"Do You Realize How Much Better You'll Feel Once You Learn How Exhilarating A Healthy Diet Is?"

Do you feel run down, sluggish or just not as energetic as you once did?

Do you try to alleviate your listlessness with coffee, sugar and other unhealthy products that probably do nothing other than give you a quick fix of energy and then make you feel worse than before?

Everyone knows that a proper diet is essential to maintaining a healthy energy level. Unfortunately though, not everyone fully understands what is involved in creating a proper diet and how it easy it is to keep.

A healthy diet doesn't mean eating only bland salads and removing breads, pastas, sweets, soda, cake and other goodies, it means building a balanced diet that allows you to treat yourself without sacrificing your long term health.

When most people hear the words diet, they normally think of green leaves and little else. Images of healthy eaters are never smiling and who can get excited about the prospect of sitting down to a meal that's devoid of flavor, calories and red meat?

At least that's what I thought a diet was before I was cornered into building one for myself. Now, I know better. I know how great it is to finally make it through a meeting without falling asleep. I know how fantastic it feels to be alive and awake first thing in the morning. I know how marvelous it feels to have the energy to do anything I want.

I used to be lazy. I used to be one of the laziest people currently alive. I'm not exaggerating. If you looked up lazy in the dictionary, you'd see a huge picture of me.

I never left my house unless I absolutely had to and I only picked up my cell phone if I knew who was calling and what they wanted. I didn't return messages and couldn't find the energy to respond to an email.

My laziness didn't come from my lack of desire, but from not having enough energy to get my lazy butt in motion. I wanted to live an exciting, eventful life, I just couldn't figure out how to wake myself up long enough to do any of the things I wanted to do.

And on top of it all, I had the worst eating habits of anyone you probably have ever met.

My normal day went something like this: I'd wake up at 7am and require at least one cup of coffee to get me moving. I rarely ate breakfast at home, instead, I'd have a snack of some sort along with another cup of coffee at work. For lunch I always ate a ham and cheese sandwich and like clockwork I had my third cup of coffee halfway though my afternoon. For dinner, I would normally pick up takeout.

Looking back upon my eating habits, I couldn't believed that I thought I was eating healthy. There was no part of my diet that was balanced or wholesome, just empty calories and processed foods. It's no wonder I was so lethargic.

The funny thing is, at the time I didn't realize that my eating habits were so poor. It wasn't until I started dating my current girlfriend that I saw how bad my habits had become.

Like any normal couples, Linda and I based our relationship around food. We went out for dinner, had picnics in the park and enjoyed sharing a Sunday brunch.

It seemed like the more time we spent together, the more time we spent eating together. Given my intense laziness, a perfect date was staying in, ordering a pizza and watching a movie. So we did that a lot.

Looking back upon the events of the time, I'm sure Linda started picking up on my poor nutritional habits right from the beginning. There were subtle suggestions like asking, "isn't this the second time today you've had french fries?" or "is that your third helping of bacon?"

As time went on, Linda stopped being so subtle with her hints. She started forbidding me from eating certain foods and wanted me to start being more active. She stopped suggesting that we walk to the drug store instead of driving and...