Living Well for as Long as Possible, now THAT's a Resolution

Healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy dead.   Living long is not the game; to live well...That is the game I hope we're all playing in 2011 and beyond.

Before there was Bob and Jillian, before Gilad, before Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons, there was Jack LaLanne.  The man who beginning in the early 1950's hosted the first exercise "reality" work out show when televisions were in black and white and you physically had to get out of the chair to go change the channel, adjust the volume, or adjust the rabbit ears in order to pick up the signal.  For more than 35 years with his TV show and with his books and juicer, Jack LaLanne was an inspiration and a role model from the time he was a young man until his passing this past weekend.  To me, Jack LaLanne represented living well, living a clean, balanced, healthy life.

During his television program for more than three decades he gave people exercises to move their body, demonstrated each of them, and through the television he gave them the support of someone to do them with.  Jack also used each of his shows to promote the ideas of nutritional eating, being happy, being balanced, being supported and most importantly, being loved.

 I think in this time of January when many people set resolutions and many have already let them go, I think looking at an example like Jack LaLanne, of someone who did not set new years resolutions but every day chose to live a healthy, balanced, clean life.  It was a resolution that I believe he woke up with every morning and lived with until the day he passed.  Jack said, "The only way to hurt your body is by not using it."  As for me, I will smile every time I see someone either in an orange jumpsuit or getting themselves to the gym.    Wishing you all a healthy 2011.