If you live your life all out today, not only is it fun, but you are preventing a midlife crisis.

I was a good 30 pounds overweight throughout high school, and it wasn't until I was going away to college that I really wanted to make sure I was doing everything possible to feel as confident as I could.

The only reason I write at all is because I am going through, and growing through, something in my life I want to share with others through my personal experiences.

If you have expectations, you try to put your standards on someone else's behavior. The fact is you can't control anyone but yourself, so creating standards, as opposed to expectations, keeps the ball in your court.

I wanted to lose 30 pounds healthfully and still be able to enjoy my college experience. Having succeeded in doing just that, I wanted to share my experiences with others who could benefit from my direct knowledge of the difficulty of trying to balance college life with being healthy. It became a journey about healthy lifestyle choices, including tips and tricks for creating a new relationship with food where I was in control and could learn to love food healthfully again.

We all have so much access to the information on the Internet and in books, but we don't necessarily get that information in a usable way so that we can turn information into action.

Growing up in my family, it wasn't important that we always be the best; it was important that we were going to try to be our best and give it our all.