Ombailamos

link of the week: slate.com

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/intelligence_squared/2012/02/obesity_is_not_the_government_s_business_how_paul_campos_and_john_stossel_won_the_slate_intelligence_squared_debate_on_feb_7_.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2

Well, I'm of mixed feelings about this. I don't buy the "it's a slippery slope" argument that funding health education leads to banning products and mandating behavior. Libertarians like to use that argument for any proposed government spending - except, of course, the programs that benefit them. But I also don't buy the "government can fix this!" optimist approach.

On the one hand, I do think an education-based approach to healthy lifestyles can work. On the other, I generally think that government funding of medical interventions for unhealthy lifestyles is not the proper use of taxpayer dollars.

What's the distinction? It's that "medical interventions" part. There is a tiny body of research now - which will surely grow, in the future - relating to re-setting body chemistry so that fat people can better metabolize stored fat (by burning it as energy) instead of relying on blood sugar for energy. It's a method of rebooting the insulin metabolism, as I understand it, and has been very successful in rats.

However.

Lab rats only get to eat what you put in front of them, don't they? All the metabolic readjustment in the world wouldn't work on a person who flatly refuses to eat anything but high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt second- and third-order foods. That is to say, edible constructs that are far from what humans evolved to eat.

Taxpayer dollars are, by necessity, limited. What we can use them for is limited. Should we use them to fund research on the Lap-Band, or to underwrite gastric bypass surgeries? I think ... not. Should we use them to promote diets, and dietary products, created by for-profit institutions? Again, I think not.

I don't think we should use taxpayer dollars for A LOT of healthcare-related expenses that they are currently used for. And I definitely think we should not be using taxpayer dollars to fix a problem that is, almost all the time, solvable through behavior modification.

Yes, even the morbidly obese person whose internal chemistry is completely borked can change it, and restore hirself to health, most of the time if the effort is made consistently, consciously, and forever. It's the "forever" part where people tend to stick. Most people apparently can't keep it up for more than a few weeks or months.

But given the evidence that even people who choose bariatric surgery will fail to keep the weight off - because they fail to consciously and permanently modify their behavior - I really don't see the point in putting government money into it.

Some people will overdose on heroin. Some people will drink themselves to death. And some people will eat themselves to death. I don't think tax dollars should be going to try to "cure" these people. They aren't sick, not in the same sense that someone is sick with leukemia that can be cured with a bone-marrow transplant, or with pneumonia that can be cured with penicillin.

Along with the evidence (in rats) that this or that gene or hormone therapy can promote weight loss despite a high-calorie diet, there is even more evidence (in actual humans) that behavior modification - diet and exercise - can both promote weight loss and reverse obesity-related conditions including high blood pressure, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and of course type II diabetes.

We can't make fat people live in a lab. They are out here in the world trying to live and work. The basic "how to" on being healthy hasn't changed since the beginning of time. Some people will make it a priority to get, or stay, healthy. Some people won't. And that's something government can't control ... and shouldn't try to.

All that said: government also, at some point, is going to have to exclude fat people from certain anti-discriminatory classes. A 400 pound inmate should not be able to sue the prison system because there's not a big enough jumpsuit. A 600 pound heart patient (or his family) should not be able to sue the hospital because the EMTs couldn't get him into the ambulance.

If you can't get out your door under your own power, you'd better make sure you're light enough for a couple of normal paramedics to lift you, is all I'm saying.

link of the week: white hot truth

http://whitehottruth.com/white-hot/in-honour-of-the-fact-that-life-is-short/

Anybody out there, besides me, who has a big long list of gwishes (goals/wishes) for 2012? Anybody out there, beside me, who had a big long list for 2011 and didn't get to the bottom of it?

I am going to try to take Danielle's advice here to heart. I have a tendency to overschedule. There is a lot I want to do, and I often feel that time is fleeting so I have to do things now now now. But this doesn't just affect me, or me-in-this-moment.

So I want to try to place every gwish that pops into my head in a box with Quality of Life, Creativity, and Loving Relationships and let them all duke it out. If I open up that box and everyone is happily cohabitating, that's a gwish I'll keep.

If a gwish gets pummeled to death by the three dragon guardians of my mental and physical health, well, that's my dragons telling me you don't have to do Everything Right Now.

Enjoying the beauty of life is just as important as Project X. I'm getting better at it every year, but it never hurts to unleash the dragons. Happy Year of the Dragon, y'all.

*here's a little bonus link if you want to keep surfing this wave. http://www.bemorewithless.com/2011/how-to-make-a-love-list/

complete lack of astonishment

In health non-news this week, a website chose to publish a story describing the link between a high-sugar diet and tooth decay. So, eating candy all day will rot your teeth. Imagine that!

Look, I understand there is a perceived need to have "new" content every day. But if your "new" content is actually 100 years old ... it's a waste of everyone's time. It's like publishing an article on a tech site about how electricity can travel along wires.

In other health non-news, celebrity chef Paula Deen is at the center of a raging blogstorm due to the revelation that she has developed Type II diabetes. Adding to her iniquitous behavior is keeping this information private for three years and subsequently accepting a post as a spokeswoman for a diabetes-related company. She is being subjected to a lot of abuse, mostly boiling down to charges of being a hypocrite.

Poor Paula! If anyone is surprised by her diagnosis, it is because they are delusional and/or clueless. Unfortunately that appears to describe a lot of people. Type II diabetes is a natural consequence of the kind of lifestyle she has, admittedly, lived for most of her 60+ years.

I for one don't blame her for keeping it private. It's not her job to educate the world about health science or nutrition; she's not qualified to do so; and regardless of the extent to which her show purports to display her "real life," you can be assured that it doesn't. The diagnosis is her own business, how she chooses to cope with it is her own business, and nobody is in a position to judge.

Least of all Anthony Bourdain, and mind you this is a guy I enjoy and (for the most part) respect. He's not exactly a poster boy for healthy living.

I for one also, frankly, applaud Paula's decision to represent the diabetes company. She is in a unique position to deliver a message that a lot of people need to hear - and they are more likely to hear it coming from her, than coming from some scrawny marathon-running vegetarian.

how to improve your extension, part 4A

This is a two-part look at improving frontal flexibility, and by that I mean improving your access to the space inside the front of your body.

Most of us have tight, congested anterior bodies and stretched, weak posterior bodies. In short: our fronts are crunched up, which causes our backs to be stretched. It may seem counter-intuitive, but being always in a stretched position creates weakness and instability. So does being always in a flexed position.

There is one big caveat attached to doing work to release the front, and that is: any time you start bending backward, you are fundamentally re-aligning your central nervous system. I won't say it's easy to hurt yourself, but it's certainly possible – and therefore I recommend anyone starting a program of this kind do it under the supervision of a qualified trainer.

What is a qualified trainer? Probably not the cute blonde at the mass-market gym, who may have gotten her certification in a weekend course that covered only the broadest and least-specific aspects of anatomy. A weekend certification is better than none, but it is not going to give you the benefit of actual knowledge of the kinetic chain – the interrelationships between body parts and the potential consequences of various realignments. Find a trainer certified by ACSM or NASM, and proceed at your own risk.

First: learn how to elevate your rib cage. When you are in a seated, forward-inclined position, your rib cage will tend to descend to the top of your pelvis. Imagine what this does for your viscera. Your organs are all smooshed together in there; how well do you think they are working?

How to do it: sitting in a chair, put your feet flat on the floor. Scoot to the edge of your chair if you have to. Tilt your pelvis forward and back a couple of time, using your hands to feel the difference between a flexed (swayed) lower spine and an extended (rounded) lower spine. Find the midpoint, when your lower spine feels as close to straight on the vertical as you can get it. Your pelvis should be level at this point, and your lower abs, below the belly crease, lightly engaged.

As you have done the above, your ribs will naturally have lifted off your pelvis. You can't straighten your lower back without lifting your rib cage! It's like magic.

Now pull your shoulder blades toward the middle of your back, and slightly down. Your shoulders should roll over toward the back. And now re-adjust your spine, because there is a tendency to push the mid-spine forward as you engage your shoulder blades. Holding your shoulders and spine in position, lift your breastbone straight up - but not to the point that your upper spine begins to bend back. That comes later.

As you have done the above, your head will naturally have lifted off your chest and come back over your shoulders. More magic!

This is the first, and possibly the most important, sequence to follow before you actually start to work: this is your new at-rest position, which you should come back to before any new action is taken. It will take some concentration and even some effort at the beginning, but if you regularly – like, ten times a day – go through this sequence, you will be doing important work to improve your core strength and your posture, and also to restore proper functioning in your body. It only takes a minute or two: DO IT.

Feel how much space there is now in the front of your body! Your viscera have plenty of room to move, your anterior rib cage is open and your diaphragm is released. You are about to get more oxygen than you are used to, and you may feel a little light-headed. Rest here for a moment, and enjoy.

how to improve your extension, part 4B

Welcome back. Here is part two, in which you will get specific actions to take to release the front of the body. We are working in a seated position, which limits action to the flanks, rib cage, and shoulders – and this is for your own good.

The lower body is immensely powerful, and it's really important to understand the adjustments of the upper body (home of the central nervous system) before you start engaging all that power. So, this is upper-body work only, at this point.

Okay! So here we are in our chairs and we have done the complete spinal alignment sequence; the pelvis is level, the rib cage is lifted and open, the spine is straight on the vertical and the head is well back – all with the feet flat on the floor.

First, we will find the maximum space between rib cage and pelvis. You may think you have already found it, but no. With both arms, reach straight up – I mean straight up! – with your hands shoulder-width apart, palms facing in toward your midline. Reach more. And more. Try to find an imaginary pull-up bar over your head, and lift isometrically.

Important: DO NOT FLEX THE SPINE. Go straight up, not back. Do not tip your head back to "look" where you are going.

With your arms stretched straight up, turn your palms from in to forward. See if you can move your arms farther back from the plane of your body, without flexing the spine. That comes later!

Now turn your palms to the outside. This will help open your shoulders and the upper ribs. Isometrically, push out and back with your palms, connecting the palm through the elbow through the shoulder to the ribs. If straight ahead is twelve o'clock, you are moving the air back at 4 and 8 o'clock.

Now bring your arms back to the straight vertical, turn your palms back to the inside, and fold your arms so that your hands rest on your shoulders – right hand to right shoulder, left hand to left. Check your spine: it should still be straight on the vertical, with engagement of the shoulder blades and the lower abs. If you can do this, your palms will now be facing forward, opening the entire undersurface of your arms to the front.

If you cannot do this yet, this should be as far as you go until you have released your shoulders enough to proceed. SERIOUSLY. Stop here.

Once you have released your shoulders enough to fold your arms with the upper arms vertically aligned to your ears, try to move your upper arms further back. This time, let your upper back flex slightly forward. You should feel a stretch along the inside of the upper arms and along the outside of your anterior ribs. You should also feel a compression in the sides of your upper back as you engage your shoulder blades.

Now, lift the right ribs and compress the left waist, still maintaining the engagement of your shoulder blades and your lower abs. Essentially, use your left obliques to push your rib cage to the right. You should feel a stretch all along the right flank.

Return to the arms-folded, straight position. Now, lift the left ribs and compress the right waist - use your right obliques to push your rib cage to the left. This will stretch the left flank.

You can progress from the straight position by reaching further back with your hands from the folded-arms position, perhaps grasping the top of your chair's back and actively arching the entire spine forward. It feels great but DO NOT PUSH IT.

If there is any possibility at all that you have a problem with spinal mechanics or integrity, do not actively arch the spine. Doing the other work will help strengthen the muscles that support the spine, and over time you may be able to actively arch. Don't rush it, because any kind of spinal injury can have lasting ill effects.

how to improve your extension, part 5A

Flexibility, obviously, is a complex study and practice. Where it should begin, in my opinion, is with proper alignment.

As the alert reader will have noticed, recent pieces on improving extension of the anterior upper body bear a striking resemblance to my earlier piece on "how to stand up straight." I think this material bears repeating because so shockingly few people, in my observation, manage to employ good postural alignment as a matter of course.

This will also come into play as we look at yet another area: the front of the hip and leg. Of primary importance here is an understanding that in order to release and extend the front of the hip, it often becomes necessary to drop the front of the pelvis – which causes the lower spine to flex. Understanding these connections can help you pursue better extension while still protecting the vulnerable spine.

The biggest and most powerful muscles in the human body all connect at the base of the spine. The prime movers – the quadriceps, biceps femoris, and gluteals – are the power center, and inattention to proper support of the lower spine while activating these big muscles can – really – pull the spine out of alignment, in potentially dangerous ways.

For this reason, just as with upper-body extension, I advise undertaking this practice under the supervision of a qualified trainer. You probably won't need the supervision to be constant or ongoing, but there is a 90% chance that you will need to be prompted to correct your alignments as you learn the actions. Without the prompt, you won't correct, and you might hurt yourself. Remember, even with a full-length mirror, you can't see your entire body as you work it - so having an extra pair of eyes on you can be well worth the hourly fee.

Let's look at the front of the lower leg first.

Sit on a sturdy, straight-backed, solid chair (not a swivel chair, and not upholstered) with all your weight on your left hip and thigh, keeping your right leg free. Sit close enough to the front of the chair that you can put both feet flat on the floor. Use your left hand to grip the edge of the chair seat for balance, if necessary.

Now, track your right foot back along the floor, in a straight line, until only the forefoot is in contact with the floor. Press gently into the "ball" of the foot – the tarsal joints – until you reach maximum bearable discomfort, as you flex the foot.

Why do this? Because without at least 70 degrees of flex, you will not have full use of the foot. Your gait, speed, balance, and alignment will all be compromised. Work on this, over time, until you can bend those toes back between 70 and 90 degrees.

Now relax the foot and roll over the toes until the tops of the toes rest on the floor. Gently press into the floor to stretch the backs of the toes. You may also feel this along the entire front of the foot, and into the ankle - even up into the shin if you are really tight.

You want to breathe into this a little: most people never stretch the front of their lower leg, but ideally you can reach the point of having a straight line along the top of your toes, foot, shin, knee, and thigh. That's a fully plantar-flexed ankle and will enable you to access surprising amounts of agility, springiness, power, and speed.

Now we'll work further up the leg: release the pressure and slide your foot further back so that more of the top of your foot contacts the floor. You will now begin to feel a stretch along the front of the thigh and into the hip.

The trick: do not move your chest forward as your leg moves back! If you do that, you are not really moving through a full range. Keep your trunk fully upright, with all the good postural adjustments you made working through the rest of this series.

Relax, draw the foot back up, and change sides. Repeat the entire sequence.

Seem simple? Well, it is. The only complicated part to this is the paying-attention part. You really have to think your way through this – checking in with each joint along the way – so that you maintain the correct postural alignment. If you don't, you will end up letting the pelvis rock underneath you, which allows the thigh to move back without actually stretching those hip flexors (quads). You also risk hyperextending the lower spine.

Next time: the last in this series: intentional hyperextension of the spine, a.k.a. backward bend, for a deep hip flexor stretch.

how to improve your extension: part 5B

Here we are again! And something to clarify. I mentioned that activating the big muscles engages the spine, and then laid out a couple of exercises that don't, at first glance, appear to engage the spine at all. What was that about?

Here it is. When you are sitting on that chair taking one leg back, you are using the muscles of the moving leg to … well, to move the leg. You are simultaneously using the muscles of the supporting leg to hold you steady.

Your legs aren't just the strongest part of you – they represent a big chunk of your total body weight. Moving one, essentially through the air, while stabilizing with the other causes both to engage the spine. When the spine gets involved (as it always does) you have to pay attention. Nothing happens in isolation, here in the body.

Now. We are going to look at increasing the amount of extension in the hip flexor, by taking the thigh back even further in relation to the upper body. To do that, we're going to hit the floor. Make sure you are wearing something comfortable and stretchy, and I recommend socks.

Have available a couple of folded beach towels, sturdy cushions, or other props that will help you elevate your hips and keep you from rolling forward or to the side. It's better to have props and not need them, than need props and not have them.

And there's an important first key to this. This work calls for a completely flexed knee. You need to be able to sit on the floor with one leg folded under you. If you can sit "Indian style," a.k.a. tailor's seat, a.k.a. Easy Pose, you're good. If you can't, work on that first, before you try anything I'm about to tell you.

Okay. To begin, kneel on the floor (use a towel, rug, or mat to cushion your knees) with your upper body perfectly aligned as we've discussed and knees apart at hip width – that is, directly under the hip joints. Now, curl your right toes slightly into the ball of your foot, and track the right foot out behind you as far as you can, using your thigh muscle to lock your knee and pushing into the floor a bit with the top of your foot. This is your Position 1.

Stabilize consciously by lifting the front of the pelvis, lifting the ribs, rolling back the shoulders, and straightening the spine. You may find you need a chair in front of you to help balance. If so, go get one, then come back to the pose.

If you can completely straighten the right leg behind you, great – if not, consider that your first goal, and don't do anything else till you get there. YES, REALLY. This stuff is progressive, people - it's not smart to say "well I didn't get there so I'm just going to skip that part."

Go back to neutral and perform all the same actions taking your left leg back.

Now, return to your Position 1, then sink back onto your left buttock, allowing the hip to come to rest on the floor just outside your foot, which should be tucked into your crotch. You should be more or less square on the left sitting bone, with the outside of the left shin on the floor. Your pelvis will be angled with the left hip forward; don't try to force it square.

If you need to place folded towels underneath your left hip, do so now, to prevent unintentional hyperextension of any of your joints.

Simultaneously, let the right knee sink – not drop – to the floor. Ow? STOP. Now, you see why you might need to do this with a trainer? Or at least a spotter – someone to help you lift out of a position that has suddenly gone bad for you.

If you got there, great. Place your hands on the floor slightly wider apart than your shoulders, but as close to your hips as possible - use them to elevate yourself slightly as you become accustomed to the position, then release and sink slightly lower for a breath or two. Now go back to neutral and repeat on the other side.

The Position 2 you are going for is with the forward leg tucked underneath you and the back leg completely straight, with the top of the thigh, knee, shin, and foot all contacting the floor. You are not likely to get there the first time you try it.

In Position 2, your pelvis will drop forward and your lower spine will hyperextend, or flex. This should not be attempted by anyone who suspects their spine's structural integrity is not what it should be.

If you are able to reach Position 2 comfortably, without props, with the ribs lifted, congratulations! Now you can progress the position by slowly raising the rear foot off the floor behind you, bringing it toward your back.

Aftereffects of this work can include cramps, muscle spasms, even digestive upsets. You are putting a significant stretch on the lower abdomen, not just the hip and thigh. Don't panic. Use gentler versions of this work until you are comfortable, then try again to take it deeper.

Releasing the front of the hip and stretching the lower abdomen can, over time, result in reduction of lower-back aches and pains, and correction or mitigation of digestive or menstrual problems, as well as increases in mobility, strength, and balance. It's essential for me, and I recommend it to anyone who sits in a chair all day every day. Just be careful out there.

faking out your brain

I don't know about you, but I often get a midafternoon sugar craving. It has nothing to do with hunger. It is just my brain saying "I have been working since six thirty a.m. and I want some sugar now pleeeease."

Most of the time, I just say No. Very occasionally, I give in and have something sweet. In between, there are the times that I use one or another little tricks to con my brain into thinking it got what it wanted.

My most common fake-out strategy is to get a cup of decaf. Even if I am drinking the awful office coffee, which is bad enough that even I will add sugar, a little sugar and cream adds up to about 50 calories. That's a heck of a lot wiser choice than a 230-calorie candy bar.

My second most common fake-out strategy is even better: a zero-calorie peppermint. You know, one of those little white ones that looks like an aspirin and blows the top of your head off if you bite down on it. But they have artificial sweetener so I'm not planning to buy more when I run out.

Something I want to get in the rotation this year is mint tea. My palate reads mint as sweet, so it satisfies the brain, which apparently cannot tell the difference between fake sweet and real sweet. It's also a fluid, and that's always good in this desert.

Even better, for me, a strong taste of mint (this applies to the peppermints too) effectively kills food cravings. I suspect this is not unique to me, as the advice to brush your teeth after every meal is quite commonly given to those trying to lose (or just manage) weight. I can be truly hungry and a cup of mint tea will settle things down - between the flavor and the fluid - for quite a good while.

I don't know anyone who never has to worry about their weight. I'm in favor of using small, painless tricks to keep our body chemistry from sabotaging us.

hurts so good

Let's talk about a primary physical-therapy modality that is now being used a lot in personal training: Soft Tissue Mobilization. What does this mean?

Well, it means pretty much what it says - it's mobilizing the soft tissues of the body. Why do we want to do that?

Because the soft tissues are where the action is - literally. If you want your body to be able to move, you have to move it.

Let's say you do a hike and the next day your calves and feet and thighs are sore and stiff. What do you do to speed up your recovery and help your muscles get stronger? First, you warm up. Second, you stretch. And third, you employ some STM techniques. Most commonly, these are self-massage and the application of a foam roller.

The foam roller is becoming ubiquitous in gyms, and that's a good thing. It's hard - but not impossible - to actually hurt yourself using it, so your first time should be supervised. The idea is that you place a body part on the semi-resilient foam cylinder (usually about six inches diameter and 40 inches long), adjust your position so that part of your weight is supported on the cylinder, and use slow pressing, rocking, and rolling motions to let the cylinder massage tension and metabolic waste products - like lactic acid - out of your muscles.

This is desirable because just stretching often doesn't put enough pressure on the tissue to move fluids through it - and the more heavily muscled you are, the more true this is.

If you think about your soft tissues (muscle, tendons, ligaments, skin, nerves - all soft) like a sponge, and think about using the foam roller to wring it out, you'll get the idea. A tight muscle, moreover, is like a dry sponge - and this is why you want to warm up and stretch before applying the foam roller.

This is not fun and games. If you are tight, if you have micro-tears from a heavy workout (and this is how muscle grows, by being stressed and then responding), if you have lactic acid buildup from muscle fatigue from endurance work, using the foam roller is going to hurt a little.

It shouldn't hurt a lot - if it does, stop and get some advice from an expert (preferably a physical therapist or an ACSM or NASM certified personal trainer). But a little bit of hurt means you are accessing the exact areas that need to be worked into.

The body heals, and muscles grow, by moving stem cells into injured or stressed areas. STM is extremely beneficial to this process. Injured or stressed tissue that is never relieved will develop scar tissue, and once you have scar tissue the mobilization process gets difficult - or impossible.

Better to hurt a little bit as part of your post-workout recovery, than to hurt a lot from surgery later on.

link of the week: the happiness project

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2011/12/every-wednesday-is-tip-day-or-list-day-or-quiz-day-this-wednesday-five-questions-to-help-you-make-effective-new-years.html

My big, sparkly, key-to-it-all pick from this list is No. 4. "Are you starting small enough?" Gretchen is so right to say that many people set goals that are too big, too high, too difficult.

Saying on January 1 "I will go to the gym for an hour a day!" is delusional if you have been to the gym only twice in the past year.

In fact, if you haven't been to the gym at least once a week for the past year, you probably ought to cancel the membership ... because your history is telling you that you don't like going to the gym. There are hundreds of ways to exercise and get fit. Only a few of them require a gym. Save your money, or put it into a fitness-enhancing activity that you actually enjoy.

Then there's saying, "I will lose twenty pounds this year!" There are so many problems with a "resolution" like this. First of all, you're giving yourself a whole year to meet a goal that is best met in small increments over time, meaning that you could, very probably, get to October without losing any weight at all and then go into year-end panic mode. Or year-end giving-up-till-next-year mode.

If you have twenty pounds to lose, it's highly likely that your daily habits are to blame. So rather than putting a number on what you want to lose, resolve to figure out why and how you gained the weight. The process of figuring this out is highly likely to show you exactly which daily habits require small changes in order to stop and reverse the weight gain.

I'll give you an example from my personal history. When Mr. P and I were in that first honeymoon phase, like a lot of people, we both gained weight. We were fat and happy, eating fine meals and, a couple of times a month, mowing through a pint of Haagen-Dazs on the couch together. Now, eating fine meals is not necessarily a destructive habit; but mowing through a pint of premium ice cream most definitely is. Because that's not, of course, all we were eating. It was on top of everything else we were eating. And we gained weight accordingly.

Stopping the ice cream habit was something simple and relatively painless that we could do. We didn't have to change a thing about our daily lives. I just had to stop bringing the ice cream into the house. And with that extra couple thousand calories not coming in every month, we lost weight.

It's okay to have big goals. But don't underestimate the time, energy, and maybe even money that you'll need to put into meeting those goals. And don't overestimate the speed with which you will see results.

Whether it's establishing a true, daily fitness habit; establishing a reliable, daily breakfast habit; establishing a consistent spending plan; or establishing a daily housekeeping routine that will free your weekends, odds are good that the changes that will stick are the small ones. The painless ones. The ones that don't make you dread the morning.

Find a small habit that isn't helping you get where you want to be, and change that habit. Before you know it, the big changes will tend to take care of themselves.