The Wellness Roadmap takes the reader step-by-step through a process that builds the strategies, tactics, and habits to reach all of their health and fitness goals. Rather than prescribe a one-size fits all, fixed-term diet or workout program, I help the reader develop a sustainable wellness lifestyle through food, sleep management, stress, and physical training.

The process starts with setting what I call the “Wellness GPS.” This tool gives readers the foundation they need to stick to their program without relying on willpower. They will set goals (that is mile markers) that move them closer and closer to wellness each day, week, and month. They know exactly where they need to go and have looked ahead to predict obstacles that might force them off their path.

Then the book explores the strategies and tactics that can be used to address the four core areas of wellness: Food, sleep, stress management, and physical training. Through focused learning and experimenting, readers identify what works for them individually and what does not. This gives them a user’s manual unique to their own personal needs and wants.

Finally, we look at the things that can cause a regression or back-sliding. Many people lose weight only to put it back on and more after they go off the “diet.” The Wellness Roadmap helps the reader ensure that this doesn’t happen by establishing the change the reader has made and holding on to the lifestyle that brought him or her there.

Despite all of the information available through books, magazines, and the Internet, we continue to see obesity rates increase. Most of these sources focus on tactics. A few will go into strategies. But none of them help people build their own sustainable lifestyle.

I want readers to understand that wellness is not just weight loss, or a particular look. Wellness is about being the happiest, healthiest, most fit person you can be. You don’t get that with restrictive diets or extreme workouts.

I personally have experienced the struggle that people over 40 feel when trying to recover wellness and that is often ignored, missed or misunderstood by younger authors. People under 40 can use The Wellness Roadmap, but I approached this book understanding that change is much harder for those of us who’ve been unhealthy and unfit for a longer period of time.

This book is for anyone over the age of 40 who wants to be happier, healthier, and more fit. It provides them with a holistic system to develop a uniquely personal roadmap to wellness. If you’re struggling with your health and fitness, this book provides you with a proven system to be happier, healthier, and in better shape.

When we’re younger, our bodies allow us a lot more leeway on a variety of things. We can eat poorly, not exercise, and ignore our sleep and not see the adverse effects. But as we age, that resilience decreases. We feel we’re on an ever-increasing decline into old age and poor health. It is easy to think we’re stuck.

While it might not be easy to recover wellness, with a solid plan like the one readers will develop through The Wellness Roadmap, you can learn to eat, sleep, manage stress, and train to be a better you. And you’ll do it in a way that doesn’t overstep what you’re capable of today.

Diets never work because they imply a limited term. Canned workouts seldom give you what you want because they weren’t planned with your abilities and limitations in mind. The Wellness Roadmap helps you develop habits for eating and working out that give you exactly what you need to reach your wellness vision.

Diet and workout books focus on tactics. Readers don’t need more tactics. They need a system to approach wellness from a lifestyle perspective. They need a system that is tailored to how they want to live and what they are able to do right now.

Before you get on the road to wellness—driving toward a place you’ve never been — you have to map your path. Back in the day, before we took a trip, we pulled out the atlas, grabbed a red pen, and drew the route on the map. Nowadays, the GPS does most of the work for us, but we still have to plug in the right coordinates. So in part 1, I’ll help you establish your foundation to figure out where you’re going on your wellness journey and how to use the most efficient route.

Once you’ve established how you’ll reach your destination—or at least the direction you’ll start driving—you’ll then move into part 2, STREETS. Streets are the conduit to connect your starting position to your final destination, whether those streets are fast moving, like highways, or slower, like back country roads. In this part of the book, I’ll help you develop the strategies and habits to navigate the streets toward wellness at a speed that’s right for you.

Not everyone drives a stick shift, some cars require different types of fuel, and some people make more pit stops than others. Likewise, you will need different training regimens, nutrition plans, and rest programs to achieve your goals. That’s what we’ll cover in part 2.

Finally, in part 3, CARGo, you have finally reached your destination. You’ve gone around roadblocks and construction sites, and you’ve likely rerouted multiple times, but you finally got to your wellness goal.

Now what?

You look different. People treat you differently. Your entire life—not just your body—may be completely changed. Now might be the time to rest, stop for a beat, and unload your cargo. But your journey doesn’t stop there—it’s just the beginning. Part 3 will serve as a shorter guidebook—as opposed to a collection of chapters, like the other parts—to help you reset your GPS to your next location and develop strategies to drive forward again.

When you’ve experienced a big change in your health or fitness, it takes an adjustment. Not only are people seeing and treating you differently, you are different. You should accept being different and live the lifestyle of this new you. If you allow yourself to slip back into your old habits, you’ll change back into the old you.

Making changes to your health and fitness is a hard, long journey. If you don’t have a solid reason to make that trip, you’ll invariably quit when the going gets rough. When you have a why that is deep, emotional, and fixed, you can approach wellness from a position of self-love. This self-love is a very powerful change agent, and one that is much more sustainable than the alternatives.

Most of the prospective clients that approach me want to lose weight. Some want to lose 40 pounds, others 100. But what they need is a change in their mindset. They need a system that works for them. Each of us has our own abilities and limitations. If you don’t account for these differences, you won’t get the results you want or deserve.

Diet plans tend to be very restrictive and short-term. While they may allow you to lose weight, they don’t teach you how to keep that weight off. That’s why most dieters gain back all the weight—and often more—after they go off the diet.

A wellness roadmap gives you all of the core elements needed to reach your health and fitness vision. We set a solid foundation by knowing where we are starting from and where we’re going. Through SMART goals (i.e. mile markers), we establish what direction to go on the journey. We also identify the most likely obstacles and put strategies in place to deal with them.

As we build our wellness roadmap, we learn how to prioritize the tactics that are going to move the needle on our health and fitness and ignore the rest. Over time, our self-awareness improves and we know what works for us and what doesn’t. Our wellness roadmap gives us what we need to make our wellness journey as effective and efficient as possible.

In 2017 I tore my rotator cuff. I knew the instant it happened that I would need surgery and would have a long, hard recovery. The visit to the doctor and a MRI confirmed my fears.

In order to get through a setback like this, you need to establish and maintain the proper mindset. I used the Wellness GPS to set myself on the proper path that included surgery, physical therapy, and then a transition back to regular training.

The Wellness GPS allows the reader to establish a realistic plan by understanding their current abilities and limitations and setting SMART goals to help them reach their destination. With the process, I remained committed to recovery.

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You can go to the book’s website, wellnessroadmapbook.com, or the podcast’s website, 40plusfitnesspodcast.com. Or you can email me directly at allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com.

The book is available at wellnessroadmapbook.com, amazon.com, and wherever books are sold.