Here’s some music to get you moving – inside and out.

You don’t need to fit anyone else’s idea of perfect to be your best. You don’t need to measure yourself against someone else’ standard of beauty. Your beauty and your perfection come from within. Celebrate who you are and who you are becoming each day.

And while you’re at it, take care of your body with some movement.
Get up and dance.

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Going green has a lot of meanings (hope you tried the kale chips yesterday!) and today we’re thinking about the upcoming growing season.

There’s something wonderful about getting produce – even if it’s just herbs – from your own garden. Choose something to grow in your yard, or on your patio or deck, or on your windowsill this summer. If you’re unsure about what will grow in your area, go to a garden center and talk to the experts there (we’ve had much better luck with this in locally owned garden stores; they’re passionate about what they do, and they love to share). If seed are too risky for you, start with small starter plants.

We’ve had herb gardens in the midst of our flower beds; we’ve grown green beans and tomatoes in pots on small apartment deck; we’ve grown berries in large chunks of backyard real estate. There really is something for everyone.

Choose a way to be part of the growing season. It’s not just getting closer to nature, it’s being part of the connection between the world and your table. Making that connection is more difficult when everything on your table came wrapped in paper or plastic. Have a relationship with your food.

Photo by Lavinia Marin

Photo by tlst

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home, for this is where our love for each other must start.

~ Mother Teresa

The reason it is so difficult for us to change is that we focus too much on the microcosmic steps, or the “program,” and not enough on changing the perspective that landed us where we are in the first place. Deep and true changes come from the inside out, not the other way around.

~ Baron Baptiste, Journey Into Power

Olympic athletes have a goal to be faster, higher, and stronger in their sport. As we’ve been watching the Olympics, we’ve noticed a couple of things about the athletes.

First, Olympic athletes have really impressive goals for themselves. They’ve set the bar really high – and they’ve trained for years (years!) to make that goal achievable.

• Don’t give up too easily – good things are worth the effort and the time you put into them.
• Practice a lot. Then practice more.
• Training and conditioning are not optional. Just because you’re not a weight-lifter doesn’t mean you can avoid lifting weights. Speed requires strength and flexibility. Coordination requires strength and flexibility. Aging gracefully and healthfully requires strength and flexibility.

Second, when Olympic athletes fall down, they get back up. Unless something is broken – and they take some really, really scary-hard spills on those mountains and ice rinks – they get up and finish.

• You cannot succeed without continuing to try.
• There are a lot of falls on the way to success.
• Even when you’re at the top of your game, you can make a mistake. No one is perfect and it’s not the end of the world. What happens after that mistake is more important than the mistake itself.

Third, the environment is part of the challenge. If the conditions suck, Olympic athletes don’t let that get in the way – they compete differently.

• When you get down that mountain in the shortest amount of time, you have not only beaten the other athletes, you’ve beaten the mountain.
• Don’t play the victim. Take responsibility for your decisions. Even though you’d like to blame something external for holding you back, it’s really all on you. Own up to your mistake or bad decision, learn from it, and move on.
• Conditions vary so have a backup plan. For everything.

Finally, when the first try doesn’t work out – or sometimes even when it does (we’re looking at you, Shaun White) – Olympic athletes put even more effort into the second try.

• Don’t allow one mistake or one failure define who you are. Fight back, because that’s the way to win.
• Don’t let one success be the end of the road. Set another goal. Raise the bar. Become better.
• Never, ever quit. You set those goals. Maintain your personal integrity and keep striving for them. If you need to set intermediate goals, that’s great – measure your progress, work up to the big goal – but do not quit on yourself.

Faster. Higher. Stronger.
That’s you.

If you need a fresh start, this is a good week for it.

The Chinese New Year started on Sunday – it’s the year of the tiger. While the traditional association is for people born during this year, there are a few Tiger characteristics that you may want to adopt.

• Brave, courageous * try something new; be fearless; take risks
• Hunter * pursue your goals; don’t let anything stand in the way of success
• Competitive * challenge yourself
• Leader * take control of your life

President’s Day was on Monday – celebrating both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Both of these men managed to overcome a lot of failures before they were successful. Don’t let the past stand in the way of your future!

Lent starts today – six weeks of spiritual preparation for Easter. Take stock of where you are, and where you want to be. If you need to make changes, do it now – don’t put it off.

• “Give up” something you enjoy * some Christians give up something they enjoy for Lent (chocolate, soda, wine, etc) as an act of sacrifice.
• Add a daily habit * some Christians add a spiritual habit (prayer, spiritual reading, etc).

Is there a habit you need to drop or add to your life? This could be a good time to do that – it doesn’t have to be connected to religion. Give up sugar for 6 weeks, or exercise for 30 minutes a day for 6 weeks.

Oh, and there’s a budget bonus for people who eat fish – it’s probably on sale for the next 6 weeks because of Lent. If you buy fish to keep in the freezer, ask them to wrap it appropriately at the store – in the portions you want, in plastic and then in freezer paper.

Go for a new beginning this week – a fresh start. Your inTENtions are still within reach, if you’re willing to make a commitment to them.

All of us can use a little coaching in our lives.

We have excellent coaches here at Marilu.com – real people like you who have made incredible changes in their health, weight, energy levels, fitness levels, and appearance just by following Marilu’s Total Health Makeover® program. Whenever you take a class here, you’ll get amazing personal support from our coaches and members.

Since today is Super Bowl Sunday, we wanted to share some wisdom from some more well-known coaches. Football coaches. You may not know their names, if you don’t follow football. That’s okay. They’re still pretty smart when it comes to the game of life.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.
~Lou Holtz

It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.
~Vince Lombardi

Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.
~Bear Bryant

The secret to winning is constant, consistent management.
~Tom Landry

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.
~Tom Landry

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.
~Joe Paterno

These guys are used to demanding hard work and commitment from their players in order to win games.

• Do you require that kind of commitment from yourself in meeting your goals?
• Do you learn from past mistakes, and then focus on the future – always moving forward toward your goal?
• Do you walk the walk, or just talk the talk when it comes to your health?
• Do you set yourself and your environment up to win, and to make progress toward your goals?

Get in the game. It’s your life.

This is a good time to remember one of our favorite sayings here at Marilu.com – Progress, not Perfection!

You may be stalling out on your New Year inTENtions (or call them goals or resolutions if you want). It’s pretty typical to hit that plateau in action or commitment by the end of January. When you make conscious changes in your life, it takes awhile to make them routine and habitual. When you’ve lived the routine for a long time, it can be difficult to step it up to the next level.

You need strength, conviction, perseverance, yes – all of that! But you also need to practice forgiveness and you need to be gentle with yourself. None of this is punishment for bad habits, it’s liberation from them! And with this liberation comes the power of self-knowledge.

Take pride in what you’ve accomplished so far. Be honest in evaluating where you want to be, and what you need to do to get there. You can achieve your inTENtions with practice. Each day just needs to be a little bit better than the day before. Just a little bit. Progress will get you there.

Today’s exercise music is targeted to gentler movement – yoga, Pilates, stretching, or maybe even your warm up or cool down.

It’s also a reminder that no matter what you’re doing, it’s okay to gather a support team and help each other out in meeting your inTENtions.

If you’re trying to lose weight, or stay committed to a fitness program, or quit smoking, or quit eating junk food, it’s good to have people to talk to. People who will be honest when you need a kick in the pants, and people who will be there to remind you that everyone hits a plateau or feels lazy or wants to just give up.

We have that at Marilu.com, and you’re invited to be a part of it. You’ll be a valuable part of someone else’s support team – and you’ll get the support you need, too.

And of course, it’s also a reminder to continue to support the relief effort in Haiti. This is a great album for a reasonable price and it all goes to the Hope for Haiti Now charities.

So start the music, do your stretches, and consider who you need – and who needs you.

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This is a tale of two birthdays.

We have a friend who celebrated a non-milestone birthday last fall. She’d had a rough year, physically and emotionally, and she decided that the best way to move on was to have a big birthday bash. So she invited friends from around the country, as well as local friends, and they ate well, and danced hard, and sang loud, and played silly party games. Most importantly, she told them all how much joy they brought to her life, and they told her about the joy she brought to their lives.

We know a young woman who is celebrating her 24th birthday tomorrow (Happy Birthday E!). She’s treating this birthday as a milestone – it’s the kickoff for her “countdown to the golden birthday” year. She is taking the entire year to celebrate her life, and she’s let her friends and family know all about it, and asking them to join her in a variety of parties and events through the coming year.

Celebrate your own life, and the lives of the people you love, today and every day.

• Talk about the joy you bring to each other’s lives.
• Plan a fun event for your friends to join you in feeling good about life – maybe a spa day, maybe a picnic, maybe a boat ride, maybe a weekend away.
• Pick a theme song that celebrates your life, and play it each morning.
• Light a special candle to remind you of your light in the world.
• Collect stories and photos about your life in a journal.
• Cook your favorite meal every month on your birthdate.

You are special. Celebrate that.