Developing a diet that is healthful, balanced, and appropriate for your particular caloric needs is easy enough and is absolutely critical to establishing a healthful lifestyle that incorporates proper nutrition, adequate fitness, and mental resilience.

I am doing what I am supposed to be doing right now. I smile knowing that I have the most wonderful husband, family, and friends. I work with friends whom I can learn from and whom I respect and who respect me.

My dad, who is a heart surgeon, works with many adult patients who did not take good care of their bodies in their formative years. He is able to teach them how to break old eating and exercise habits and reshape their bodies, but not without a great deal of resistance.

If we make wholesome, healthy food accessible and affordable for everyone, we make the choice to be healthy an easy one.

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.

We need to demand that our food is labeled, especially genetically modified foods, and learn how it is produced, processed, and grown.

When I was young and growing up overweight, I believed the "eaten" was more powerful than the "eater," meaning the food was more powerful than I was.