Health

Imagine a life with no medicine, free from pain, stress and worry. Wake up every day accomplishing physical feats people half your age can’t do. Never worry again about crash diets, damaged skin, and low body image.

Being healthy starts in your mind and ends at your feet. Imagine feeling and looking sexy everyday.

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From Homeless to Hottie

People have often asked me how I did it? They want to know how I went from being helpless and homeless to living a Vibrant life. Well, I will just say the decision to change my life happened quickly.

Did you know that life can change in an instant? When you find that you’re in need of self-improvement, there is no need to spend weeks or even years “working” on every aspect of your life.

In less than one minute, you can go from being stuck to unstuck by simply shifting your mindset.

Our body follows what the mind instructs it to do. When you begin to change your thought process, everything in your life has to follow. Self-improvement occurs when you make a decision that you’ll no longer operate in a certain way. Deciding to become better will enable you to become your best.

We often think that change takes a very long time, but in fact, it’s the contemplating of change that takes the most time. For example, if you’re a smoker who wants to quit, and you’re always thinking about quitting smoking someday, your thoughts about quitting could last months or even years. These thoughts are not actual change; they are simply thoughts. And you may never quit smoking at all.

But the moment you choose not to light up when you really want a cigarette is the actual point in time that the change takes place. And it’s instantaneous!

If you have long felt overwhelmed about many areas of your life that you’d like to change, the power is yours today to make those long-lasting changes in self-improvement. Realize that only thinking about change is simply spinning your wheels over and over again without getting anywhere.

When you make the choice to change in any area of your life, that’s the instant that change occurs. Your mind is a powerful tool that governs your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. When you make a decision to change, your actions will follow in that instant to create a long-lasting transformation in your life.

In order to rise above mediocre living, you must be willing to be proactive. Instead of becoming a victim to problems and circumstances, you can create change based upon your mindset – and your actions and emotions will follow accordingly.

This is wonderful news… it is now possible to put an end to feelings of being powerless to problems, emotions, and external life circumstances. True change can occur in an instant. Once you take back your power and make the choice, change will follow.

When I no longer wanted to be stuck, I made the choice to stop abusing my body with drugs, alcohol, and food. As a result of that decision, I’m no longer stuck, and I live a rich and fit life.

I urge you to live life to the fullest starting right now. “Rising Above Mediocre Living” begins by making a choice to change. That decision will transform your life in an instant.

Spring into Action

Being healthy has to become a way of life for you. It needs to be a part of your daily routine, just like grabbing your morning cup of Joe or dropping your kids off at school.

The goal of Be Fit and Live Rich is to help you rise above mediocre living.

When you choose to eat poorly and not exercise, you miss out on the good things in life. Living a rich and fit life is so much easier than most people think.

Here are some slimming secrets that won’t break your budget but will make you look like a million bucks.
1. Eat more, NOT less. I know this may sound crazy but when you eat smaller meals more often you keep your body melting calories. Because this way of eating boosts your metabolism.

2. Park further away and walk to the door. This little trick makes it easy to melt excess calories every day.

3. Pack a snack. It’s helpful to toss trail mix, grapes, or whole-grain crackers into a bag and throw them in your purse before heading off to work or when running errands. This makes it easier to stick to a healthy eating plan and avoid any temptations when out and about!

4. Create your own stairs workout. Work the stairs more often and you’ll develop great legs and a toned butt. It’s like mini-workouts throughout the day.

5. Give your water a makeover. Fresh mint leaves or a squeeze of lemon will liven up those 8 glasses of water you need to drink each day.

6. Pump up with protein. Ever wonder why some people’s muscles looked more toned? Protein helps to build muscle, and it is also great for mental and physical energy. Incorporate protein shakes into your daily activities.

7. Lean and green. Fresh vegetables and fruit are full of antioxidants and water. Antioxidants will neutralize damaging free radicals to prevent premature aging and disease, and the water content of fruits and vegetables will help keep you hydrated all day long!

8. Break out the grill. It’s faster, it’s healthier, it’s fun. Grilling your meals is a wonderful way to enjoy the summer season, and it is naturally much more low-calorie than frying or stir frying your food in oil.

9. Pass it on. Once you have dropped the weight donate all of your clothes that no longer fit. This will ensure that you maintain your new body and wardrobe.

10. Make it count. Making the commitment to yourself to stay healthy is a lifestyle change and not a seasonal event. Daily maintenance will ensure you keep that Bikini Body year round.

Put these tips into action everyday and before you know it your friends will be asking you how you got so fit.

A True Decision

In midstream, the fundraising speech I was giving for the Hospice Foundation got away from me. I paused and the room became slow-motion silent. The crowd of attendees, some with folded arms and some with legs crossed at the ankles, sat there, waiting for me to continue. My voice cracked as I said, “There’s something you should know about me.”

I had to tell them. Without warning, the memory of four weary faces that I had seen the day before tugged at my heart and compelled me to talk about an experience I had never intended to share. Unplanned, on stage, I did it in Johannesburg.

I was in South Africa for two speaking engagements. The first was the 2009 Global Speakers Summit in Cape Town. It was an honor to be listed on the program with some of the best from around the world. My “Healthy Speakers Are Wealthy Speakers” workshop had been a complete success, and my confidence was soaring. The applause from my international peers is a sound I will never forget.

But I didn’t understand the complexity of my gratitude until I flew into what they call “JoBerg”…

I was comfortably reclined in the back seat of a black-on-black Mercedes Benz. We were headed to the Rosebank Hotel, which I had heard was “very, very nice.”

After about a mile, we came upon a level of poverty that was almost impossible to take in. Tin huts were scattered about, and it was obvious that many of the women, men, and children there slept outside. We stopped at a red light. Flashes of my own homelessness tore through me like lightning.

Through the window of the sedan, I watched a woman, stooped on a curb, cook a stick of corn atop a fire made of paper and wood. Her three small children hovered anxiously above the piece of food. I connected to the scene as a secret survivor of a similar war. An intense fear of being hungry blew through me, and I realized how far I had come from the lowest point in my life.

Here I was, 10 years later, a professional speaker. And I had never given a speech about the stale popcorn from trashcans or the abandoned van I lived in with strangers. It was too horrible to articulate.

The light turned green, and we drove away. Several miles down the road, we pulled up to the Rosebank Hotel. The lobby was Africa meets Park Avenue chic, complete with an immaculate marble floor and oversized maroon velvet sofas. “Right this way Ms. Swan,” said the concierge — and the thoughts of my past cascaded away like clouds on a windy day.

But the vision of that mother and her three children returned 20 minutes into my fundraising speech for the Hospice Foundation, overshadowing my carefully crafted health and wellness message. It was time to reveal that the Prada dress I was wearing bore no resemblance to the bloody jeans I wore when I entered rehab. It was time to reveal that my body was once a cesspool for self-hatred, depression, and drugs. It was time to say that even people with promise lose their way and end up living on the streets.

So I pressed through the crack in my voice and began talking about those days.

If you had been a fly on the dingy walls of my desperate, crumbling world back then, you would have quickly chosen to fly away and escape the swat of death that was creeping up behind you. I would have done the same, if I could. But five years of denial had melted my drive and my ability to feel danger approaching. Life just kept getting darker and I continued to close my eyes.

I had exchanged Big Apple achievements for a pee-stained mattress 3,000 miles way. No more bylines in national magazines. No more 72nd and West End apartment or Central Park morning coffee. Sunrises were cruel punishments, because I now lived outside, waiting for death to come my way.

I finally got my wish. I overdosed. I died. And there wasn’t a white light — only darker crushing darkness, until I bolted back to life. For hours, I struggled to lift my own dead weight, determined to make something of my second chance.

I stumbled more than I stepped, and it didn’t matter that I saw a little boy grab his mother’s leg as I got closer. It didn’t matter that there was blood on the seat of my pants or that there was dirt in my tangled hair. What mattered was that I’d had the courage to face the darkness within and make the decision to overcome that reality.

Blaming and looking outward had nearly killed me. Taking responsibility and facing what was true for me set me free.

As I talked to that crowd in Johannesburg, their arms unfolded. Their ankles uncrossed as ladies reached down for tissues to dry their tears. The unplanned words that poured through me connected us all. And when I was finished, they were standing on their feet and applauding.

More than 30 people waited in line to tell me how my “unintended” speech encouraged them to face parts of themselves that they had kept conveniently hidden. After listening to my story, they were willing to make their own true decision to be free.

When you make a true decision:

You honor it regardless of whether other people support it.
You honor it on the days when you feel good and the days when you feel bad.
You honor it when no one is looking.

When I was given my second chance at life, I made the true decision to live courageously. What I realized in South Africa is that courage is contagious.