Am I Healthy?

Health is more than simply being alive. Your health is directly related to your quality of life. Regardless of your age, you would be healthy if it were easy bending down to tie your shoes, for instance, or standing up from most any chair or sofa without assistance of some sort. You could consider yourself healthy if breathing were easy, walking a couple of miles was not an effort, and most importantly, your stomach doesn't bulge and your sides don't hang over your belt. You could consider youself healthy if you are in at least the "good" range of the body fat chart.

Health is a matter of eating a balanced diet, doing some sort of at least moderate exercise, and making sure the foods you eat are good for you. Of course, that sort of redundant with "a balanced diet", but a lot of people think if they eat the correct number of foods from all the right food groups daily that the quality of those choices doesn't have to be great.

Sick or Well Most of the Year?

Well that would certainly indicate if you were healthy or not. Do you get sick more than 3 or 4 times a year? Do you feel "under the weather" often? Or are the person others say they never see you sick, or you're like the "engergizer bunny" who keeps going, and going, and going... If you're sick often, then you are not healthy. Of course there are certain medical conditions for some people for which diet and exercise will not help. But for the general audience, if there is no medical reason you are un-healthy other than for lack of desire, then simply changing your diet and getting just a little exercise can:

• boost your immune system
• increase your blood flow
• prevent high cholesterol
• lower your cholesterol
• prevent and reduce the risk of heart problems
• help prevent or deter Alzheimer's
• more positive moods

For only a little work, all of the above is a pretty nice list of positive results. Wouldn't you agree? And that list is only a short list of what positive changes you may achieve with a change in your diet and daily routine.

How Much Work to Better Health?

It's not difficult to perform the exercise, and it's not difficult to eat the right foods. What is difficult is making the habit changes so that your lifestyle to better health becomes your new routine.

QUOTE: "It takes 21 days to make or break a habit."

That's right! Take only 21 days - 3 weeks - of concentrated effort to make the necessary changes and feel better the rest of your life. You can do 3 weeks...anybody can do 3 weeks. You have 52 weeks in a year. 3 weeks is nothing! In that 3 weeks you need to do the following:

• buy healthy food
• calculate the number of calories you burn daily
• monitor the number of calories you consume daily
• start walking for 20 minutes 3 times weekly and build up to 40 minutes

If you want to do more that's great! But don't push yourself too hard initially. The easiest way to fail is to make the new changes difficult. If you would like to have Garrison Body assess your health and prepare a plan for you, use our "Diet Plans" page to get started today.

What Should I Know?

If you are willing to try to make the changes on your own you need to know:

• your maximum heart rate
• total body fat
• how your body fat compares
• how many calories you consume daily
• how many calories you expend (burn) daily

We have included easy to use calculators and charts in our Web site so that you can assess your own body health, or, understand what you need in order to make the necessary changes.

If you would rather we do the calculations and create plans for you, simply use this link to Diet Plans. Once you begin the process you will need to answer a few questions and then follow our guidance. We will structure the information so that it's easy to follow.