Oz and Roizen: Break the Blame Game

Our basic premise is: Your body is amazing. You get a do-over; it doesn’t take that long, and isn’t that hard if you know what to do.

In these columns, we give you a short course in what to do so it becomes easy for you, and then you can teach others. We want you to know how much control you have over your quality and length of life.

The theme for this month’s SUCCESS magazine, Time for Action, fits perfectly with one of our key strategies: no excuses. We talked about that in our June 2009 column when we encouraged you, as one of the basic strategies for getting and staying younger, to walk 30 minutes a day, no excuses. We both personally honor that activity by aiming for 10,000 steps a day, regardless of plane flights, patient schedules, etc. To succeed in life, that is, to be healthy enough to enjoy the work you are doing, you need to excuse-proof your life, especially when it comes to exercise, food choices, stress management and showing love for the ones you love. But we only have space here to talk a little about this practice for exercise and food.

When it comes to working out, most of us have two excuse cards we like to play: We have the ace of “no time” and the jack of “It’s not convenient.” Now, we know you’re busy. We know you’re juggling more balls than a 12-armed clown. We know it’s easier to sit on the couch than to do a push-up on the floor. But we also know this: Time and convenience aren’t excuses.

First of all, learn to use your body as your gym for walking and for resistance training; we have such a plan in our book YOU: On a Diet, and you can see a free download of the