If I told you a month’s worth of research effort would give you 5 million dollars at retirement, would you be interested?On the other hand, if I told you not to worry about your financial future, that Social Security would take care of you, most of you would get a nice laugh. We all recognize the need to take some control of our financial lives to make sure that our financial future has some legs to it, not just leave it up to chance. You need to make that same recognition about the physical legs that are going to be carrying you into the golden years. You can ignore your health, bank on the “Universal Health Aging Plan,” and hope that as time goes on you’ll just roll into a ripe old age with your health and mobility. Or you can develop a game plan, put together a Health and Wellness Portfolio™ (HWP™) and greatly increase the odds that you’ll move into retirement with a body that is healthy and mobile enough to enjoy your financial retirement portfolio.

When you take steps to secure your financial future, you piece together a financial portfolio with varying degrees of investment in different financial tools (assets) depending on your individual goals and needs. When it comes to your financial portfolio you recognize that you will invest in certain financial tools more than others, given their strengths and weakness and your goals at the time.

If you are a smart investor, you don’t randomly put your money here, there, and everywhere. You recognize that you have a limited number of resources to invest. You also recognize that if you hope to get the most from your investment, you need to allocate those resources to the financial tools that give you the best opportunity to maximize your return on investment.

A smart financial investor:

• Knows what her goal is.
• Understands which financial tools are the best for her.
• Does her homework.
• Manages her portfolio, making needed adjustments.
• Seeks continuing education.
• Gets help when she needs it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to investing in one’s health, many people are not smart investors. With an overwhelming amount of information available on diet and exercise, many people do not know how to sort through the “junk mail” to get to what they need. Add to that an industry that is notorious for selling more sizzle than substance, and it is no wonder why people are misinformed, misguided, fed-up, frustrated, and don’t know where to begin.

Yes, this the part where the knight in shining armor comes riding in.

I am very familiar with the frustrations created by the diet industry that keeps people from the lives they want to live. As a lifestyle and strength and conditioning coach, I found myself answering many of the same essential questions over and over on the basics of how the human body works and how to take care of it:

• What makes certain diets better than others?
• How much cardiovascular training do I need to do?
• What is the importance and role of resistance training?
• How hard do I need to train?
• How do I increase my flexibility or range of motion?
• Is there a way to improve my body awareness so I don’t feel like I have two left feet?
• Are there ways to keep my mental health and my mind young?

To this day, it amazes me how many people cannot answer the question, “What is fat?” despite the fact that millions have declared war on it. Is it any wonder they are losing the battle of the bulge when they can not even define who their enemy is?

The Health and Wellness Portfolio™ is simply a collection of the different tools you have available to you to take care of your body proactively. How much time and energy you invest into a particular tool will depend on your individual goals and needs. Understanding the strength and weakness of each tool will allow you to maximize the time, energy, and money you invest in each. When you invest properly you will be giving yourself a body that looks, feels, and moves the way you want it to.

I have used the tools of the HWP™ to help clients of all shapes, sizes, and fitness levels, from coast to coast, to reach their performance and appearance goals. Whether you are 25 or 75 years old, want to lose 10 pounds or 100 pounds, add 10 yards to your golf drive, or be able to walk 10 blocks, no matter what your goal is, the HWP™ is a tool that will help you in understanding, planning, and organizing your fitness and wellness goals in a way that will allow you to function effectively and efficiently.

Here is a quick outline of the tools within the HWP™:

	Diet: What and how you eat has a tremendous effect on the way you look and feel. Understanding the basics can go a long way towards setting yourself free from restrictive diets and domineering gurus. Becoming food savvy, not superstitious, is the first step in taking control of your health and wellness.
	Cardiovascular Training: “20 minutes, 3 times per week,” right? Cardiovascular training plays an important role in keeping your waistline in check and keeping your heart and lungs in topnotch shape. Knowing how to apply this tool correctly can save you hours of time and unneeded effort.
	Resistance Training: Increasing and maintaining bone density and lean body mass, along with making daily activities easier are just a few of the benefits that this tool provides. If you think using dumbbells or weight machines are your only options you are missing out.
	Body Awareness: We live in a three dimensional, multi-input world. Body Awareness activities help keep you nimble and fluid, both mentally and physically. Knowing how to incorporate these activates into your life will allow you to dance the “Funky Chicken” well into your golden years.
	Flexibility & Range of Motion: Do you have general aches, pains, and stiffness in the morning or throughout the day? Not quite able to get that golf swing as far back as you would like? These are just a few problems that can be addressed with this tool. However, to keep your joints healthy and mobile it takes much more than just going into a “stretch.”
	Mental Health: Having ways to create mental stillness in this world of input, input, input and information overload is essential. Knowing ways to optimize our brain’s potential for higher levels of creativity and problem solving are also a bonus in both work and play. Don’t let this important tool go unused.

Creating an HWP™ is just like a financial portfolio; it changes as your life’s priorities change, and the later in life you start to manage it, the harder it is to acquire maximum benefits. The real beauty of having a balanced and active HWP™ is that, unlike your financial retirement portfolio, you get to enjoy it as you build it. You get to enjoy a body that is going to allow you to do more, have more fun doing it and live a life that is better able to deal with stress, as well as enjoying a mind that is able to function at its best.

If you are ready to:

• Understand the tools available to you.
• Understand the strengths and weakness of each tool.
• Have a means to organize the time and energy you invest in your health and wellness.
• Have a means to understand and organize new information.
• Have a way to manage the time and energy you invest in your health and wellness.
• Know where to get help if you need it.

Then you have found what you are looking for. Click here and learn how you can get started effectively managing your Health and Wellness Portfolio™, guru-free.