During the time I struggled to lose weight I used every excuse in the book for why I was overweight, until one day……. I ran out of excuses! It took me 9 years to realize that I held the power in my own hands. I had the power of choice. I could choose to hide behind the excuses and stay overweight or I could choose to make some changes. Having run out of excuses I only had one choice left! Having made the choice, what had for years seemed like an insurmountable wall just crumbled away. It took me 6 months to reach my goal.

Most of us want our cake and we want to eat it! So many of us want to lose weight / lead a healthy lifestyle but the price of giving up the food we love or learning new habits is often a price we're not willing to pay. It is so much easier to wish away our weight. We wish we could lose it all in a week. We wish the next diet we find will be THE answer. We wish that we could have surgery. Basically we wish that what has taken years to put on would disappear overnight. The reality is that our bad habits have become an integral part of our behaviour and to learn new ones takes time, practice and patience. It is so much easier to blame circumstances and make excuses rather than accept or take responsibilty, for the consequences of our choices.

Each one of us has the freedom to make choices. These choices determine our future and our success.

The choices that you have for your body are:

• The choice of a healthy lifestyle or a quick fix "diet"
• The choice of health or ill health (diseases such as diabetes, stroke, heart attacks, high blood pressure, high cholesterol are often as a result of an unhealthy lifestyle)
• The choice of how much food you eat.
• The choice of what food you eat.
• The choice of how your food is cooked.
• The choice to exercise or not do any exercise.
• The choice of how often you exercise.

Assuming the consequences of your choices is currently negative - imagine the positive impact on your life if you changed some of your decisions by making different choices. The impact of making different choices does not just affect your weight it also affects your energy levels which in turn has positive consequences on your health.