The path to healthy living: diet and exercise may be at the forefront, but your mind-set plays an equally important part

When Karyn Calabrese's grandmother died at age 50, it was alarming to her family. But when her mother died at 48, it literally changed her life.

"All the women in my family died overweight and very young, and I was very sickly myself," says Calabrese, a holistic health leader and teacher. "I had terrible skin, the worst PMS on the planet, I was tired all the time, I had every allergy known to man, and I could barely walk out of the house. I just knew I needed to do something different. I don't believe I'd be alive today had I not changed."

That change started with her diet when she was about 20 years old, and she eventually became a vegetarian. "I didn't just pick up a book one day, read it and go 'oh, vegetarian, here's a good idea ...' It's been a journey for me," says the 59-year-old businesswoman who owns three restaurants in Chicago, two that specialize in raw food entrees and one that focuses on cooked vegan dishes.

Vegetarianism, experts say, is not for everyone, but in a society where obesity is reaching epidemic proportions, more and more people want to learn about the quickest and best ways to shed pounds and live healthier lives. Most have found out that living a healthy life requires more than just simply changing your diet and hitting the gym. Nutritionists and fitness experts say your mind-set has to change in order for healthy living to become a way of life.

More than 60 percent of Black men over the age of 20 are overweight and more than 70 percent of Black women over the age of 20 are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. More than 50 percent of Black women are obese. A recent study from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that the biggest increases in the rates of people who are overweight and obese were seen in children, with 17 percent of children being overweight in 2004.

With obesity comes a host of serious health problems and increased risk factors for certain chronic diseases. African-American men have a greater chance of developing or dying from certain diet-related chronic diseases (heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes) than men of other races. Black women have a higher risk of dying from heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer than White women, according to the National Institutes of Health.

With such a high percentage of the Black community being impacted by obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases, doctors say many are not taking effective steps to improve their health. "We want quick fixes, we want liposuction and then [the fat] comes back over and over again," says Verne Fortson, a physical fitness instructor in Dayton, Ohio. "And then we have the people who will start exercising in January, and then they [expect] a quick fix by March. As soon as they get the 10 pounds off, they say, 'I'm done and I'll be back again next January,'" she says.

It's that kind of mind-set that gets so many people in trouble with their health, adds Fortson, a South African native who has been an aerobics instructor for almost 20 years. Teaching at several YMCAs in Dayton, she lives, breathes and sleeps fitness, indicated by the fact that when she was pregnant with her daughter, Ruby, she taught fitness classes until the day before her delivery. "I taught my last class on a Friday, my daughter was born on a Saturday and I came back on the following Tuesday and said, 'Hey, I'm here,' and they said 'No, take your two weeks off, and we'll run it exactly the way you ran it,'" she says.

For practically all of her life, Fortson says she has been serious about her health. She ran track throughout high school, but after her graduation, she needed something else to keep her going. That's when she signed up for an aerobics class, and she's been hooked on it ever since.

At the YMCA, Fortson teaches several different aerobic classes, and she has a group of students who have been with her throughout her 20-year stint there. Her "family," as she calls them, has focused on their fitness for so long because of their mind-set, she insists. That's the key to changing the way you think about fitness and health, she says. "You have to say, 'I'm doing it for me,'" says Fortson. "I'm doing it because I want to live longer, I want to look better and feel better about myself.' If you feel better about yourself on the inside, you will do it on the outside."

Calabrese agrees, believing that your state of mind is key to living a successful, healthy life. "I don't think it's all about exercise. I don't think it's all about food. I think it's spirituality, food and exercise. I think you need all three," she says.

Once you decide you want to make a healthy lifestyle change, watching what you eat and exercising on a regular basis will become easier tasks, say experts. While everyone may not become a vegetarian, vegan or raw foodist, it is important to make sensible and healthy food choices. An unbalanced diet, which contains too many calories or too much of one food group, and a lack of physical activity are key risk factors for some of the most common causes of death, such as heart disease, cancer and stroke, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.