things you are looking for. When it comes to weight loss or your health, look for someone who has walked in your shoes and knows what you are going through. Model them. Do what they did, repeat the process, and contact them to ask what worked and what didn't. You can save yourself a lot of time and effort by doing what works and what doesn't work.

3. Apply the knowledge you learn about health every day

This is where the action part comes into play. You need to start applying the knowledge you've gained from what you've read or seen about health and from talking to people who have been there before you. If you don't put it into action, you're an information junkie and not someone who follows up on what they know. You have to start working on the principles you have learned every day and stick with them. Without trial and error, you'll quickly get nowhere and not really know what works and what doesn't.

4. Repeat steps one, two and three

Remember, there is no right or wrong way to lose weight, improve your health, or get what you want. You must continue to learn and question what you read. I am told that what I am teaching is wrong and I ask what were your results when you tried it? Well, they didn't try and so I ask "what right do you have to tell me what I teach is wrong". It may have worked for me or for many people I coach, including yourself, but without trying and challenging it, you'll never know.

Keep learning about health, keep reading, keep applying what you read and this new knowledge. Start by filtering for yourself what works for you and what doesn't. Remember, this is about you, not about me or them, but what will help you achieve your weight loss goals or your health. This may very well involve applying certain fitness principles that sound so controversial that you think they can't possibly work. One of my favorite sayings is “Don’t believe anything I say, but I dare you to prove me wrong.” My intention is for you to try it.

When I first began my journey to lose 300 pounds, I read a book and preached the principles like they were the gospel. Eventually I was told to “shut up” and read something else, so I took it upon myself to learn everything I could about health and weight loss. I started applying my new knowledge daily, finding people who had used the information before and what they thought worked for their health, and then discovering what worked for myself.

Finally, I discovered the ultimate secret to health and weight loss.

5. Never give up.

It never ends. In the grand scheme of your life, the next 30, 40, 50 or more years, what's a few days if you go off track. Get right back to what you were doing, keep learning, keep trying new things, go back to what worked when it worked, and keep up with your daily fitness routine. Probably the most important fact about exercise or fitness is that our bodies are designed to move and we have gotten away from it. We need to do something daily to exercise our bodies.

Never give up. Never lose sight of the health you want and keep working towards your goal.

Inspired by Rob Cooper