A semi-humorous commercial asks, “What if one piece of broccoli could protect you from cancer? And what if one push-up could prevent a heart attack?”

This ad assumes that you know how unrealistic and silly it would be to think that achieving wellness is quite so simple.

Guess what? It really can be that simple. Keep reading…I’ve complied a long list of ‘one thing’ you can do to improve your health, fitness and overall well being. Pick any or all of the following actions to do once daily and you will be on your way to a better life.

1. What if you did eat one piece of broccoli a day? Say you snapped off just one fresh piece daily, washed it and popped in right in your mouth. By the end of the week, you would have eaten an entire stalk. Happily, you aren’t limited to just broccoli. You can try this nifty trick with ANY tasty fruit or vegetable of your liking.
2. What if you walked up one flight of stairs daily? By the end of the week you would have walked up 7 stories! And that might be more stairs than you’ve walked in the past 7 months.
3. Perhaps you could drink one less soda/beer/sports drink/glass of red KoolAid each day.
4. And replace it with one glass of water. Maybe you would catch yourself preferring ice-cold lemon water to sticky, sickeningly-sweet anything.
5. What if you walked around the block once before you sat down to watch re-runs of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo? Maybe you would like it so much you would just keep walking right through the closing credits.
6. Maybe each day you could replace one pasty, white carb with a nutritious whole grain. You might discover that chewing your food is fun. Additionally, you’ll feel full faster and poop better.
7. Once a day, you could redirect your attention when you feel a less-than-healthful craving for say, a pan full of brownies or a bag of sour cream-‘n-onion potato chips. Over the course of a week, that’s lot of ice cream and chips that didn’t pollute your glorious body. But more importantly, you made a choice and proved that indeed, you could put aside that craving. That might even turn into something you could do 2 or 3 times a day.

Not a complete list but a few ideas to get you thinking.

Now maybe you’re skeptical of this less-than-exciting plan.

She is so full of it

You’re thinking,

“I find that fitness and eating well work best for me when I create an elaborate, unrealistic, time-consuming program that starts with me spending a weekend eating all of the peanut butter, chips and cookies in the house and then re-stocking with lots of lettuce, chicken and Slim Fast. Typically, I find this program to be highly successful for about 3 days after which I throw up my hands in despair having determined that being healthy is too difficult and not a priority at this very busy time in my life. I’m ridiculously sore, tired and hungry as well as frustrated with having to eat differently from my friends and family. So, at this point, I commence to annoying everyone I meet by telling them that this whole business of exercise and dieting is for self-absorbed people who have been blessed with a lot more willpower, money and time than I have been.”

Stick with me, my friend. Truly, there IS Strength in Numbers and we are all in this together.