The improvement in the overall health of Americans is decreasing. While the 1990s saw a 1.5% increase per year in overall health, the 2000s have yielded an increase of just 0.3%. According to the American Public Health Association, obesity and smoking are to blame. 23.1 percent of the American population is considered obese, more than twice the amount of 1990. Furthermore, 65% of the country is considered overweight. The number of people who smoke dropped sharply between 1990 and 1993 but has shown no decrease from 1993 to the present. Smoking is the biggest preventable cause of death in the U.S., contributing to nearly 1/2 a million deaths each year.

Were all well aware that we should stay away from fast foods, desserts and cigarettes but we dont. Just look at our life expectancy, 69.3 years. Twenty-eight other countries exceed ours. Is it our technological, fast paced lifestyle that is setting us up for stress- eating and a sedentary lifestyle? Is all of this technology really helping us or is it hurting us? Think about this for a moment: as things continue to get easier for us from technology, being motivated gets harder. It naturally decreases. Why? Because we can order food, cloths, vacations and just about anything we want without having to budge. We can buy robotic vacuums to clean the floors and even robotic lawn mowers to cut the grass. We can even run a business from the corner bedroom. We can literally never leave our house and get just about anything done that we want. And we can do it without having to leave our seat. Thats not much of an incentive to get-up and get going. Its more of an incentive to dive into a bag of cheese doodles.

Our brains get accustomed to the sedentary nature of our 21st century lifestyle, which is why it can seem so difficult to get moving, to get out there and make the changes we need develop a healthy weight loss lifestyle. It can be very tempting to order-in all the time because its much easier than cooking. Even a mere 1/2 hour of daily exercise seems like a monumental task these days because it is not consistent with the easy messages we send to our brain. We need to get-up and go out and apply some good, old-fashioned effort. In order to break out of our sedentary shells, we need to reprogram our thoughts. We need to reprogram our minds if we want natural weight loss.

Here are some quick tips that will help get you going now.

1. Start with one goal at a time.

2. If you cook 3 nights a week, start cooking 5 nights a week. Just make the commitment.

3. If you purchase most of your items on-line, go to the mall and do some shopping instead. Just get moving. Your body needs it.

4. If you want to start an exercise program, dont think 2 hours. Think a 1/2 an hour to start off.

5. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

6. If you watch a lot of television, start replacing some of that time with a brisk walk outside. After all, the average American watches 21 hours of televisions a week, yet we dont have time to exercise even just a little bit.