When I asked the question “What’s your most challenging aspect of maintaining a healthy lifestyle?” on Facebook, I never expected to get the interest I did.
I posted it just before I went out to teach the evening PT sessions and by the time I got home there were 40+ comments. Obviously this is a subject that crosses peoples minds often and many are conscious of what they are doing for their health as well as what they are not doing.
Interestingly a large portion of the responses listed either time, preparation or organisation being the most challenging aspect for staying healthy. Along with others barriers to like motivation, emotional eating and chocolate fixes, I would say most of the ‘problems’ listed can be resolved just by taking some time each day to focus on yourself.
So how can you do that if lack of time is the problem?
We all have 24 hours in a day. The reason some people can maintain their healthy lifestyles is because they have decided that it’s more important than the other nonessential bulls!t that goes on in their day.
When you make a decision it simply means ‘to cut off’. Choosing to prepare your meals and snacks in advance and planning your day better is how you avoid having to choose lunch from the services or pick up an unhealthy snack because you didn’t have time to eat properly earlier. Many of you reading this probably have children so I know you’re aware of how important this is. Imagine sending your child to school without their lunch/snack/water…. Would you do that? I know the answer, so why do so many of you do this EVERYDAY to yourself?
I wanted to write a helpful blog with a solution to the question I asked. But I can’t guide you on this without being completely honest and suggesting a few simple solutions first. It really is that easy, organisation, planning and preparation.
You may be reading this and thinking that all sounds ‘too much like hard work.’ It isn’t when you remove all the nonessentials in your day. Remember, you are not trying to add more stuff into your busy life, you are trying to remove the unnecessary and be more productive.
Your life, like mine, is full of distractions. It’s easy to be completely unaware of what is going on around you. Take a look the next time you’re on a train, at an airport, in the doctors waiting room. Everyone is glued to their technology device. People don’t like being bored, so instead they fill this precious thinking time, with reading nonsense about what colour socks their Facebook friend is wearing. I’m not slating social media, I absolutely love it, but Im encouraging you to be more selective about who and what you feed your mind with. If your surroundings don’t reflect your thoughts and ambitions, I urge you to change them.
How could you make better use of your evenings? I know you’re probably tired and have no energy but that’s largely down to playing ‘catch up’ all day from being unprepared and making bad food choices. Had you prepped your meals and snacks the day before, I’m quite sure your energy levels in the evenings would be totally different and your chill out time would be exactly that.
One of the easiest ways to prepare tomorrows meals is to either cook more than you need for dinner and take the leftovers the next day, or do a batch cook on a Sunday and spilt these up in to containers for you lunches or dinner in the week. Once you make this a habit you’re saving yourself heaps of time in the long run.
Instead of your day being in charge of you, you end up being in charge of your day.
If you want some more support, motivation and guidance you can join my free Facebook group here.
I’d love to know if you found this helpful or not. Feel free to share this blog or comment below as I welcome your feedback.
What’s your most challenging aspect of maintaining a healthy lifestyle?
Posted by Sharon Morrow on Tuesday, February 21, 2017
