How Can I Start Being Healthy?

When I was younger I think I used to think of health as something visual (like broccoli which I used to hate and my mom would make me eat). Diet is for sure a huge part of health. What you put into your body plays a huge part into how you feel and how your body responds. A pretty cool book I read a few years back on the bodys ability to heal itself with nutrition can be found here.

In the age of cross fit and juice cleanses it becomes hard to even understand what healthy is or how to "achieve" it.

First off I think the biggest mistake I see from watching friends is too much too fast. Whether it be with diet or exercise. Jumping from 0-60 in anything is not necessarily healthy. Also, I haven't seen that last long. People who go from a sedentary life to trying to work out everyday and changing their whole diet on a dime and keep that up long term are few and far between.

My advice for those wanting to make changes would be make solid small changes. If you don't work out much start out doing something small once a week (like running, or body weight exercises maybe) and make a few diet changes that you intend to keep maybe switch from white to brown rice, or replace white potatoes with sweet potatoes.

Small changes are still changes and things take time. Take a deep breath, if you are determined to be healthier you can be just do it in a manageable way.