The key to staying healthy is...yeah, right. If it were that easy, there wouldn't be 18 million books on the perfect diet, an entire industry devoted to making food not food anymore (supplements) and such a thing as a coffee enema (come on, that's just wrong). But maybe there is one simple word that fits into that magic sentence, and it just might be "BALANCE".

The first step in taking responsibility for your own health is to learn about your body. Some of that means learning about bodies in general; we are all pretty much put together in the same way. But once you have a fundamental understanding of the operating functions of the human body, you need to learn what that means for you, because one person's adrenaline rush is another persons tension headache.

My goal is to provide you with some basic information about how bodies function in general, and then give you ideas about how you can apply that information in your own quest for health and fitness. Why should you believe me? Well, you shouldn't "believe" anyone, you should look for the logical explanation and don't buy into the myth that the body is too complicated and intricate for the layperson to understand. The body is indeed complicated but I guarantee that everything your body does follows a logical, sensible algorithm that will make perfect sense to you if you take the time to understand it.

Ultimately my goal is to never hear one of my friends say "I got sick because the weather changed so quickly.", "Good cholesterol, bad cholesterol", "refined sugar will kill you, have some fruit", "coffee is bad for you" (maybe not wrong, but I hate hearing that), and finally my all time favorite (West County Special) "I'm tired today because my body is full of toxins." !!!!

Learning about your body and how it functions will enable you to sift through all the marketing for sport enhancing products, all the trends, all the old wives tales, all the new age miracles, and even what your own health care provider tells you, so that you can make informed decisions regarding your health and your training/fitness program. (nice run-on!!) As athletes, we have even more at stake when it comes to understanding our own bodies. Your performance and even your enjoyment level can be seriously enhanced by the choices you make regarding diet, recovery, stress reduction, etc.

-Erika Floric