Jessie Pavelka's fitness tips

Written by: 
Michelle Hale

Jessie Pavelka, Lifetime network's healthy living expert on DietTribe, gives his fitness tips.

What is your No. 1 diet tip?
Keep it simple. There are thousands of diets out there but find what's right for you. Make it easy and plan ahead. Don't wait until you're hungry to decide what you're going to eat. Have healthy options on hand so you don't have bad options. If you open your refrigerator and half the stuff's hydrogenated this and hydrogenated that, eventually you're going to eat it and then your body craves that stuff. Make sure you have good options that treat your body right.

What is your No. 1 work out tip?
Just do something. Move. A lot of people sit at a desk all day and it's hard to put the body in motion. If you're at your desk, do something. Don't let your ego and pride get in the way, do pushups, do squats, do something that'll burn calories. 

Jessie Pavelka on <em>DietTribe</em> (photo credit: Lifetime Television)What would you say to someone who wants to improve their diet or start exercising, but can't get motivated?
If you keep waiting for the right time, there's never going to be the right time. You've just got to do it. You've got to silence that voice that keeps saying, "I'll do it tomorrow." Instead, you've got to start listening to the quiet voice that tells you to do the right things.  Eventually that voice gets louder and then you can barely hear the one that makes bad choices. Start making good choices and stop making excuses.

What attitude is most important for a person to successfully reach his or her goal of getting fit and healthy?
Keep your spirits high. Look at every day as a new day and attack that day. Often people get discouraged and start looking at things that are months ahead. If you want to lose 50 pounds, don't think "I've got to lose 50 pounds," that's a big number to focus on. Instead say, "I need to lose 2 pounds this week. I've got to make sure I do what I have to do today to make sure that I lose those 50 pounds."

How do you maintain your positive attitude?
I'm surrounded by awesome people and that definitely helps. But I also have down time. I've had times when life was really rough on me. But I realize that when I was down and hitting rock bottom, I was the most creative and thinking the most and making the best plans for my life.  I try to just wake up every day and attack the day. I figure out things that I can do to challenge myself and things that I can do to make me happy and I try to do those every day.

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