Veteran's Day has come and gone, but we hope you honor your servicemen and women every day -- and we hope you are continually inspired by all they do to allow us the freedom we all enjoy. We know some of you feel the inspiration but sadly, most respondents in our recent Veteran's Day poll report that they do not. Check these out, the answers to our question: Does Veteran's Day Inspire You?

• 27.3 percent of you are absolutely inspired. Good for you.
• 63.6 percent of you are not really inspired, Ah, come on.
• 9.1 percent of you aren't yet sure.
  
  

For those of you who are not really inspired or aren't yet sure if you're inspired -- I say you lace up those walking shoes, take a long walk, and think again. Or do like Martha would do and hop on the treadmill. It makes her thankful there are folks out there ensuring she can feel alive, powerful, and free. See if it does the same for you.

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I've been running this great 3.5 mile loop in the mornings, just after I drop my little boys at school. I leave my car parked in the school parking lot, strap my MP3 player to my arm, and run. I also wonder. I wonder what all the drivers who pass me on the street think when they see me running by. It's a pretty traffic-y area (don't worry, I stay on the sidewalk and cross streets only when I see the flashing "walk" guy) so I know bunches of people spot me working on my fitness. Do they critique my form? Do they laugh at me trying to keep my balance while hunting for my favorite song? Do they see me tugging at my wedgie, adjusting my shorts, wiping sweat from my brow? Of course, they do. I see all these things when I zero in on a runner. But mostly, when I see someone exercising outdoors, I think one thing: I want that to be me.

When I see someone running, I want to run. When I see someone power walking, I want to power walk. And when I see someone riding a bike up and down the seven hills in the my neighborhood -- big hills, I might add -- I want to be conquer those very same hills.

My new neighbor inspired me. There she was the other night, powering up and down hills while I was walking them. My walk was good. But that bike ride -- it looked even better. Well, it looked really hard, to be honest. But it made me want to tackle something different, a new challenge. I've never done it, so why not. I may even coax my seven-year-old into joining me. Together we can accomplish something great. Together we can become eye candy for those around us. What will they think? Probably that I'm huffing and puffing way too hard as my kid leaves me in his dust. What I hope, though, is that they'll think they want to ride too.

What makes you want to run, walk, or ride?

Staying healthy makes me inspired. Does staying thin, then, make me thinspired? To some degree, I guess it does. I eat right, exercise right, minimize stress, sleep enough, and do all I can to stay healthy, which also happens to help me stay thin. Not skinny. Not bony. Not skeletal. Just more thin than thick, more fit than fat.

Thinspiration is a buzz word used by youngish girls who strive to be skinny, anorexic even. It's a topic Blair at Gettysburg College addresses over at College Candy and what she finds is really quite disturbing. Scour the internet, she says, and you're bound to land at all sorts of anorexia blogs, pro-anorexia websites, and YouTube videos chalk full of crazy dieting tactics and images of girls whose bodies are wasting away. One 24-year-old even features on her website a thinspiration page, wallpapered with skinny-girl photos that mostly give me a sick feeling in my gut and make me realize I'm not all that thinspired after all. Nope. Inspired is what I am -- inspired to be healthy and happy in all of my 135-pound glory.

And you? Are you inspired -- or thinspired?

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Does your fitness or dieting plan need a jumpstart? Why? Obviously you've stalled, or hit a wall, or fallen into a rut, or whatever, but what is it that makes you want to break free and get moving again? What are you trying to achieve?

Considering your goal and refocusing yourself is one way to get motivated again, but if that isn't doing the trick try this slight variation: name 5 things your current weight or fitness level is preventing you from doing. Your goal may be to lose 25 pounds, but a list of things you'd like to do may have goals on it like wearing a certain size jeans, looking great for a specific event, or doing something physical like rock climbing or kayaking. By naming specific things that you want to do when you're thinner/healthier you can rejuvenate your spirit and inspiration, and get the focus shifted off the scale and more onto your life. So what are 5 things that you can (and will!) do when you reach your goal that you can't do now? And just how bad do you want those things?

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I think sometimes, or most of the time maybe, we all get lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Choices and decisions get rushed and the lines between what we need, what we want, and what we're actually doing start to blur. The truth is that although it's great to have all kinds of different goals in life you have to be careful you're not trying to do too much at once. When is the last time you really thought about your priorities? Not everything can be at the top of the list. Where is your health on that list? Are you really giving your top priorities the most effort and focus? It seems many people say 'health and losing weight' is a top priority, but then they bog themselves down with so many other things they hardly have time to work on it. Whether you like it or not that means it's at the bottom of the list, not the top.

So take a few minutes to think about what's important to you and to make some decisions. Make the choice to choose, and you may be surprised at how much focus, determination, and newfound success you find you suddenly have.

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There are a million and one ways to kink up a perfectly good exercise plan, most of which somehow involve you losing your motivation to workout and/or stick to a healthy eating plan. The worst kinks, however, are when a plateau hits right in the middle of all your hard work. When right at your most motivated all of your weight loss progress stops for some unknown reason and your work seems to suddenly have no effect, no matter what you do.

It's called a plateau and it happens to everybody! There are usually a couple of reasons why, 1) being that your body has become used to the workouts you're doing and it's time to switch things up, or 2) you're actually working too hard and your body is tired and needs more rest between workouts. Breaking through a plateau takes effort and planning but shouldn't be an impossible thing to do. Follow these simple steps to kick it back into gear and start seeing results again from your efforts:

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We've all done it -- promised ourselves this time it was gonna be different, that this time we were going to stick with it through to the end, NO MATTER WHAT. And then later, maybe even just a few days later, our resolve dissolved and we forgot all about that powerful conviction we had and started making excuses and finding reasons to go back to our old ways before we ever even really got started.

So enough of that, right? Writing down your plan can help, although if writing out a contract for yourself doesn't work what about writing a "Dear John" letter to your bad habits? Read this example, and write one in your own words. Then every time you feel weak just read it over and you'll feel refreshed and re-motivated!

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Hate to exercise? It happens to the best of us! Just because it's something everybody should be doing doesn't mean it's something everybody likes doing. But hating exercise makes it pretty tough to live a healthy lifestyle, so if you or someone you know is struggling with this issue try these 5 tips for exercise haters:

• Use technology to get yourself motivated. Either put on music that you love to get you in the mood, or try an audio training program -- they're available now for everything from cardio and calisthenics to pilates and yoga.
• Try bellydancing! Or any other interesting "outside of the box" class you may find that sparks your interest.
  
• Instead of trying to walk or jog for 30 minutes at once try doing 15 before work and the other 15 at lunch or right after work. The smaller timeframe may make it seem like less of a chore.
• Try Leslie Sanson's Walk Away the Pounds video program -- it's converted many an exercise hater.
• Find a fitness class that has a mind/body fitness approach. There are traditional options like yoga, Pilates, and Tai Chi, plus more modern ideas like yoga/Pilates combination classes.

These ideas from eDiets sound pretty good, but it seems finding a way around "hating to exercise" is more complicated than any 5 tips can solve. What do you do to make exercising fun, interesting, or at least tolerable?

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Being healthy is about so much more than just eating more fruits and vegetables and working out (although those are very important!), it's also about having a healthy outlook on life and having healthy relationships. It's that whole "well-rounded and balanced" idea we can't seem to get away from, because everything really does work together. So in tune with the season of getting your garden started this spring, check out this inspirational (and also a little cheesy) analogy on why you should plant squash, lettuce, peas, and turnips in your garden this year (squash gossip, let us love one another...)

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So you've lost some weight, maybe you've reached your goal or maybe you're just partly there, but how do you hold on to the progress you've made? Or maybe you just can't seem to get the scale to move, despite an exercise routine and cutting back on calories. According to this article, an important concept to remember if you want lasting weight loss is that quality counts. The quality of the food and the nutrition you give your body, the quality of the exercises you're doling, it all adds up. There really is no cheating when it comes to living a healthier lifestyle -- you're either doing it or you're not. There's no bluffing your way through.

So try some of these tips, and try them for real: don't drastically cut calories, keep junk food out of sight (therefore out of mind, hopefully anyway), make fitness a priority, beware of drinking in too many calories, change your mindset, realize that every little bit counts, find your inspiration, and get help if (when) you need it.

These ideas aren't easy to do every minute of every day, but my favorite is "every little bit counts." So give yourself some credit, even if you just did a "little bit" today, it's still something. Then do two "little bits" tomorrow!

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Now here's an interesting idea: People who are carrying around excess weight (according to this doctor, specifically those who are 50 pounds or more overweight) are really just extraordinarily talented people that are repressing and suppressing their unique gifts. He says that by realizing your true potential you can change your body and your life.

I will agree that overeating definitely has an emotional element to it, sometimes. His idea makes some sense, but I don't know that it's as simple as he makes it sound. Seriously, sometimes those French fries are just too good to resist -- no matter how talented I may be! I will say, though, that this is very motivating in positive way.

So, then, following this logic -- if America is one of the fattest countries in the world, that makes us one gifted bunch of underachievers!

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I don' t know what the exact number is, but I do know that the vast majority of weight loss and fitness related New Year's resolutions have already ended in failure. And it isn't even February yet, how sad! Truth is that even though many people are good at supporting and motivating their friends and family, they suck at helping themselves. If you are your own worst enemy when it comes to keeping yourself on track, then maybe you just need to learn how to be kinder to yourself and focus some of that caregiver energy inward. This article has 10 tips that seem to share the theme of developing positive habits and coping methods -- like signing an actual pledge to yourself that you'll reach your goal, and calling on your own personal "911 squad" whenever you're about to do something self-destructive.

In theory, losing weight and getting fit should be one of the easiest things in the world for anybody to do: by eating less and exercising more. But something hangs us all up and makes it one of the hardest things instead. Just think, though, how successful you could be if you could only learn to conquer your own inner demons.

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Feeling fat has become so common in our society that's it's almost uncool not to feel ugly and overweight. If you're standing around the water cooler with a group of colleagues and somebody complains about how gross they feel and that they're planning on starting a new diet, everybody chimes in with how and why they hate their own bodies. Nobody like's the person who stands there and says, "Yeah, I don't worry about what I eat cuz I'm already so hot." Stuck up fatty...

Now there's nothing wrong with being confident, although it does go best with some humility. But the important thing is not to let the negativity of people around you drag you down, and not to let "feeling fat" become a sneaky term for other emotional issues like being unhappy or lonely. It's difficult, if not impossible, to achieve anything positive if all you've got is negative energy. Start by changing how you talk to yourself, the actual words you use. Be kind (or funny) with yourself, but not self-loathing or critical. Become that confident happy person you imagine yourself to be if you were thinner, and before you know it your body will catch up with your thinking.

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If you could only have one thing to help you lose weight or get in shape, what would help you the most? A new piece of equipment? An awesome diet plan? According to psychologists, the single best thing you can have is support. Whether it's in the form of a workout buddy, an online support system, or a positive spouse and family, being part of a group and feeling that you're working towards a common goal will do wonders for your motivation and self-esteem. It's part of our human nature: nobody wants to be alone.

I'm buyin' it. Strength in numbers, right?

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Fitness, weight-loss, eating healthy (heck, simply being healthy) is hard to do. I think we can all say we've made excuses, and many of us have had major lapses in our health and fitness as a result.

Phyllis Pearson has plenty of reasons to make excuses. In fact most people wouldn't even consider them excuses really, more like simple truths why at 85 years old she can't go out swimming or hiking that day. But she doesn't see it that way. Phyllis first set out to run a marathon when she was getting close to 60 years old. She was determined, and although she wasn't able to complete a full marathon, she did run several half-marathons successfully. She has since kept on going strong, and some of her other current hobbies are bicycling, hiking, and swimming.

What does she credit as her "secret to success" for staying in the fitness and health game for so long without playing the excuse game? Being flexible and accepting regular "down time" is what works for her.

This article from The Seattle Times is full of other other inspirational people like Phyllis Pearson, and their personal tricks that keep them going.

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