If you want to make 2016 a year that you take hold of your health, be prepared to make changes to your lifestyle. Resolutions fail because there is lack of planning, goals and people want it to be easy and fit into your life as it is, but you have to be willing to change and sometimes a lot to make health a priority in your life.
Slowly incorporate these changes in 2016 and make it a great one!
- Change your mindset! What kind of a person do you want to be this year? One that procrastinates? Feels sluggish? Unhealthy? I doubt it, but you need to be prepared to become the person who changes their priorities, is willing to make sacrifices and is ready to make consistent goals. If you think that it is easy for those that already make health their priority, you are wrong. Nothing worth having comes easy, it just feels so good when you do it, that you stay on your path.
- Don’t eat out so much. It’s hard to know exactly what you’re putting into your body when you eat out. Even when you think you are making better choices, such as big salad, or protein and veggies, you still have no idea what kind of oil they used to cook with, where the cheese and meat came from, where they outsource their vegetables, what exactly went into the dressing and the freshness of the ingredients. Commit to making our own food and save some money while you’re at it.
- Exercise daily! This doesn’t mean doing a strenuous workout daily, just daily movement of some kind. Mix a structured strength training routine with walking, cycling, yoga, playing sports with your kids, to keep things fun! Our bodies were not meant to sit all day, we were made to move, that’s why we feel so good when we do.
- Pack a healthy work lunch and snacks daily. This is how you ensure that you eat healthy everyday, keep your blood sugar in check and feel alert and productive throughout the day. It doesn’t have to be complicated; boxed organic salad greens, chopped veggies of every colour (that you pre-washed on the weekend), organic cheeses, organic meats, hard boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, and your own simple dressing of lemon, sea salt and olive oil.
- Stop with deprivation, starvation, calorie counting, supplement based diets and just focus on real whole foods and healing your body. Dieting destroys your metabolism and does nothing to teach you to get to know your body and give it what it needs. You are setting yourself up for failure if you plan on starting the year with a crash diet. Star the year off with the idea of making a lifestyle change. Fill your plate with good quality meats and protein, carbs from plants and healthy fats at every meal and snack. This is the best starting place to begin healing your metabolism, which means improved digestion, blood sugar and energy.
- Get your priorities straight! It’s common to hear people saying that eating healthy and organic is expensive, and yes if you are comparing apples to apples it generally is. But let’s put things into perspective. Do you buy a $5 latte daily, buy your lunch and dinner most of the week, frequent a bar a few times a week and spend money? Take a moment and add up how you spend your time weekly and how you could use that money more effectively and use your money to better serve your body.
- Eat a variety of foods. Every week buy one different protein source and vegetable. This keeps things interesting and ensures that you are getting a variety of vitamins and nutrients. Chicken and kale greens can get pretty darn boring after a month! No wonder people give up and go back to their own ways of eating. Keep it interesting, try new foods, be adventurous!
- Try gluten free. You may think it’s a fad, but the majority of people do much better off gluten, even if they are not diagnosed with an allergy. I know I do! You owe it to yourself to eliminate it and see how you feel without it. Just don’t replace regular processed foods with their gluten free versions. Focus on filling up with whole foods, based on protein, fats and carbs from vegetables, you don’t need breads and crackers and cookies. Gluten free or not, having these foods as staples in your diet do nothing for your body, keep these as special treats.
- Treat yourself as you would your child, and give yourself patience, and constant encouragement. You would not let your child simply give up on something they did not succeed on the first time, so don’t make it an option for yourself either.
- Practice the 80/20 rule to keep your sanity. Everyone goes out sometimes, everyone enjoys desert once in a while and you don’t need to to feel guilty about it if you’re healthy the greater part of your life.
Above all else, love yourself! See the act of getting healthier as an act of self love and kindness. You don’t deserve to feel unhealthy, you deserve to feel amazing! Which by the way also means that you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to others. Become healthier, happier version of yourself, period!
Hope you rock your goals!
Daniela
