You have to trust that you'll make all the right choices today - Do the workout you planned, eat the salad you brought to work, take that walk after work, skip dessert.

The problem is, we lie to ourselves about those things all the time without even realizing it. For example, whenever I skip a morning workout because I'm too tired, I promise myself I'll just workout later. That's a great idea and it always makes me feel better in the moment, but how many times do I actually follow through on that? Rarely, if ever. I know this about myself yet, despite that knowledge, I make a promise I know I'm not going to keep. I may have made myself feel less guilty in the moment, but I'm going to feel worse later when I skip that workout.

Constantly failing to meet our own expectations, keep our own promises starts to erode that trust we have with ourselves and it's not because we're too weak to meet those expectations or keep those promises, it's because we haven't been honest with ourselves about what we'll actually do.

Learning to trust yourself is one of the hardest parts of weight loss, but the cure for that is surprisingly simple...not easy, mind you, but simple: Telling yourself the truth.

Recognizing your own lies can be harder than you think. They're often so automatic, so ingrained, we don't even realize they're lies at all. All we really recognize is the constant cycle of guilt we feel for not meeting expectations. Some common pitfalls:

• Waiting for the perfect time to exercise - This is when you promise you'll start working out after school gets out/when you get back from vacation/after you start that new job/when life slows down, but we all know that life never really slows down. Instead, be honest and ask yourself if there's something you could do to exercise today, even if it's just a 5 minute walk.
• Telling yourself you'll eat healthier tomorrow - Will it be any easier tomorrow than it was today? Instead of believing that healthy eating is about giving up everything you love, ask yourself if there's one way you could make your eating healthy today. Could you have an apple? Drink more water? Skip dessert?
• Telling yourself you'll workout twice as long tomorrow - If you ever do this to make up for a missed workout, ask yourself this: Will I really have the time and energy to workout for 2 hours? Will I somehow have more time and energy tomorrow than I do now? Instead, ask yourself why you want to skip your workout today. Maybe you have a good reason, in which case you can skip your workout without guilt and let tomorrow's workout stand on its own.

Thinking about this, what do you lie to yourself about? Do you ever make promises you know you won't keep? What would happen if you told yourself the truth and rebuilt that trust in yourself? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

We often exercise and diet with the goal of getting our best bodies. What that boils down to, for many of us, comes down to pieces and parts - A smaller this and a bigger that, more muscle here and less fat there. Appearance is certainly important, but we're often limited in what we can achieve, being at the mercy of the genes we've inherited.

How your body looks is important, but there's something even more important to think about: How it works. Putting appearance aside, your best body is one that is strong enough, fit enough, energetic enough to get you through everything you have to do each day. So, thinking of that, how close are you to having your best body and what could you do to get even closer?

Maybe you need to deal with a chronic injury or manage back pain that's been nagging at you. Maybe you need to start lifting weights, focusing on functional training to get your whole body in better working order.

Maybe you need a nap or a walk, some stretching or a long hot bath. Think about your body today and ask yourself what you could do to make it work better, feel better. Then do it.

Climbing a mountain is no easy feat, but what if that mountain is actually the floor? That's the concept of this week's exercise which asks the question: What happens when you get on the floor and run your knees in and out as fast as you can? The obvious follow up to that is to wonder why someone would want to do this and the answer to that is: Because you can (although, if you really can't, I have some variations below).

Mountain climbers are an excellent move for building cardio endurance while also building core strength and agility. This is also a great move when you don't have much (or any) equipment and want a challenging way to work your body.

There are a couple of ways to do this move. One, is to run the knees in and out without touching your toes to the floor. Another is to do the opposite and touch your toes to the floor, making it more of a foot-switch than a run. If this move doesn't agree with you, you can take it slow and simply walk one foot forward into a low lunge, walk it back and switch legs. I also have a gliding disc version that might work for people who need less impact.

Work this into your usual cardio routine or add it to other cardio exercises to make your own high intensity circuit workout.

Do it right: Begin in a pushup position on the hands and toes. Bring the right knee in towards the chest, resting the foot on the floor. Jump up and switch feet in the air, bringing the left foot in and the right foot back. You can also run the knees in and out rather than touching the toes to the floor. Continue alternating the feet as fast as you safely can for 30-60 seconds.

The battle between cardio and strength training, at least the battle that exists in our minds, has been going on for decades. The two actually get along quite well on their own, but add a human to the mix and that's where the conflict comes in.

Whether it's buried somewhere in your genetic code, the type of muscle fibers you have, what you grew up doing, age, gender, experience or all of the above, most of us have one activity we like (or at least tolerate) and one we do because we're supposed to.

There's no doubt you need both to lose weight and get fit but many of us, if given a choice, would easily give up our least favorite if we could get away with it.

While cardio and strength training can overlap, thinking of the differences between them, it's easy to see why some of us would prefer one over the other. With cardio, there's the endurance factor: Breathing hard, sweating, having to sustain a certain level of discomfort for, sometimes, long periods of time. For some? This can feel like torture. For others, there's nothing better than a long cardio workout to blow some stink off.

With strength training, you have the burn factor: After a few reps, providing you have enough weight, a burning sensation starts deep in the muscles and, the longer you lift, the worse it gets. For some people, this can feel like torture, while others love focusing on their muscles, feeling them contract, imagining them getting stronger.

Thinking about your workouts, about the differences between cardio and strength training, which one do you prefer? Would you happily give up one over the other? Or perhaps you like them both in certain ways? Vote in this week's poll and tell us what you think about cardio and strength training.