Not long ago, before the holidays, you were determined to live a healthy lifestyle, starting each day with commitment, enthusiasm and hope of reaching your goals. Each day you exercised, watched your food intake and avoided temptation. There was no stopping you.

Then an obstacle in your road to success struck called Thanksgiving! You found your self eating one more helping of grandma’s stuffing or worse a slice of each of Aunties pies. Maybe you even had to have just one more taste to see witch one you liked better. Even making time for your cherished workouts became difficult. How will you ever get back on track?

Every time you misstep ( and you will) you have two choices, keep sliding back which at that rate you will never reach your goals or accept the fact that you slipped, you were less than perfect and forgive yourself. Be positive and resume your healthy habits TODAY!

Start with small steps.

• Try a short workout
• Try new recipe with lots of fresh ingredients that will not be bland. Also safe to have in the house.
• Always eat breakfast.
• Drink your water.
• Learn from your mistakes, remember how it feels to disappoint yourself.

	Johns Hopkins Health Alert What’s Better for Diabetes Prevention — Weight Loss or Exercise?

Diet and exercise are the cornerstones for preventing type 2 diabetes. These measures are especially important for people with risk factors for diabetes, such as prediabetes, obesity, a family history of diabetes, diabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes), or an ethnic background (black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American) that puts them at higher risk.

While being overweight and not getting enough exercise can both raise your risk for type 2 diabetes, a new study reported in Diabetes Care (Volume 30, page 53) suggests that shedding pounds may be more important for preventing diabetes.

Researchers followed close to 69,000 participants in the ongoing Harvard Nurses’ Health Study. None of the women had a history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer when the study began. Sixteen years later, 4,030 women had been diagnosed with diabetes. After adjusting for age, smoking, and other diabetes risk factors, increased waist size and body mass index (BMI) had a substantial impact on developing the disease.

Women who were considered very obese — with a body mass index (BMI) of 40, for example — had a 28 times higher risk of diabetes than normal or underweight women whose BMI was below 21. A lack of physical activity was not as big a factor. Even in those who exercised at least 20 hours a week, the risk of diabetes was 11 times greater in obese participants than in lean ones.

Bottom Line on Diabetes: These findings don’t mean you should scale back on physical activity, which often goes hand and hand with losing weight. But since exercise may not always be enough to help you drop the pounds, watching what you eat should be an equally important goal.