With the (unjust) ousting of American Idol contestants Melinda and LaKisha, I've been thinking a lot about idols. Not the ones that Simon Cowell deigns as great singers or as having the X factor. Not astronauts or Gwen Stefani or Oprah Winfrey. I know, everyone loves Oprah, but really, Oprah is so out of my galaxy that it's hard to relate to her. She buys brand new cars for entire studio audiences, how can you hold yourself to that mirror?

No, I'm talking about the everyday people with everyday obstacles, handling them with grace. For instance, I am a serious Type A personality, to the point where I over-think details to a ridiculous degree and when things don't go according to plan, instead of appreciating what is going right, I fret about something relatively minor that went awry or some result that I hadn't anticipated. I know. I'm broken. My friend Monique, on the other hand, knows how to relax and have fun, finding humor in almost every situation and turning even really boring car rides into events with games and stories and jokes that are still legendary years later. She talks to strangers, something I never do, and is never thrown off kilter by a change in plans or a completely unexpected outcome. And people adore her. She makes mistakes sometimes, but it doesn't matter, because she just laughs them off and gets past it.

Likewise, I fully acknowledge that I am capable of planning and preparing healthy and delicious food; however, sometimes I eat dinners constructed solely out of strawberry licorice and an ice cream cone. Every day I've been reading about the meals prepared and eating by Self.com's nutritionists. I get a little fan-girlish when Katherine snacks on one of my favorite things. It makes me feel as though I have a little hope, like I'm not entirely a nutritional screw up. And how can you not love her when she even addresses an issue very close to my heart: "...while eating healthy food and maintaining a normal weight is important for your body, feeling good about yourself REGARDLESS of your weight is perhaps most important of all. Never let your self worth be determined by a number on a scale.  You are worth so much more than a dress size!" Can I get an amen?

My fitness idol is a little odd, but really, it's a three-year-old girl named Nora. Nora is fearless. Nora only wears action clothes and has already had a black eye and has done some head-butting in class when boys get unruly. She doesn't take shit from anyone and she's not going to let someone tell her that she can't do something. And on the day she hit the 30-pound mark:

Nora explained away her recent weight gain by saying, "It makes sense, because I have been pretending to be a superhero for a while now."

See, logic. And this fearlessness, this utter and complete buy-in for everything she does? I would like to figure out how she does that. That right there. How she embraces all of that activity with no worry about judgment, no thought about getting sweaty or about her T-shirt riding up so that everyone can see her ass or her gut or worry about having her boob hitting her smack in the face when doing a yoga pose (so that's probably a reasonable concern for the four-year-old). Nora owns her body and doesn't care who knows it. Nora doesn't question, Nora just goes out and kicks some ass. Nora doesn't have to pretend to be a superhero, because she pretty much already is one.

Those are mine, but I want to know who inspires you to be the best you possible? Whose example do you follow, whether they know it or not? The comments want to hear your stories. --Weetabix