December is a month full of transitions. As we prepare for the holidays and for the New Year, it is easy to forget about how important your own health and fitness can be. Use these tips to help keep yourself fit, active and feeling great as you ring in a brand new year.

1. Balance Your Meals

Getting all your nutrients from your meals should be your top priority. Each meal is another chance for you to feed your body and take advantage of the abundant variety of foods available to you. So spice it up and try new foods as often as you can.

2. Get Active and Stay Active

Staying active and fit matters, especially as you age. Regular physical activity can help you prevent disease and injury in your “golden years”. In grade school you learned how important exercise is. Now to refresh you on why it’s so important…

Physical activity boosts the metabolism and keeps excess weight off. Regular exercise enhances the immune system, improves mood, helps prevent depression, and promotes cardiovascular health. Exercise has been shown to delay or prevent osteoporosis, and even certain types of cancer. Exercise done regularly also helps balance and control blood lipids, diabetes, and obesity.

3. Know Your Supplements

Before you decide, consider talking to someone at your local health food store. Your neighborhood health food staff are often store owners and they usually have exceptional knowledge of the products and supplements they carry.

After you decide upon a daily nutritional supplement, now examine your diet even more thoroughly. We all know that we lack in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, pretty much every American does, but what more does your diet lack in? Do you lack in dairy, how about beans/legumes or maybe fish? Let's take fish for example. Some people choose not to each fish because of the polluted waters, or concern about mercury; nevertheless, it is clear that fish contain nutrients that are very good for our bodies, especially our brains and hearts. So if you don't eat enough fish, you might want to think about supplementing your diet with fish oil.

Secondly, consider whether you have an ailment. Are you suffering from arthritis, asthma, high blood pressure or diabetes? If so, you might wish to take a supplement that can help in combatting that ailment. Sure the vitamins/minerals in your mult-vitamin are going to help, but in order to repair the body you might consider taking an additional supplement for a while. You may also want to look at your family history and take preventative measures by taking supplements that help you to avoid certain ailments/diseases that your parents or even your grandparents had.

4. Boost Your Immune System

One of the most important things you can do to avoid catching any flu virus is to wash your hands frequently. If you’re traveling, meeting people or spending time in public this is especially important. Never touch your mouth, nose or eyes without washing your hands first – that’s how flu spreads.

One easy and affordable way to boost your immune system is to take a daily dose of Colostrum, LimuZ, or any other Immune System boosting supplement.

5. Avoid Smoking

One of the most important things you can do for your health is to stop smoking. If you continue to smoke, you may become one of the more than 430,000 smoking-related deaths that occur every year. Smoking is the Number 1 cause of preventable diseases and death in the United States. Tobacco is a major risk factor for both heart disease/heart attack, stroke and cancer.

Smoking increases blood pressure, the tendency for blood to clot, and the risk of recurrent coronary heart disease after bypass surgery. It also decreases exercise tolerance. Additionally, smoking is a major risk factor for most cancers.

6. Learn How to Sleep

Do you want to be productive, mentally sharp, emotionally balanced, and full of energy all day long? The way you feel during your waking hours hinges on how well you sleep at night. The cure to sleep difficulties and daytime fatigue can often be found in your daily routine. Your sleep schedule, bedtime habits, and day–to–day lifestyle choices make an enormous difference in the quality of your nightly rest.

7. Visit the Doctor on a Regular Basis

According to many recent studies in health care the current world-wide recession has more and more people cutting back on health care expenses. Rather than visit the doctor for that cold, flu or constant stomach ache they are turning to either just dealing with it or using some form of home remedy to cure it. It seems that the last thing people want to spend hard earned money on is the state of their health. Unfortunately, the CDC released a statement late last year that said due to the economic conditions being felt by families there has been a sharp increase in stress related health disorders that can quickly serve to threaten people’s lives. This is just one of the many reasons why you should see a doctor regularly! By planning annual exams and check-ups it is much easier to stay abreast of the state of your health. By getting routine blood work that scans for things like diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and other common maladies you are more equipped to deal with them in a timely manner before they cause life threatening danger to your health. By leaving things go unnoticed even when you clearly feel that something is just not right you risk turning a medical condition into one that may include surgical intervention or even long term hospitalization.

8. Learn to Listen to Your Body

One of the most important ways for you to become a healthy eater is to learn to listen closely to what your body tells you, to recognize what it needs and desires in order to feel fit and comfortable. When you listen long and hard enough to your body, you will begin to differentiate sensations and feelings, and to become aware of your own capacity to react to hunger and satiety.

Your body will not lead you astray if you know what it needs and can respond appropriately. If you are capable of taking good care of your body, it will perform well for you.

9. Spend Time Outdoors

Nature provides many of the things we need, like fresh air and sunlight, but there's also an energy in living things that we connect with when we're outdoors. You can definitely get an endorphin high from being outside. Just moving around in nature makes our bodies feel good. Nature also has healing effects. People who have trouble sleeping find that spending time in nature helps them sleep better. Going outside when you feel a cold coming on seems to make cold symptoms evaporate. You might find that you don’t get sicker when you’re outdoors, only better.

10. Spend Time with Yourself

As it turns out, solitude is a positive state, necessary to remain sane and healthy. If you’ve been super busy taking care of everyone but yourself, today’s article outlines the importance of putting alone time at the top of your everyday priority list. Achieving your goals, making space for all kinds of good stuff to come in, and taking focused action on what’s most important requires significant amounts of alone time. It’s only when you create space for solitude that you can reflect on your own inner desires, set new goals, and discover your courage to pursue personal dreams.

Not everyone needs hours of time alone, but everyone needs his or her own personal balance between engagement with the world and engagement with self.