Why do we avoid Change ???
When it comes to people wanting to live healthier, this normally comes with a certain degree of perceived change. Think back now to times where you have tried to think about or actioned improving your lifestyle, what has the degree of change been????
I would say most people would have tried to 360 degree turn their lifestyle, changing what they eat, what they do on a day-to-day basis, implementing a crazy ass workout routine and cutting all the things they love out of their life, all while trying to juggle a full time job, hobbies, having kids and spending time with family and friends. It is pretty impossible…. even reading back on what I have just wrote, I can imagine you are reading it thinking whaaaatttt no way, no chance. The reality is so many people get themselves in such a state that they turn to this route.
This is what people believe they have to do to live a healthy lifestyle, and it is for this reason people fail or don’t take the first step in the first place.
You see what happens, is people resist change because they are all too busy thinking about what they have to give up rather than adapt and they also forget to evaluate what they have to gain from making any changes.
Let us look at a few of the assumptions of what we have to give up …
Socialising with friends ; eating out or drinking alcohol
Pleasurable palatable foods; chocolate, crisps, cakes etc
Time, time to exercise, time to make healthier meals
Takeaways
Food in general; in reference to stupid ass pill and shake diets
Our sanity; come on you all know what I am referring to here…. who claims they are on a ‘diet’ and are actually happy after cutting all the so called pleasures in their life?????
It sounds terrible doesn’t it?
What would you say if I told you, you don’t have to take this approach ????
Here I am going to share with you 4 simple small steps you can take to start to make a healthy change to your lifestyle.
Play colour your plate – Look at your meals over the next few days, how many colours are on your plate? How bright are they? The brighter the better, work on mixing up your colours to get your plate shining bright on every meal. I tell you what, if you have children, turn it into a daily game, get them involved in the shopping or the cooking, how bright can we make your plate today. You will be surprised how much this will impact your children’s thought process, most of our habits are built from childhood, so implementing fun activities around healthy foods now will massively impact their mindset and relationship with food in the future.
2. Be aware of your portion size – If we all honestly ask ourselves about our portion sizes, most of us can admit we do get a little bit carried away, especially when it comes to our favourite meals. Mine used to be spaghetti bolognese, I would absolutely stack my plate, put cheese on my spaghetti and then load more cheese on top, despite being full, I would then go back to the pan as I took my plate the sink and eat more, I would then feel extremely uncomfortable for hours after. When I look back now, I ask myself was that really necessary. Take a look at your plate over the next few meals and ask yourself if you feel you have over filled your plate, then try decreasing your portion sizes bit by bit over a few days and I can guarantee you will notice that you have enough and it fills you up.
3. Move more throughout the day – This is something that is so easy to implement into our daily routines without putting a massive strain on our bodies, but we simply don’t do it enough. Here are a few tips for you…. Dance, park further away, take the stairs rather than the lift, when unloading shopping don’t struggle with 1 trip do two or three with lighter loads, play around with the children; even a good game of tag for 5 mins is great exercise and the children will have so much fun. Don’t look as movement as a chore, our bodies were built to move, and over the years we have become very lazy in terms of movement due to the easily accessibility of everything. Movement can be so much fun and also so easy to implement, take a few mins to sit and think about your day and how you can implement more movement into your day.
4. Find exercise you enjoy – To me this is absolutely essential, as we talked about movement, most people see exercise as a chore. It shouldn’t seem a chore we should all have exercise as part of our daily movement. Why do we think one of the 3 or 4 things Boris has said we can all do in this current situation is exercise????? Exercise is EXTREMELY important for our bodies and our minds, without going into too much depth our chemical are made up of so many chemicals, a lot of these chemicals cancel each other out to stop certain chemical levels getting too high which can then cause an imbalance emotionally or anatomically, exercise helps with the release and balancing certain chemicals. Exercise also keeps our joints, muscles and bones in great condition to ensure we continue to be able to move freely in everyday life. The benefits really are endless. However for us to not see it as a chore we have to adapt our mindset, one of the easier ways to do this is to enjoy your exercise. It doesn’t matter what it is, now a lot of Personal Trainers will tell you that you should do a certain type of exercise, or certain exercises are bad for you etc etc. What I say is find something you enjoy, make the most of the time you are exercising and have fun, smile, laugh, move and enjoy. The more you enjoy it the more you will continue to move without even second thinking it. Whether it is Running, Lifting Weights, Dancing, playing a sport, attending an exercise class, Cycling, Yoga, body weighted HIIT workouts, Personal Training….. just enjoy it.
To summarise, don’t take a whole 360 on your life, you have a lifestyle and you have a diet, you just need to pay more attention to it and fine tune it to suit you and to enable you to be healthy and happy, because really that is all that really matters in life.
Sending love to you all as always ❤
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