The five CRITICAL things to do for your health and weight loss

By: Rob Cooper

I'm often asked what is the best diet, or the best food program,
best exercise program and which single best book to recommend to
improve your health, fitness or weight loss.

The answer is that there is no best way to do it. There is no
best book, and there is no right way or wrong way to do it.

The 5 Critical things you must do to achieve your health are
these

1. Continue to learn about health, fitness, nutrition and weight
loss from a wide variety of sources

The single most important thing to do right from the start is to
take action and begin learning about health, followed very
closely by putting what you learn into practice. We are a very
diversified bunch of people and what works for you may not work
for the next person. You have to find what works for you from a
wide variety of sources, expand your knowledge and accept no one
thing as being the best for your health. Keep reading, keep
learning and keep what works for you and discard what doesn't.

Knowledge isn't power, but "knowledge in action is power!"

Some very simple things to keep in mind is that the body runs on
food and if you give it the best quality food, in whatever manor
that happens to be, then you'll probably get some good results
in general. Keep the nutrition to a maximum by eating as close
to nature as possible, organic where possible and eliminating
processed foods and trans fats.

2. Find a mentor.

Someone who's been there, done that and that you can model .

I realized at quite an early age that if we can model someone
who's been there and done that and gotten results, then you can
"cut to the chase" as it were to find out what works for your
health and weight loss - what doesn't and in doing so get
results faster.

Find a mentor, a role model for the things that you're looking
for. If it's weight loss or to improve your health, find someone
who's walked in your footsteps and knows what you're going
through. Model them. Do what they did, repeat their process and
contact them to ask what worked and what didn't. You can save
yourself a lot of time and effort by doing what works and
skipping what doesn't.



3. Apply the knowledge you learn about health on a daily basis

This is where the taking action part comes in. You must begin to
apply the knowledge you've gained from what you've read about
health or watched and by talking with people who've been there
before you. If you do not put it into practice then you've
become an information junkie and not someone who follows through
on their knowledge. You must begin to work the principles you've
learned on a daily basis and keep at it. Without the trial and
error, you get nowhere fast and won't truly know what works and
what doesn't.

4. Repeat steps one, two and three

Remember, there is no right way or wrong way to lose weight,
improve your health or get what you want. You must continue to
learn and challenge what you've read. I'm told that what I teach
is wrong and I ask what were your results when you tried it?
Well, they didn't try it and so I then ask "what right do you
have to tell me what I teach is wrong". It may have worked for
me or for many people I coach including yourself, but without
trying it and challenging it, you won't ever know.

Keep learning about health, keep reading, keep applying what
you've read and this new knowledge. Begin the process of
filtering for yourself what will and won't work for you.
Remember this is about you, not me or the other guy, but what
will help you achieve your weight loss goals or your health.
This may very well be about applying certain fitness principles
that sound so controversy that you figure they can't possibly
work. One of my favorite sayings is "believe nothing I say, but
I challenge you to prove me wrong". My intent is to have you try
it.

When I first begun my journey to lose 300 pounds, I read one
book and I preached the principles like they were the gospel. I
was finally told to "shut up" and read something else, so I took
it upon myself to learn whatever I could about health and weight
loss. I began to apply my new knowledge daily, found people who
had used the info before and what they believed about it, what
worked for them for their health and then discovered for myself
what worked.

Finally, I discovered the ultimate secret to health and weight
loss.

5. Never give up.

It never ends. In the large scope of your life, the next 30, 40,
50 or more years, what is a few days if you happen to get off
track. Get right back on doing what you were doing, keep
learning, keep trying new things, go back to what worked when it
was working and keep up with your daily fitness routine.
Probably the single most important fact about exercise or
fitness is that our body is designed to move and we've gotten
away from that. We must do something on a daily basis to
exercise our body.

Never give up. Never lose sight of the health you want and keep
working towards your goal.

Rob Cooper shares the secrets to his 300 pound fat loss so that
you too can lose weight, get and remain healthy. Subscribe to
his newsletter for simple, effective tips.
http://www.formerfatguy.com

About the author:
Once weighing almost 500 pounds, Rob nearly died at age 22 but
began a program of natural health and went on to drop almost 300
pounds of fat. At his lowest weight of 187, Rob began weight
training and in years since has put on over 50 pounds of lean
muscle. Rob is inspired by various fitness, bodybuilding &
nutrition experts and models their behavior to remain motivated
and facilitate quicker results in his fitness and nutrition
efforts.