Women who battle frustration and silently scream from failed weight loss attempts, poor health, and lack of will power are not alone. It's not all about exercise and diet. If your spirit isn't with the program, even the best discipline might just lead to injury or worse yet feeling you failed even when you gave it your “all."

Statistics show “dieting has a 95% failure rate and just by switching from a bad lifestyle to a healthier one, one can expect to add as much as 14 years to their life." But what do you do when you think you have done everything and the results don’t last?

Over the years, I have discovered that teaching women how to exercise in order to help them become well again was the easy part. Teaching women to motivate themselves to exercise beyond the initial stages of accomplishing a goal was quite challenging.

Most women don’t look at the whole picture when it comes to losing weight and getting in shape. For ultimate health you must balance obligations, desires, job, family and self-care. Women must pause long enough to look within to see if exercising is going to be an added task to their list for the day or a more nurturing practice that elevates them to a higher well being.

To look at this, I believe women must take a holistic approach to their exercise. The good news is there are three major components in making ultimate health a living reality, giving you a balanced, healthy, joyful lifestyle.

I realize we have heard a lot about body mind and spirit; however, this is part of our infrastructure that makes us unique. All three are part of who we are. If we forget about one or the other we set ourselves up for failure every time. Taking a holistic approach to your exercise program allows for effortless integration into your lifestyle and have results stick.

It would be simple if a cookie cutter quick fix approach worked for most people. This hope is the constant lure of new diet books and programs. If I take steps 1-10, the same as my neighbor, we should get the same results, right? But that science class approach does not ring true for diet and fitness programs.

Each of us is unique. We have unique needs and causes, often time’s emotional ones, for why we need to improve our physical fitness. When we honor that, it allows us to exercise with enjoyment and safety.

To be successful, you must focus on building an inner foundation to support your physical fitness program, before you add on the exercise component. This may seem backwards to many women, but without this foundation, most women fall off the exercise program once life distractions occur. By looking at your life balance, examining your self talk (mind), uncovering the things that drain your energy (spirit) and learning how to nurture yourself (body) ones fitness program becomes an easy part of your world. It draws you toward the health, vitality, and toned body that you strive for, instead of pushing and exhausting yourself and getting nowhere.

To examine your self-talk, look at what you want to be. If you want to be a toned, fit, healthy person - pay attention to what you tell yourself when that image or thought comes to mind. If you’re inner self-talk is negative, take notice and replace your thoughts with positive thoughts. If you tell yourself “no matter what I do I will always have fat thighs" reject the thought – you do not know that is of truth - and replace it with something that is of truth. “I have strong thighs that help me enjoy my favorite activities." “I am exercising and my thighs are firmer and stronger."

The self-talk you express give instruction to your spirit of how you want to be. Start expressing positive thinking and beliefs instead of berating yourself continually about being fat, flabby, and out of shape. Rather, express how full of energy and strong you are and how you are taking inspired action to living a life of being fit and healthy.

To listen to your spirit, practice taking the time for silence, or meditation. Here is where you can listen to what your body needs and take action from there. If under chronic stress, mediation, yoga, tai chi, Pilates, or easy gentle walks may be more appropriate exercise to start out with. If feeling good, having little stress and pressures from the world, your spirit and your inner need may lead you to a more focused workout that elevates your heart rate, and challenges your body to a moderate or vigorous level.

Taking an inside out approach towards your fitness goals will help give increased clarity, inspire you towards actions that honor and value you, leading you to a more joyful experience.