Okay. The delay is over. Here I am and so are you, so let’s get started on how exercising can change your life. My first feature post here will focus on diabetes because I consider it the gateway disease—invite diabetes and you’ll have a bunch of unwelcome guests crashing your party.

I’m all for scare tactics so allow me to use one now. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the prevalence of the disease went up by 14% in the 2 years between 2005 and 2007. That’s a couple of million new cases!

In total, 24 million of your family members, friends, and neighbors throughout the U.S. now suffer from diabetes. Believe me, this is one club you don’t want to join. And if you already joined, now’s the time to opt out.

Let me tell you why in just three words: steep membership dues. There’s a number of very nasty fees you’ll end up paying. These range from the 2 to 4 times increased risk of developing heart disease and stroke to the almost certain dues in high blood pressure and nerve damage. As if that wasn’t enough, some of the taxes levied against you may include blindness (24,000 cases), kidney disease (44% of members), and amputations (over 70,000/year).

So there’s the nasty news. Want to hear the good news? It doesn’t matter if you have diabetes or you’re at increased risk because everyone in your gene pool has or had it, you can do things to help yourself. Two of those things are a good diet and exercise. For more information on diet, you can check out THIS. Here I’ll focus on a few benefits of exercise for diabetes.

First, a little diabetes 101:
Too little, ineffective or non-existent insulin levels allow glucose (sugar) to stay in the bloodstream. This starves your cells of the energy they need and allows the freely floating glucose to wreak havoc on all of the body’s systems. This, in a nutshell is what diabetes does. Exercise can help to turn this around:

1. Exercise helps directly to lower glucose levels
2. Exercise also increases lean muscle which helps to pull the glucose out of your bloodstream and into your cells
3. Lastly, exercise ensures a healthy heart, mind and body. This helps to ward off the uninvited dinner guests that diabetes likes to bring with it.

So there you have it; another reason to exercise regularly. This is something all of the Beachbody programs help you to do, But if you or someone you know needs something more, you can check out Beachbody’s “Project You 2” It's a fitness AND diet program developed with and approved by Beachbody, a team of doctors and educators and the American Diabetes Association.

I'm touching in briefly to let you know that moving (and everything that entails) has put me into a state of suspended animation--no internet, no email, and no blog. I've also been off of WOWY which hasn't been easy to live without. It's almost like getting shunted back to the dark ages of working out solo--no accountability and no online community. It's weird how a seemingly insignificant piece of electronic connectivity can make that much of a difference.

Even now, over a week after my move, I feel like I'm still holding my breath. My family and I are still living in the eye of a hurricane, discovering socks in our utensil drawers and dishes in the clothes hampers. It's a great exercise in serendipity. It's also reminded me that moving isn't a one day event. It's a many day process.

That's the same way I've come to think of health and lifestyle changes. My experience tells me that big decisions--fitness or otherwise--fall into the same category of process. No magic bullet/pill/panacea. No one size fits all, cures-all, ends-all solution. Life is an endless string of mini-transformations. Sometimes you hit a u-turn, a hiccup here and a reversal there. But the overarching goal is that you continue in the trajectory that leads you to your goals.

For me right now, the goal is to keep up with my workouts and to find that missing drawer that contains my clean boxers. Chances are that's where I stashed the steak knives...