Lots of people start out the new year with resolutions to eat better, exercise, or go on a diet. Most of those resolutions have been broken within just a few short weeks of turning that page on the calendar. Making a choice to improve or change your diet or begin a diet shouldn’t be about some magic date on any calendar. Your diet day should begin today!

Whenever you plan to make changes in the future, regardless of whether that date is six months away or the infamous “tomorrow,” you are really only procrastinating. You’re putting off what could-and very likely should-be done right now. You’re making excuses.

Excuses are what got you into this mess in the first place! Whether that proverbial “mess” is excess weight, clothes that don’t fit, health problems caused by obesity or bad eating habits, or lack of energy because you’re eating junk food instead of quality foods designed to energize your body, every one of those factors is directly related to making excuses rather than healthy food choices. So you already know that excuses do not work!

You need to make your diet day today. Today is really the only day of our lives that we have any control of. We can make all the plans we want for tomorrow, but plans are just that. They’re all about thinking, not doing. When you begin your diet day today, that is doing. And doing-taking action-is the only thing that will ever change your life or any part of your life.

Granted, when you start your diet day today-rather than “planning” for this new mission you’re about to embark on-you may not have all of the details worked out. You might just have to play it by ear a bit at the beginning. You won’t have time to read all of the diet books or decide on the plan you’re going to follow before you start.

But the most important part-and the key to your eventual success-is that you will have started! You’ll be further along your road to success and the achievement of your weight or diet related goals than anyone else because you took action and did something about it now. That’s fantastic!

It’s also important to note that regardless of how much pre-planning you do or what your goals are, you have to live every day in the present and make choices each moment in the here and now. So making your diet day today is really the only way to go. You don’t have to know what the book says from cover to cover to get started. You can start now with what you do know, make incremental steps to improve your diet and your daily choices, and begin to see results immediately.

Then, like anything else in life, you can tweak your approach-and the daily decisions you make minute by minute-as you learn more about eating and getting healthy. As your body changes and you make healthier choices, you will also naturally find that you will need to adjust what you are doing to keep pace with those changes.

So the bottom line is this: Quit making excuses! Take action! Make your diet day today!