Let’s face it; most of us want to lose weight. It’s something that nags at us day after day. I’ve seen jokes talking about how the clothing elves sneak into closets at night and sew clothes smaller, or how the washing machine / dryer shrunk clothes. As cute as these jokes are, we all know the truth.

I have researched healthy eating / living for many, many years and I keep coming to the same conclusion… it’s a way of life. It’s not the latest fad diet or fad workout program… it actually has to be a complete change in lifestyle. Everything from how we eat to how much exercise we get must be changed… permanently. Now, I would love to be able to buy all organic food and be the skinniest person out there (within reason, obviously), but I can’t and I’m not. Instead, I choose to lead a healthy lifestyle.

There are three parts to this topic. This part will talk about the reasons we should be living a healthy lifestyle, the second part is about how to motivate ourselves to get there, and the third part is about how to learn to love eating healthy. It’s not an easy process by any means, but it is necessary to live a healthy (and long) life. Below are 6 reasons why we should workout every day, even if it is just a 10 minute walk or it is an hour workout in the gym.

1. More Energy – when we exercise, even 10 minutes a day, our body receives more oxygen because our hearts start pumping blood harder and faster. When our blood has more oxygen in it, that oxygen benefits our organs (especially the brain), which gives us more energy. Not to mention the natural high we get when we do that super ambitious workout that gets our heart rate way up there and makes our endorphins fly…

1. Clothes Fit Better – those clothing elves will disappear if we lead a healthy lifestyle. As a matter of fact, they may just come back and let your clothes out a little more each week!

1. The Brain Functions Better With Exercise – just like any muscle in our body, our brain needs to be exercised. There are a couple ways to do this: 1) read and learn, and 2) exercise. Our brain needs both! Exercise helps us retain information better, it helps increase our memory capacity, and it helps us be able to comprehend and solve problems faster and easier.

1. Reduce Illnesses (even genetic one’s) – we all have someone in our family who has some kind of illness that is genetic whether it is diabetes, heart disease, glaucoma, etc. Exercise helps our body fight off these diseases because we are healthier to begin with. Now, this doesn’t mean that we won’t get these diseases; we just have a lower chance of getting them – especially at a younger age.

1. Sleep Better – I’m sure everyone has had at least one night in their life where they couldn’t sleep… that dreaded insomnia. For others, it is much more common and can even affect their work and personal lives severely. Since exercise allows for better circulation in the body, it also allows for balanced hormones (in both men and women) and allow for those insomnia-filled nights to be a thing of the past!

1. Better Immune System – there are so many drugs on the market to fight off or prevent or help cure illnesses, such as the flu or the common cold. Well, what if we just don’t get sick in the first place? What a concept! When we workout our body produces more antibodies that allow our bodies to fight off infection (both bacterial and viral) much faster, and in most cases, the antibodies in your system will not even allow the illness to invade your body in the first place!