Yeahhhh, I'm going to need you to come in on Saturday....

Every Monday morning at 5:45am my alarm goes off.

It wakes me from the dreams of a fun filled weekend and shakes me back to a reality filled with emails to answer, phone calls to return, and 50+ hours spent chained to my desk.  While this sounds quite unappealing (and trust me, a lot of the time, IT IS) there's a method to the madness and that "madness" is a paycheck.  I go to work every day so that I can bring home a paycheck and be able to afford a roof over my head, food on the table, and the occasional overpriced pair of designer jeans.

Let's take this example and apply it to your body.  

What if you looked at your body as your full-time job, with your health as your paycheck?  I imagine you'd be treating it a heck of a lot better than many people do on a day to day basis.  You'd probably be working a little harder and paying a little bit more attention to what goes in your mouth if you knew that at the end of the week it meant you'd have money to be able to buy yourself some fancy shoes at Prada.

OK, so this is not quite what I mean.

Unfortunately, most people don't take their health nearly as seriously as they do their work.  Have a meeting with the boss at 5pm on Friday?  Bet you're not canceling it even if you spill chicken parm all over your tie while you're at lunch.  Have to stay 20 minutes late to finish that very important project?  This annoyance is reason to cancel your gym date with your bff and go home and watch this week's episode of Revenge with your good friends Ben & Jerry.

What am I getting at?

Working out should be an appointment that you can't cancel.  Eating right should be a deadline that you can't miss.  Look, I get it, work is demanding and it's hard to make time to go to the gym.  But when did keeping the ol' ticker working so that you can oh, I don't know, stay alive become something that can easily be brushed aside while you'd miss your first born's birth before you'd ignore an email from the boss?

It's time to get your priorities in order.  I'm sure every one of us could find thirty minutes somewhere in the day to go for a walk.  It's why my alarm goes off so ungodly early.  I may not always want to get up that early but I know what my morning gym session does for my mind and my body so, much like a weekly meeting at the office I'm required to attend, I do not cancel on myself unless there are extreme circumstances.  (And yes, occasionally a very hot man in bed with me qualifies as an "extreme circumstance.")

Eating right and exercising are not options, they are essential to your longevity.  You're not going to have the time to spend all that money you're killing yourself to earn if you are literally killing yourself by not taking care of your health.  So stop thinking of it as something you'll do "when you have time" and start making it a daily date that will get you fired if you miss.

The boss has spoken.