Week 1: Make the Commitment

• Sign your Body Challenge contract and hang it where you can see it every day.
• Don't wait. Commit to a healthy life now. Get your pedometer. Aim to add 500-1,000 steps a day until you reach your daily goal of 10,000 steps a day.
• Don't skip breakfast. Eat 1/2 of your usual serving(s) of dessert or snack food.
• Start a journal. Keep track of what you eat and when you exercise. It will help keep you accountable to yourself.

Week 2: Customize Your Eating Plan

• Clean up your eating. Read labels! Try to cut down on or avoid high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and processed junk food!
• Calculate your resting metabolic rate or have it measured at your Bally Gym.
• Cut 250 to 500 calories a day for a 1/2-1 pound weight loss per week.
• Either use your home gym or start weight training at the gym twice a week.
• Take one multivitamin a day.

Week 3: Learn How to Regroup

• When life presents you with obstacles, it's easy to let it all go when life gets tough. Instead, develop a can-do attitude. Say to yourself: "Whatever happens, I will learn to work around it."
• Learn stress-management skills and start to practice them this week.

Week 4: Practice Consistency NOT Perfection

• Aim to hit your eating and workout goals 80 percent of the time. No one is perfect, and things can happen to make it more difficult to achieve your goals. Do your best.
• Consistently drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.

Week 5: Use Your Head

• Make the mind-body connection. Learn how to be mindful about your eating and physical activity.
• Chew every bite carefully, experience the texture and flavor.
• Eat twice as long as you usually do, and you'll eat less. Keep a timer at the table and time yourself when you eat.
• When you exercise, pay attention to how your body feels.

Week 6: Half Way Point Evaluation

• OK. Pull out your Body Challenge contract and remind yourself of your commitment.
• Put on the clothes-o-meter. Check your waist size, weigh yourself and review your journal.
• Now ask yourself where can you improve. What are your vulnerable points? Lack of consistency, stress-induced overeating, larger-than-necessary portions, poor planning and scheduling and emotional issues are all things to consider. Work on these tough challenges now. You have another five weeks to refine your weight-loss regimen.

Week 7: Clean Up Your Living Spaces

• Look around you. You need to hang out with like-minded people. That means people who live a healthy lifestyle.
• Clean up the clutter in your life and you can feel freer to plan and carry out your exercise and food shopping.

Week 8: Sleep it Off:

• Even though you have the energy and life is full of possibilities, try to remember to get in at least six hours of sleep so that you can wake up refreshed and on track with your self-care.

Week 9: Build Your Natural Medicine Cabinet

• Fruits, veggies and whole grains are your natural medicine cabinet. On-the-go 20-year-olds skip these vital foods too frequently.
• Eat five servings a day of fresh fruits and veggies. The deeper the fruit or veggie's color, the richer the antioxidants found in them.
• Eat two to three servings of whole grains (oats, multigrain, barley).
• Make it a habit to incorporate these foods into your diet this week.

Week 10: Get Creative

• All right. You've learned the basic template for eating and exercise. How about thinking outside the box? Cross-train with different kinds of cardio activities and equipment. Challenge yourself!
• Go all the way and participate in a sports event. Try your first 5K walk or run. That goal will keep you focused and bring it all together.
• For eating, try ethnic food combinations. Go vegetarian for a week. Try a hybrid way of eating �?become a "fish-vegetarian."
• Try new seasonings and condiments this week. It's easier to stay on track when you make eating more interesting.

Week 11: Have Some Fun

• You're in your 20s and full of vim, vigor and vitality. Try new sports, sign up for adventures (Outward Bound), climb a mountain. This is the time to explore and play. Your treadmill and gym workouts will help you prepare your body to challenge itself, keeping you both physically and mentally fit.

Week 12: You Did It!

• The journey continues. Repeat your baseline assessment (see Week 6).
• Review your Body Challenge contract. How did you do? Make a list of your achievements over the last 12 weeks. How was your focus and motivation? What did you change in your eating and physical-activity behaviors that is sticking? Do you no longer skip breakfast? Do you get that cardio in 80 percent of the time?
• The key is to see that you have laid down a foundation for healthier living, which you can then refine for the rest of your life. The more you practice these habits, the easier it gets.

Congratulations on a job well done!