10 Simple Steps To Getting Your Health & Fitness Back On Track!
Did you start the year thinking:
This is the year! this is the year I'm going to do it! I'm going to lose the weight. I'm going to get that promotion. I'm going to take the family to Costa Rica. It's going to be the BEST YEAR EVER!!
And then COVID-19 strike. Homeschooling. Working from home. Less time than ever before.
With the best intentions it's probably all come crashing down.
But even if Covid had never happened, research shows that it takes just 10 days, on average, for us to fall off the bandwagon and return to our old ways.
That means that most of us will have reached the 10th day and dropped our goals like a hot potato, so what can we do to help ourselves to get back on track?
Well, here are my 10 top tips:
1) Throw away all the naughty foods you have in your cupboards
If your cupboards are stacked with delicious and tempting treats that are full of empty calories and sugar you’re probably going to eat them.
So, throw them away before you do. Remove all temptation, so that when you’re hungry and looking for a quick pick me up you can opt for a healthy alternative.
2) Set a realistic fitness goal
Understand how to boost testosterone naturally and set up a fitness regime. It’s important to set a realistic goal rather than a crazy goal that can feel just too far away and hard to achieve.
For example if your goal is to lose 2 stone and one week in you've not lost any weight at all - this can be incredible demoralising.
Set a smaller, more realistic and attainable goal to begin with.
Studies show most people can lose a maximum of 2lbs of fat a week - so a more helpful goal may be to lose 8lbs in 6 weeks.
3) Take baby steps
Rome wasn’t built in a day. And you’re not likely to make any big, sustainable changes, over night. So break all goals down into mini, achievable, daily goals. These all build up and gain momentum, and, before you know it, you’ll be staying on track and making it happen.
4) Create some new, healthy habits
Our lives are made up of habits. Brushing your teeth is a habit. The way you eat cereal is a habit. So create new, healthy habits in your life.
Make a big, healthy breakfast a new habit in your life. Or make that late afternoon habit of café latte and muffin into a late afternoon brisk walk or green tea with some nuts and fruit habit instead.
5) Treat yourself once a day
Very few of us can abstain completely from our favourite treats. And, what often happens is that we go cold turkey and then, fall off the wagon and binge…which leads to feelings of guilt, unhappiness and frustration and, oftentimes, the end of our goals.
So, allow yourself one treat per day. If you love chocolate – allow yourself to have a small bar of chocolate every day (ideally black chocolate and pair with nuts to mitigate the resulting insulin spike).
As long as the rest of the day is healthy – it really won’t make too much difference!
6) Move more
Move your body more. Take the stairs. Lose the remote control and get up to change the channel. Squat down to pick things up rather than bending over. Just move more. When you think about it – it’s easy, and all this extra moving adds up to extra calories burned!
7) Make the most of wasted time
We all have times in our day when we wait for things. The kettle to boil. The toast to cook. The bus. Etc etc. So, instead of standing there doing nothing. Make the most of this time. Stand on one leg in that queue – this uses your core muscles and burns calories whilst toning your tummy muscles. Clench your buttocks whilst on that conference call. Do donkey kicks whilst brushing your teeth. Get creative and move your body.
8) Plan Meals in Advance
If we haven’t planned our weekly meals in advance we are more likely to order a take away, eat out or eat unhealthily. By planning our meals in advance we will have all the ingredients in, and we are more likely to stick to a healthy eating plan and stay on track with our goals.
9) Create a ‘Cook Time’
Once a week spend the afternoon or evening pre-cooking food for the week. Batches of brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, couscous. Food that you can just add some fresh veg and some lean meat to when you need them for your planned meals in the week.
10) Plan Exercise Once a Day
Planned exercise doesn’t have to mean going to the gym. It just means setting aside some time, each day, to exercise. This could be in the morning before work, in your lunch break or when you get home at night.
Set aside 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes to do some exercise. It doesn't matter whether you have equipment at home or not, you can get an excellent workout doing body weight exercises or going for a cycle or run on the streets. There are no excuses, just do something every day!
Remember we are what we repeatedly do, not what we do occasionally. We all fall off the cart sometimes, and that's ok!
Dust yourself off. And get back on.
And if you want some more help - please do consider joining the next enrolment of T.H.R.I.V.E. my 6 week online program that takes you by the hand and teaches your exactly how to create a personalised, realistic, sustainable healthy lifestyle.
Click here to find out more.
