"If you look good, you feel good."

Everyone has heard this quote at least one time in their life, and no matter how simple or irrelevant that it may seem, I've found that it is absolutely true.

Three of my grandparents died of cancer and my father and grandmother have had cancer scares and both currently have diabetes and blood pressure issues, so it's clear that bad health issues runs in my family. Because of having to deal with watching this happen to my family members ever since a young age, I've made it a goal of mine to live as healthy of a lifestyle as I can.

When I was younger (before my dad was diagnosed with diabetes), my parents weren't too worried about us eating healthy or exercising, so I was used to having soda or candy around the house at all times. Once my dad was diagnosed with diabetes and had to greatly reduce his sugar intake, I decided that I would do the same.

I was used to being able to drink soda or eat food with a lot of sugar in it whenever I pleased, so stopping was extremely difficult at first. I started out small, (I'd go a day without it, then a week without it and so on) but eventually it became a lot easier. I've cut soda and candy completely out of my diet, (although I still have a sweet tea addiction and can't say no to chocolate) and recently I've been working on cutting out fast food and most processed food.

After cutting these out of my diet, I started seeing incredible results in my health and in the way that I looked. I decided to start running to lose more weight, which I greatly enjoyed and still enjoy, but my love for fitness really started once I signed up for a weightlifting class during my senior year of high school.

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates

Since my senior year of high school, about four years ago, I haven't gone more than two days in a row without running or going to the gym, and when you combine that with eating healthy I'm becoming more and more confident with how I look and how I feel. "If you look good, you feel good."

My purpose for writing this article isn't to brag about my accomplishments. My purpose for writing this article is to try and urge everyone else to change the things in their life that they don't like about themselves. It would've been very easy for me to accept the fact that bad health was in my genetics, but I chose to change that about myself.

Even if getting healthy isn't important to you, this lesson can be applied to everything in life. If you want something, then go after it. When people say you can't do it, that's when you do everything you can to show them otherwise. As Kobe Bryant and Ray Lewis have said throughout their careers: "Use it as fuel to the fire."

You don't have to hit the game-winning shot during your first game, just start by hitting a free throw.

You don't have to change anything about yourself that you don't like right now, but why not start today?

- Deion Sanders