There's a Pill for That

I looked across at the older gentleman sitting across from me.  "What?"  I said in a surprised voice.

"I'm not helping you, am I?"  He repeated.  "I mean, I'm taking the medicine you prescribe me, but look at me,"  he gestured with his hands.  "I'm a hundred pounds over weight and I'm not exercising.  I'm not doing the stuff I know I should do to get healthy.  And you're supposed to make me feel better with pills?"

I sat back a little.  Roy knew the right things to do, but his tone was already defeated before he had even started to try to do them.  "Roy,"  I told him.  "You don't need to lose a hundred pounds.  But you do need to start setting some goals."

"I would just like to see you take small steps to improve your diet and start exercising -- slowly at first and gradually building up from there.  You'll probably lose some weight, but more importantly, you will start to feel good again."

We continued our conversation, but I kept thinking about Roy's statement and his question.  Is there a pill that will take the place of healthy living, diet and exercise?

The answer is, unfortunately, "No."  There are diet pills, there are personal trainers and gym memberships, but in the end, it is up to each one of us whether we will do things we know to be healthy.

The problem is not usually education -- most of us know what we should do -- the issue is motivation.


Over and over again, I struggle with this in my own life -- not with lack of knowledge, but with lack of motivation.  How do I make myself want to do the things that I know I should do?

In the end, this motivation is the difference between living in victory or struggling with defeat and no one can take responsibility for it except for me.