"The main factors that influence your wellness (feeling and looking fantastic) and health (clinically OK) are controlled by you; what you eat and drink, what you do and how you think. It is all about the real DEAL - Drinking, Eating, Acting and Living".

Most people do not live their lives feeling or looking as great as they could!

This might be because they believe it's necessary to compromise these goals to achieve other ones (e.g. short term pleasure, wealth) or because they only focus on one or two methods (e.g. joining a gym and going on a diet) to achieve this. The facts are that if you feel and look fantastic any goal will be easier to achieve and the only way to guarantee results is with a holistic set of methods.

You need to build your transformation on a stool with four strong legs that support Drinking, Eating, Acting and Living healthily. If you try to build it on any less, your foundation for transforming your life will be unstable and likely to topple over, together with your dreams of a new life!

The quantity and quality of what you drink and eat has a direct impact on the chemical/energy processes that your body needs to function properly. If these processes are not working correctly you will feel unwell (e.g. unclear thinking, lack of energy) and left untreated there is a higher risk of eventually developing serious health conditions (e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, dementia). No matter how much you exercise, spend money on plastic surgery, apply makeup or develop a positive attitude, you need to drink and eat healthily as well, to feel and look fantastic.

It is important to consume a varied diet with a balanced proportion of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables. Specifically, more organic vegetables and fruit, unsaturated fats (e.g. Omega 3), low Glycemic Index (GI) foods (cause slower and smaller variations in blood sugar levels), herbal teas, freshly made fruit juices and filtered/bottled water. Consuming less sugar, fast foods, saturated fats, caffeine drinks, soft drinks (especially energy/sports drinks) and alcohol will reduce the toxic stress on your body.

Matching the quantity you consume with your level of physical activity will control your body weight. However, for the majority of reasonably healthy people, just going on a calorie controlled or fad diet is an ineffective long term strategy. In general, it is a much better strategy to focus on the quality of what you eat rather than the quantity.

The UK Department of Health stated ".... a major cause of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and vascular diseases, osteoporosis and even some cancers and mental health problems is inactivity". Action is a natural state for the human body and it is impossible to be inactive and healthy. Anyone that has been bed ridden for only a few weeks knows that inactivity causes many problems. For example, muscles shrink, joints stiffen and even the lymphatic and digestive systems are seriously disrupted. Your body will not function properly without minimum levels of regular activity.

There are two types of regular activity needed. The first is carefully designed to achieve balance in your musculo-skeletal system and the second is incorporating a variety of fun active activities into your lifestyle. Achieving balance is important for your posture and avoiding injuries. Weight training with a personal trainer is the most effective way to do this but there are other suitable methods such as yoga, martial arts and different forms of group class training such as certified aerobics.

Integrating fun activities into your lifestyle is easy and the variety is endless. For example, you may like music and start dance classes or perhaps you would like to spend more time in the countryside and could take up jogging or cycling. Maybe you have a very busy schedule that doesn't allow you enough time to see your kids. Then make it a priority in your spare time to play games (e.g. football) with them!

The final part of the DEAL system is living. Living includes all the psychological aspects of transforming your life from your motivation, to your attitude and beliefs. This aspect is often overlooked by other fitness systems even though it is a primary cause of long term failure! It is much more difficult to achieve lasting change if for example, you keep telling yourself "I always fail because I never stick to my lifestyle changes" or you are unsure about why you want to transform your life in the first place!

Some key aspects of living include your motivation (the driving force to continue), procrastination (a restraining force to delay action), a positive attitude, living in the now and the law of attraction (a helpful belief system). If you choose to focus on all the great things about your life and are grateful for them you will have a positive attitude. Studies have proven that a positive attitude will improve your health and help you to feel and look great.

Living in the now means being fully present in what is going on around you now, not worrying about next week or even tomorrow but enjoying living right now! Since we are social beings, one aspect of this is social support and interaction, whether it is through acquaintances, friends or social groups (e.g. clubs and societies).

The law of attraction is a belief system that brings many of the other aspects together in an approach to living that helps you to achieve any goal. In brief, if you focus on and strongly believe that you will be able to transform your life, you will do.