Anyone who has been fit and active at any point in their life will tell you when you feel good you are good to yourself, you eat better because you want to, you are more active because it feels good, you dress better and you smile more because of the most important thing – you are happy!
No matter our shape or weight we are all guilty of comparing ourselves to others and getting down about what we see. What you need to try and remember is to look for the positives; if you don’t like the tops of your legs focus on something different, how about your smile, your arms or your eyes?
All you achieve by beating yourself up over the negatives is you forget about all the positives, you feel horrible and generally when you feel like crap you eat crap thinking food is going to make you feel better and it might for the time it takes you to consume it but after it’s finished what happens?
Life really is so short, when your time is up you won’t be laying in your death bed thinking about your ‘bingo wings’ or non existent ‘thigh gap’, chances are you’ll be wishing for more time with loved ones or that you took the risk with that job or that person, if it’s premature maybe you’ll be wishing you ate better and were more active so you had more time now.
Being unhealthy doesn’t necessarily mean you are overweight either, there are many ‘lucky’ people who can eat absolutely anything they want and not put on any weight. These people while they appear to be healthy are still at risk of diabetes, heart problems and other health issues as they get older, weight is only a number it doesn’t define healthy or unhealthy.
Here are some tips to get stared on your healthier lifestyle:
1. If you haven’t been active for a long time or ever start by picking 2 days a week to go for a walk/jog/run/gym. It doesn’t have to be intense to start with simply get yourself in a routine of 2 exercise sessions every week and once you are in that habit increase what you are doing by adding in another session and up the intensity.
2. If you were once fit and healthy and you want to get back there think back and remember how good you felt. Hold on to that feeling and every time you think about skipping a training session or when you want to eat something that will hinder your progress remember that happy healthy feeling, imagine how good you are going to feel when you get back there, it IS worth the effort.
3. When you are having a food craving go for a walk, run or hit the gym (even just a quick walk around the block will help!), the endorphins that are released from exercise will get rid of the cravings and make you feel even better!
4. Write down your goals and why you want to achieve them, attached them to your fridge, every time you go for a snack the goal will be there when you see it think about how you are going to feel when you hit that goal. If you want to feel that good you need to snack better, it’s a long difficult journey but it is completely worth it.
5. Tell the people you care about what you are doing, they are your support and drive. They want you to live a long and happy life and they will help you get there! It might be with encouraging words, exercising with you, helping with meal prep and planning or simply being an ear to listen on the difficult days.
6. If you are joining a gym get everything you can out of them, see if you can get a free/discounted personal training session when you join, if they don’t do that ask if they can give you a generic program and show you the exercises. Some gyms will have floor trainers, these are qualified trainers who are paid by the gym to help members, ask the gym if they have these staff members and if they do utilise them as much as you can.
Getting started is the hardest part of your journey to healthy enjoy it as much as you can – amazing things happen outside of your comfort zone!
