How does one put knowledge into practice around eating and exercise? Here is the process I have watched and encouraged in my clients over the decades.

First, familiarize oneself with what the knowledge is; Understand that eating healthfully takes more than knowledge about how and what to eat. You have heard the expression that as people live, so they die. Similarly, I believe that as people live, so they eat and exercise.

• Healthy eating and healthy living are about knowing who we are and what we need, and how to get those needs met.
  
• Healthy eating and healthy living are about making a commitment to valuing ourselves and our priorites, our bodies, our capacity to think and solve problems responsibly and accurately.
  
• Healthy eating is about sound decision-making.
  
• Healthy eating and exercise, like healthy living, is balanced, flexible, and devoid of excess.

Second, empowerment is the ability to act on one's knowledge;

• Be motivated. Visualize positive consequences, then let those consequences be carrots.
  
• Provide structure in one's life around food, around work, around recreation. Out of structure comes freedom, consciousness, self-awareness and self-appraisal. With that comes the capacity to discern options.
  
• Establish accountability for yourself. Find a support system in other people, in a journal, in professional help.
  
• Make every step forward a small step. Make every step do-able. Actively seek out successes.
  
• Recognize that failure provides an optimistic opportunity for trying something new that may work better.
  
• Move forward. We are on a fast spinning earth and cannot stand still. Either we move forward or fall behind.