1. Eating – every single thing you put in your mouth either contributes or takes away from a healthy body. Food is the foundation of growing, replacing and maintaining your bones, your muscles, your organs, your hormones, your skin, your mental clarity.
2. Moving – it isn’t just a cliché: Move it or lose it. Your body was designed for use, everyday. Movement or lack of movement affects your bones, your muscles, your organs, your hormones, your skin, your mental clarity.
3. Sleeping – 7 hours sleep every night is not an old wives tale. Your body has to have good quality sleep in order to repair, recover and refresh. Without your essential beauty sleep, your bones, your muscles, your organs, your hormones, your skin, your mental clarity is being compromised.

On a day-to-day basis, you may not notice any difference in your health. Then you wake up one day and something in your body is telling you there is a problem. Pain, dysfunction, disease – these are the only ways your body has of communicating with you. Let’s take sleeping. A few weeks or months or even a few years of interrupted, low quality, lack of sleep may only show up on the outside as bags under the eyes. 10-20 years later, let’s call it “the slow drip”, and you wake up with a weight problem, depression, weak muscles, memory loss. Yes…not getting enough quality sleep, over time, can show up as any one of these problems.
If you are serious about your health, then you have to develop these 5 Healthy-Lives Skills:

1. Learn – everything you can on taking care of yourself, your body. It has to last a long time.
2. Listen – your body talks to you, every day. Start tuning in.
3. Commit – to a picture of you 20-30 years from now. That is your goal.
4. Discipline – nothing in life happens without action. Just do the work.
5. Respect – your body. It is doing an amazing job. It’s your job to give it what it needs.

How many times do you hear, after a heart attack or stroke, “I guess I better START taking better care of myself”. It’s never too late to start, but why not start today, before disease or dysfunction sets in; before there is irreparable damage. Living Healthy-Lives is an investment. It pays off big time down the road. Which picture do you want in your future:

1. Dependent on walkers, pills, machines, others to lift you and help you get through your day.
2. Independent with a body that allows you to get out of bed, walk or run through your day, smile and help those less fortunate.

This is the whole premise of Healthy-Lives. It’s about creating daily habits, daily investments in your future well-being. A penny a day is all it takes.