Everyone touts special pills and crunches to the normal Joe who wants to make some changes in his life. Because he is only human, man is always looking for the silver bullet to whatever he desires, including health and wellness.

Unfortunately, this is an area where you cannot just shed the poundage and clear the arteries without sacrifice. Try as you might, you need to put down the chili dogs and lager and pick up the jogging shoes and weights to get the results you want.

Most people will start a program by signing up at their local health club or YMCA with great intentions, but will eventually fall back into their normal routines when the going gets tough or they lose interest. This is a fact that many people should realize and face into right off the bat.

Of course, the intent and desire to better your health is always the right decision, it is in the planning and execution that most people fail. They fail, because they do not take a step back and develop a strategy toward long term goals and lifestyle changes. They fail, because they think that eating a greasy burger and fries can easily be canceled out by just walking around the track a few times.

Even though the data is out there, we as humans justify our decisions based on the path of least resistance, which in this case, leads us back to the couch, the remote and bag of chips. Getting healthy is a mindset that takes time to develop and practice, and unless you are willing to step back and realize your long term heath is critically dependent upon your continued desire to change your eating and exercise habits, do not bother to get started, because you are destined to fail.

So if you want to succeed, plan out a strategy through small changes in eating habits and physical exercise. If you look at how you started last year and the years before, you follow the same pattern and fail to follow through.