As I began to implement the new health and wellness plan for myself, I quickly gained confidence and realized that I could do this! The fitness plan was something I could sustain -- it was simple, in fact. All it required me to do was take 10,000 steps or more a day.

Besides taking a lot of blood, sweat and tears, relying on self-control to change our habits may not work so well because, well, we run out of blood, sweat and tears. When our tank is empty, that habit comes rushing back with a vengeance.

If you're gung ho on quitting cold turkey, make sure you've got plenty of gas in the tank (and can keep filling it up). Common signs of an empty tank are summed up in the acronym HALT (Hungry Angry Lonely Tired). Also, if going cold turkey has failed you before, or if it sounds particularly painful, try other methods.

It's nice to know what you want and having goals gives you a sense of direction and purpose. However, there is one way that your hopes and dreams actually sabotage you from becoming better: Your desires can easily lure you into biting off more than you can chew.

I don't want to be a statistic any longer. I don't want to be a "baby boomer" that is living longer but sicker than my parents. I don't want the illnesses that can be prevented by simply moving more and eating right.

Rather than start your self-improvement quest by trying to change everything in your life at once, pick just one thing that you'd like to improve, and give yourself 30 minutes every few days to work on that goal. Little by little. No deadlines. No pressure.

The reason why it's so hard to stick to new habits is that we often try to achieve a performance or appearance-based goal without changing our identity. Most of the time, we try to achieve results before proving to ourselves that we have the identity of the type of person we want to become.

Are you tired of making the same New Year's resolution to lose weight or get in better shape, year after year?

We're all great at describing the huge gaping hole that's sinking the ship, but that won't keep the ship afloat. We need to act, not throw our hands up in despair. And to act, we need to believe there's a way out.

As the holiday season approaches, it seems we all want to channel our inner "Martha" and cook up a storm -- which I love, since cooking is my life. So I offer some food for thought on being healthy through the season of partying.

Don't get me wrong, helping others can bring us great joy, but we have to watch that we don't overdo and risk being of no help to anyone. By scheduling time for ourselves, we are able to be both helpful and healthy.

My last couple of blogs have focused on helping you become aware of your deepest fears and discover the negative patterns and habits that are dominating your life. This blog will look at how you change those undesirable patterns.

Though it's safe to say most reading this article's closest connection to the Olympics will ever be is the couch, their bottom, and a TV set, in the spirit of the games I asked leading behaviorist Dr. B.J. Fogg how us Average Joes can develop "Olympic-sized" habits.

My quitting strategy was to keep my mind and body busy all the time, in order to keep my thoughts of cigarettes at bay, but new science now suggests that the worst thing smokers can do is try not to think about cigarettes.

I reward myself for finally being able to share a dessert, something I automatically refused to do for so long. What else have I done, I began to wonder, that is about actually changing something in my daily life?

The marriage drill would replace ingrained, negative instincts with practiced behavior that, through repetition and simulation, would become rote.

For the last few weeks, I've been keeping a journal of observations on how and what I eat. This detective work came from a place of loving observation, not condemnation.

"Women's lack of sleep has become a societal crisis bordering on a national health epidemic."

Mark Twain was a keen observer of human nature. As we begin 2010, I'm reminded of Twain's quote: "To promise not to do a thing is the surest way to make a body want to go and do that very thing."