Ageless Mirrorathlete: Overweight and Unfit No More

By Marc T. Woodard

Pacific Book Awards Finalist “Best Health"
RECOMMENDED by the US Review

There are few fit healthy lifestyle consultants with over 40-years’ experience willing to give up programming trade secrets at the expense of losing clients and revenues.

I’ve been on a mission to expose the half-truths and lies within the fitness, health, big-pharma, agriculture, sports, and diet and celebrity industries including government and why they don’t want this information as common consumer knowledge. To reveal it is considered taboo by my colleagues and unwelcomed by the marketplace. However I can’t sit idly by and watch the charlatans put the next generation’s health at risk for the sake of profit. My only regret, taking so long to write the book.

After each chapter I relate my mobility and pain depression challenges after being diagnosed with Avascular Necrosis (AVN) bone disease. That’s right, through my immobility adversity misfortune you also learn how to apply a customized fit healthy habit program to live life to the fullest regardless of ailment.

This timeless and incredible consumer safety information is for anyone who wants to get fit, feel well and look good at any age. It also includes educational ill-health prevention and community recreation concepts to “Save the Next Generation’s Children from obesity and related disease.”

mirrorathlete.com
mirrorathlete.org

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532053733

Marc T. Woodard

MARC WOODARD has 40 years of experience as a fit healthy lifestyle consultant and published author on Wellness “Fitness & Nutrition” books for military service personnel.  He owns MirrorAthlete, an online fitness secrets educational website and a former eight year City Councilor of Tigard Oregon. He retired from the Army after 20 plus years of service to his country. As a disabled vet, now dedicates his life by revealing fit healthy information through his writings.

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Copyright © 2019 Marc T. Woodard.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5371-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5372-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5373-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018907889

iUniverse rev. date: 01/18/2019

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1     Relatable Knowledge Produces Superior Fitness Results

Chapter 2     Selfish Interests Impact the Health of Our Kids

Chapter 3     Muscles’ Fuel Preference during Exercise

Chapter 4     Fitness, Diet, and Antiaging Gimmicks Are Profitable

Chapter 5     Caloric Exchange: A Balancing Act

Chapter 6     Consumer Trust at What Cost?

Chapter 7     Substitute Addictive Habits

Chapter 8     All Fats Are Not Equal

Chapter 9     Health Risk Prediction and Prevention

Chapter 10   Choose Favorite Foods to Lose Weight

Chapter 11   The Impact of Cooking Oils on Health

Chapter 12   Many Habits Were Formed Day One

Chapter 13   Leveraging Healthy Habit Change

Chapter 14   Processed vs. Organic Food

Chapter 15   Antiaging and Physical Performance-Enhancement Truths

Chapter 16   Don’t Take Breathing for Granted

Chapter 17   Longevity Secrets Divulged

Chapter 18   Customized Fitness Programming

Conclusion

Appendix

References

Preface

Years ago, at the age of forty-three, physical adversity struck.

At that time, I dusted off a unique, fit, healthy lifestyle manuscript I’d planned to publish one day. I always knew the principled information could provide anyone the knowledge needed to achieve any fitness goal or heal what ailed him or her naturally—and that included myself. This would be especially true when the mind, body, and spirit were broken and in need of mending.

The principled, fit, healthy lifestyle philosophy MirrorAthlete is founded on is uniquely presented in a way that’s academically and intuitively relatable and applicable for anyone—young and old. And it will positively motivate any person to become more progressively active and to improve health, fitness levels, and well-being, regardless of the current lifestyle, mobility, and medical condition or environment in which he or she lives.

The plethora of citations, client consultation, personal experience, and other examples within the book provide relatable building blocks that can show anyone how to plan and develop a customized fitness-and-healthy-habits program to remain forever ageless and to sustain those results safely and naturally for a lifetime.

If weight loss, strength, cardio-muscular endurance, flexibility, mobility, healthy longevity, wellness, increased energy, or competitive sport or athletic and physical performance enhancement is your number one goal, then MirrorAthlete has the information you need and want now. The consumer truths are presented and revealed in a relatable way you’ve never seen before.

Rest assured that all aspects of safe diet and weight loss, antiaging, physical enhancement and consumer safety awareness, and more are covered in full detail. You’ll learn all this without spending hundreds of dollars on related products and services that don’t work and can’t be sustained. Plus, you’ll understand why they make you sick.

The MirrorAthlete Principled Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle Philosophy first evolved long ago from a love of sport and traditional family and social events with recreational activities experienced during childhood.

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As a young adult, I was ultimately led by those early activities and passions to an undergraduate degree in exercise science from Portland State University (PSU) in Oregon (attained in 1988).

I coined this principled, fit, healthy lifestyle philosophy MirrorAthlete Science. The context of the book is based in science and connected with a fit, healthy lifestyle ideology formed through personal and consulting knowledge, education, and experience. The philosophy enables each person to determine what he or she needs to achieve well-being and live life to the fullest.

The ideology then evolved through academics, client consults, and training experiences into a philosophy on how anyone can live a healthier and happier lifestyle. The Ageless MirrorAthlete philosophy is built on eighteen fit, healthy lifestyle principles worth their weight in gold. Soon you’ll understand why the marketplace hopes that you never get your hands on this powerful information.

One principle is covered at a time and listed under each chapter title. The information within each chapter is related to the principle and presented in a very unique and personal way that you’ll identify with. Each chapter also provides relevant tools that will increase your fitness levels, improve your mobility and health, and give you the quality of life you need and deserve now!

The making of MirrorAthlete

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Prior to and after graduating college, I served in the active duty US Air Force from 1982 to 1985 as an administrative specialist and trained to compete in bodybuilding at Castle Air Force Base, California, representing the 93 AMS (Avionics Maintenance Squadron). This is where I met my future wife Beth.

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Thereafter, I served within the Air National Guard at Portland International Airport, Oregon, as an NCOIC (noncommissioned officer in charge). I also worked as a civilian employee at the base fitness center from 1986 to 1988. From this point forward, I served in the Air Force Reserves (AFRES) at the same base as a MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) specialist and a civilian recreation director from 1989 to 1991.

Both my wife, Elizabeth, and I secured employment at PIAP (Portland International Airport), Oregon, Air National Guard and Reserve base. At separate times, we each served as MWR fitness center manager and recreation director.

Elizabeth remained a recreation director for some time, while I pursued a change in military career to seek other professional interests and opportunities.

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As such, I earned an army commission through the OMA (Oregon Military Academy) at Western University in Monmouth, Oregon, while serving in the Army National Guard. I graduated with the OMA class 36 in July 1993. Then I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army. Shortly thereafter, I entered into the Medical Services Corp (MSC).

I also wrote and developed fitness-health-and-nutrition course materials and applied exercise science as a fitness consultant and instructor for the Air Force Reserve Command Morale, Welfare and Recreation (AFRC MWR) HQ’s Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia from 1989 to 1996.

Outside of those things, I owned and operated a fitness-consulting-and-supplement business named Dynamic Dimensions (1987 to 1996). Yep, I had a lot going on. I’m one of those types that burned the candle at both ends.

My wife and I also served as subject matter experts for MWR’s fitness-health-and-nutrition book, which we cowrote. I used it as a guide to develop an instructor’s curriculum, with course materials for circulation within the military reserve and guard branches. Thereafter, I was contracted by the air force reserve headquarters in Macon, Georgia, to instruct fitness certification courses annually that contained exercise science, fitness, health, and nutrition information.

After instructing the successful completion of the four-day fitness-and-nutrition-course seminars, I’d provide a certification of fitness course completion after student airmen had passed written and practical exams.

As a subject matter expert in exercise science, also known as exercise physiology, I coauthored Working on Wellness, Fitness and Nutrition, Keys to Good Health. The book was published, and around 190,000 copies were circulated to all air force reservists, as well as to other military branches of service, during the midnineties. My wife and I received full subject-matter-expert recognition and credit for the publication.

I also used the instructor curriculum course information as a guideline for years during one-on-one client consults in private sessions. I used it mostly to profile and assess client fitness levels and develop custom fitness and healthy habits programs.

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After being commissioned second lieutenant, I served as an Army National Guard treatment platoon leader for the 141st Support Battalion, C-Med Company, Portland, Oregon. Then later I served as a materials health officer (S-4, staff officer, logistician of medical supplies), STARC (state area command), detachment 8, Sacramento, California. I retired with just over twenty years of combined active air force and then nonactive air guard reserve and army guard military service.

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Within these years, I recall a major milestone in 1999 that led to the creation of MirrorAthlete. While on a seven-day Mexican Riviera cruise, I wrote the first manuscript draft, which identified and defined the construct of a principled, fit, healthy lifestyle philosophy based in exercise science.

However, I put the idea of completing and publishing the book on hold to complete a master’s in business administration (MBA) from 2000 to 2002, while employed with a large high-tech corporation. Simultaneously, Elizabeth completed her master’s in education (MEd) and graduated within the same timeline. She currently works for a large nonprofit corporation that provides services for seniors.

To complete this book project was anything but easy. It literally took nearly two decades to write and get published. Once you understand my full backstory and physical adversity challenge, you’ll quickly realize why it took so long and how these hard-earned truths motivated me to complete the book. Without the passage of time and unique lifestyle experiences and education, this book would probably read like any other fitness or health book found on a bookshelf. I assure you this is not the case.

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After retiring 03E (captain with prior enlisted time) from the US Army National guard in 2003 and retiring from corporate employment in 2007, I began giving back to community. First, I provided free fitness, nutrition, and health information, which I published online at www.mirrorathlete.com. This is where I really learned how to write. But there’s always room for improvement. Forever editing was a huge time sink for me, and editing was a skill set I needed to get better at if I was ever going to get a book published.

I was really good at technical writing but not so good at storytelling, let alone writing a book of this caliber. I began trying to write a factual, fit, healthy narrative manuscript in 2007 from the 1999 outline. By 2013, I submitted it to a publishing company. It was returned with 540 change requests. I damn near stopped writing. Talk about a blow to the ego. I’m glad I didn’t give up.

Four years later, I completed the change requests and wrote the book I never thought possible.

In between this time, I also won elected office as a City Councilor in Tigard, OR and began serving the first four-year term in January 2011. I won a second term for another four years, which began January 2014 and ended 31 December 2018.

I set two very important goals for our city—city recreation (2012) and economic development (2013). Both goals won unanimous support from city leaders as priorities. Before these goals were set, those programs and services were nonexistent. Soon you’ll understand how environment, city recreation, and economic development are connected in healthy city design and development. And why these things matter if you hope to achieve your fitness goals. You’ll also see how these things, when combined, help people live healthier, happier, and more productive lifestyles while bringing community together.

It is within public service that I championed, challenged, and influenced the development of a healthy, walkable city vision. I established goals, priorities, policies, and community engagement. And I brought to the forefront the importance of investing in and planning for more exercise activities, supporting recreational community facilities, and developing more parks and city trail ways throughout neighborhoods.

Recreation facilities located in communities can offer a variety of childhood and adult indoor and outdoor fitness activities that motivate people to move more. These relatively inexpensive and innovative, fit and healthy civic projects support ideals that fight childhood and adult obesity—both of which greatly plague the health of the financially disparaged population living in all communities.

US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy stated during the annual 2015 National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA) conference, We live in a time where health disparity continues to grow. The theme was that city recreation should be of highest priority, alongside policing services, as both save lives in various ways and must be resourced to the fullest extent possible during the city budget process. He stated in various ways and flat-out said, City recreation saves lives.

How does a healthy city environment apply to fitness and healthy habit and lifestyle programming? If the place you live is stressful or has bad air and/or water quality—or if it provides few safe public use recreation facilities and fitness activities or makes you or your children feel ill for whatever reason—it will be harder to achieve fitness, health, and well-being goals.

This book’s focus is not on healthy city development. However, I’ve sprinkled in just enough on the topic so the reader can appreciate and relate to what a healthy city environment should look and feel like, especially if the reader is considering a move.

Each customized fitness and healthy habits program example shows anyone how to create and apply a personalized fit healthy lifestyle within any environment. Seeing is also believing. Your fitness levels will increase as you work toward your fitness goals; you’ll physically see and feel the change. These results are measureable and sustainable long term when provided truthful information.

These chapters also have the potential to change young lives dramatically. For example, if this principled philosophy in its basic form was educationally valued and applied in all K–12 schools, its truths would be immediately relatable and applicable for future generations to follow. This, in turn, would spare the nation from a childhood obesity problem and related disease that’s sure to become epidemic if something doesn’t change.

By the end of the book, you will have applied at least one major lifestyle change if not more. This I guarantee. You’ll never look at the old you in the mirror the same way again after absorbing the knowledge shared in this book.

At the end of each chapter, I provide my Personal Fitness Challenge adversity story related to each chapter’s context. These lessons learned can be applied to any physical adversity or fitness challenge you may face anytime within your lifetime.

My physical adversity challenge began once I was diagnosed with AVN (avascular necrosis) of both hips. If you don’t know what that is, you’ll know very soon.

Acknowledgments

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To my wife, Elizabeth Gunn-Woodard, love of my life, friend, life partner, and toughest critic. I’m very appreciative of her support in finishing this book, which would not have been possible without it. Thank you for everything you did to help ease the burden—including all those great meals you made to ensure I didn’t starve to death while spending thousands of hours tucked away in creative writer’s mode. And thank you especially for sharing your insight and ideals for the book, which added invaluable perspective and insight.

I’d also like to extend a big thanks to a good friend of mine for all the art found throughout the book and of course to his wife, Carol, in support of the long hours he dedicated to making the book extra special. Within each chapter, I know you’ll enjoy the humor of the cartoons and caricatures that are so artfully created by cartoonist John Fiedler. If you’d like to see other creative works by John or send inquiries, he can be found and contacted through Olefuzzcartoons.com.

Introduction

Nothing in life is guaranteed, especially being blessed with good health and mobility. Regardless, feeling well and living life to the fullest is possible no matter what the image in the mirror and mind’s eye shows and tells you.

Finding your MirrorAthlete active lifestyle potential and sustaining it naturally is the antiaging and longevity truth the marketplace hopes you never figure out. And soon you’ll know why.

When you hold the marketplace consumer truths and difficult-to-find fitness and healthy habit information in your hand, you can achieve any wellness, physical-performance, or healthy-lifestyle-and-longevity goal you set.

Many have asked me during client consults, Why do diets and fitness programs work for some but not others? Truth be told, there’s a lot of half-truths and flat-out lies sold to the consumer.

Also, we’re all at different stages of life. This includes our age, fitness level, health condition, mobility and productivity capacity, environmental situation, and so on. Each of these factors puts stress on us in various ways and can lead to any number of illnesses or diseases.

No man-made diet, fitness, well-being, antiaging, or longevity gimmick, product, or program will work—or work the same way—for every individual. And in some cases, these products or programs won’t work at all for any individual. Most are not sustainable, and they almost always increase health risk eventually.

The fact of the matter is we’re all physically, mentally, and spiritually wired differently and experiencing stress at various levels daily. Therefore, we each require unique lifestyle changes relative to our individual fitness and health goals that will help us to feel well and live life to the fullest.

The contents of this book are a gold mine of powerful consumer truths, with powerful stories and useful examples that’ll motivate anyone to believe that overweight and unfit no more is actually an achievable goal that can be sustained for life. Once these hard-to-find natural science and consumer truths are defined, you will be able to relate to and apply them, and you will be able to unlock your full fit healthy lifestyle potential.

During client consults, I learned many had lost hope that fitness goals and good health could be achieved naturally and sustained over the long term. This is a mind-set. I know I can convince you the opposite is true through truthful marketplace information, client consult examples, and exercise science insight.

Through personal experience, I know it is possible to bounce back from physical adversity to achieve what at first feels or appears to be impossible. This is especially the case after a traumatic injury, illness, or disease.

Read the MirrorAthlete descriptor below. I’m sure you’ll understand, in concept, how this principled philosophy evolved first as an ideology based on how unique each one of us is. And as a unique individual, you’ll also see what healthy lifestyle choices you must make to improve an unhealthy situation and get fitter!

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For instance, how do you see yourself in your reflective mind’s eye standing in front of the mirror? What do you see? When I look into the mirror, even though I’m slightly overweight for my age and my hair is now white, I still see myself as an athlete and work out daily to sustain the best fitness and health condition possible. I am a MirrorAthlete. And you can be too. No matter how old I get, I will always be motivated to sustain my mirror athlete image in the best way possible for me. I’ll teach you how to apply the same principles to sustain a similar mind-set and make the healthy lifestyle changes you need and want now.

I’m not looking for physical or performance perfection; that’s an impossible goal, especially as we age. And remember that we’re living in bodies that are each genetically wired differently than any other. Although age is only a number, it is important to remain mindful that changing metabolisms mean fifty- or sixty-year-old bodies require different maintenance agreements than do twenty- or thirty-year-old bodies.

Like you, I want to stay well and look good and be competitive, with the physical capacity to participate in as many social and recreational events and activities as possible and live life to the fullest—no matter my age. Age is only a number.

But to experience the best physical and well-being state per decade requires an educated and motivated mind-set to sustain the course. If you are missing a passion to actively participate in some form of exercise activity, it will be more challenging to conjure the willpower to change bad habits and behavior, but not impossible!

No worries. This is a major reason I wrote Ageless MirrorAthlete™ I’m here to help you find the willpower, motivation, and passion you need to heal what ails you, became more mobile, lose excess body fat, and have more energy—so you’ll feel better and live up to your full potential.

What exactly is a mirror athlete? It is a person who sees his or her mirror reflection and, within the mind’s eye, recognizes and applies the fitness and healthy lifestyle truths in a way that sustains the best fitness levels and health condition possible while aging gracefully.

No matter how you appear in the mirror, if you’re happy, healthy, and experience well-being daily, you are living a fit, healthy lifestyle. At some point, I stress to fellow mirror athletes—give back to others by sharing this knowledge. In doing so, you help others live to their full potential in a total state of well-being.

Indulge in learning the fitness, health, and antiaging truths—the best-kept industry secrets. They have changed my life and will change yours forever!

Be patient as you read through the chapters. There is a lot of information. As you work through each one, write notes and highlight what’s relative to your situation. Then plan, develop, and apply a relevant fitness and healthy habit and lifestyle change program that’ll motivate you to stay the course.

Also, don’t be shy about sharing this information with your primary care physician. MirrorAthlete, Inc., recommends cross-sharing of information as a principled healthy lifestyle practice to ensure safe participation in any exercise activity, balanced nutrition, or healthy habit lifestyle change program.

Personal Fitness Challenge: Believe

I know many of you have tried to lose that stubborn belly fat and have attempted every diet and exercise gimmick under the sun to improve appearance or simply to feel better and become more fit. Some of you have even quit trying to find a program that will work. I’m here asking you to believe in something I know will change your life by getting you fit and healthy once and for all.

If you apply even a tenth of the knowledge I’m sharing, you’ll feel and see results immediately. This will be especially true if you’ve been suffering from sedentary habits, depression, anxiety, phantom pain, obesity, illness, injury, or disease.

At some point in our lives, each one of us looks into the mirror and thinks, I’m too old, too fat, too broken to continue on. What’s the use? Instead of seeing yourself this way why not start thinking about new beginnings and possibilities? After all, you now have the tools in hand to make positive lifestyle changes that will stick once and for all.

At one point in my life, I looked into the mirror and saw something I believed too broken to repair. If it wasn’t for the combined information you now have in your fitness and healthy lifestyle change arsenal, I’m not so sure I could have bounced back from the physical adversity challenges that plagued me for a long period of time.

From 2004 to 2007, I went through service-connected hip surgeries while suffering with previous back injuries over a period of thirty years.

Within this four-year period, I also put on thirty pounds and was at a low point in my life, battling the stress of mobility challenges, financial burdens, complex body pain, anxiety and depression, and mind-numbing pills.

I was facing the prospect of lifelong mobility issues and unrelenting body pain. At first, I surrendered to the new circumstances. Then I eventually rejected the notion of long-term immobility and disability.

This was my reality and a tough pill to swallow at first, but I was determined to get back what I had lost. An internal drive beckoned me to develop a program—a self-healing process—based on my unique fitness programming knowledge. I immediately recalled that, to begin healing, I first needed to apply the science to stop the weight gain.

To be honest, losing that thirty pounds was no easy accomplishment. After all, I was operating in a broken body that required years of physical rehabilitation and recovery after surgeries. Even after a four-year period of recovery, I wasn’t mobility whole and still needed to continue managing pain daily and attend physical therapy in order to exercise on my own and on a limited basis.

With all the education, life experiences, client consults, and fitness programming skill sets I had in my toolbox, you’d think I would have been better prepared for physical adversity. Well, I have to tell you, nothing prepares anyone to self-manage depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and immobility for a long period of time.

The educational institution in which I earned my exercise science degree focused mostly on improving fitness levels, athletic motor skills, biomechanics, kinesiology, sports and fitness performance, and so on—for those without physical injury and pain and mobility challenges. However, through time, I learned that pain management is also a mind-set on how to tolerate a certain amount of it if you want to heal sooner than later.

Without pain management knowledge and a mind-set of tolerance, it’s awfully hard to bounce back from sedentary habits, serious disease or injury, surgery, or physical recovery of a long duration.

Sedentary habits do form rapidly. Thus, to expedite recovery, you don’t want to procrastinate on physical therapy and other exercise activity if at all possible. This is exactly what I did. I procrastinated. But eventually, I learned from my mistakes. Hopefully, after reading my physical adversity challenge story (continued at the end of each chapter), you won’t make the same ones I did.

Ultimately, it was my fitness programming experience as a military fitness trainer that provided the skill sets I needed to develop a modified exercise program to lose weight and become more mobile and alleviate pain. Ultimately, these recalled experiences provided the knowledge and motivational drivers I needed to heal and move on with life.

I recalled customizing fitness programs while serving in the air force guard back in 1988. This is where I really learned how to define, relate, and apply programming for any physical activity and to improve mobility, fitness levels, and unique healing programs that complemented physical therapy with a treating physician.

A base commander requested I customize fitness programs for fighter pilots and navigators who had lost their flying status due to injury. He also wanted to reduce neck and back stress injuries as a result of g-forces experienced during jet fighter maneuvers by applying my customized fitness programs.

Other squadron commanders then began to request other fitness programs related to occupation to minimize injuries in the workplace. So I developed all types of customized fitness programs in support of military occupations during the late eighties and midnineties. I also learned a great deal about injury prevention, pain tolerance, health risk, diet, weight loss, and well-being during one-on-one consultations.

As you now know, I was seriously injured at one point in my life while in the army. What you don’t know is the injury was caused by an insidious bone disease known as AVN (avascular necrosis). The disease weakened my right hip, causing it to collapse during advanced army officer training school. I also suffer with AVN of the left hip, saved by a bone graft, and a previous broken back with degenerative spine disease.

I could personally relate to past military personnel who’d overcome much more serious illness, disease, and injury than I had. Many of them pulled through by applying programs I custom built and managed for them at the time.

I reasoned that, by the same logic, this programming process should work on me, right?

However, as painfully learned, it’s much easier to relate and apply principled fitness programs on others than on self.

It’s really a matter of believing there is a truthful programming process that can heal what ails you. You simply need to be provided the right information that’s relatable and applicable for the situation. Then find the willpower and motivation to apply it.

But first you must believe the impossible is possible—especially now that you have all the truthful fitness and healthy lifestyle programming information at the tip of your fingers in a digestible format, provided to you by someone who spent decades accumulating and applying it. Apply it immediately and see positive change now.

You’ll not go it alone. I’m here to teach, advise, instruct, and guide you in finding and achieving your MirrorAthlete image. Then you’ll experience life to the fullest, regardless of your current fitness or health condition or physical adversity challenge.

Chapter 1

Relatable Knowledge Produces

Superior Fitness Results

Optimize fitness results by defining and relating to applied fitness practices.

—MirrorAthlete Principled Fitness and

Healthy Lifestyle Philosophy

Right out the gate, I’m going to show you how to think like a fitness and healthy lifestyle coach and consumer safety advocate. But in order to get you there, it is necessary to start with some basic well-being and fitness terminology to help connect the dots. Then we’ll address the number one fitness goal for many Americans—weight loss.

By the end of this book, you’ll know the truths, half-truths, and flat-out lies when it comes to consumer weight-loss and health and fitness products. You’ll also have the skill sets to customize a fitness program and leverage healthy habit change relevant and applicable to your daily needs and wants.

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Why are healthy habit checks and balances important to include within a fitness program?

When healthy habits are valued, then one is better able to cope with stress and maintain a positive state of being (in other words, happy, energized, active, in a good mood, and so on). Sustaining fit healthy habits and behaviors is good for your holistic health (mind, body, and spirit). When your holistic health (or, as I often refer to it, encompassing being) is maintained, then the state of well-being is sustained (Georgetown University n.d.).

There is no singular consensus around a definition for well-being. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, In simple terms, ‘well-being can be described as judging life positively and feeling good.’ Various public health disciplines research and examine many components of well-being—among them physical, economic, social, emotional, and psychological aspects; activity level; workplace and life satisfaction; participation in engaging activities; and many more (CDC 2016).

Feeling well and positive about life may require losing a little weight, especially if the extra weight makes you feel bad or overly conscientious about yourself. This makes sense, right? If you’re overweight and uncomfortable, how well do you feel or how positively do you see yourself? All too often when overweight problems occur, people go on fad diets to lose weight quickly.

I personally don’t refer to a weight-loss program as going on a diet. Going on a diet is not an exciting prospect for most of us because it is perceived as a sacrifice—doing without foods we love to eat. And as you’ll soon learn, you don’t have to give up the foods you love.

The word diet, for me, has a horrible connotation; I see it closely associated with marketplace gimmicks that have repeatedly failed too many clients in their weight-loss efforts.

To think, I need to go on a weight-loss diet, does not make one feel warm and fuzzy about changing eating habits. And it certainly doesn’t fulfill a sense of well-being—especially since food is a big part of our social and cultural experience.

I do use the term diet throughout this book in a nutritional sense. Understand that I use the term to mean learning how to balance healthy food groups or macronutrients and calories and understanding how this balance is important to healthy body weight, good fitness levels and mood, and overall well-being.

Please do keep in mind, and don’t forget, you’re not on a diet. You’re simply learning how to make better food choices and changing a few unhealthy habits.

The format in which you’ll learn how to create a customized fitness and healthy habits program is based on MirrorAthlete science.

The fitness and healthy lifestyle principles for each chapter are defined, relatable, and applied in unique ways that progressively take the reader deeper into