Healthy lifestyles: your choice
Health and wellness is a process. Yeah yeah, how many times have you heard that? Have you tried diets? Have you lost weight, gained it, lost it, only to gain the weight back and then some? Here is something to consider. Suppose you keep everything about your lifestyle the same. The way you eat, drink and your activity level. What happens? Are you healthier today than yesterday? Probably not, if everything stays the same. Hold this thought, we’ll come back to it.
Hundreds of medical and health professionals can and do write books on how to lose weight. We have all seen people like them. Lists are made, self-examinations are proposed, calories are counted, etc. What is the OBJETIVE? Weightloss. It’s a broken record. Weight gain/loss is simply the sign. The sign of an unhealthy lifestyle.
In general, as you begin to change your lifestyle and make healthier choices, your weight will take a hit. The degree to which you make those changes will affect how drastically you lose weight. But the mantra should be, now and in eternity, “Healthier today than yesterday!” This is not a self-help article. It’s the beginning of a series of articles aimed at shifting the conversation from weight loss to more consistent healthy habits. Jared and his diet Subway, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins Diets, LA Weight Loss are all weight loss diets, not a way of life. To Jared’s credit, he has kept the weight off for 10 years. He often starts out very simply. Some of my clients decide that water is what they prefer to start with, some go to the gym, some incorporate more fiber-dense foods, and others just start with breakfast. Going back to my thought in the first paragraph, consider that everything you’re doing is still the same except for one thing. That one thing can be any number of options. If, for example, you like coffee and drink more than one cup a day, I offer you that for each coffee you drink, you drink the equivalent amount of water. Water has a number of health benefits. On a day-to-day basis, consider that water helps you feel less tired, feel less hungry throughout the day, and tends to avoid less healthy snack options.
Which one would you like to have with a bag of chips? water or soft drink? Which do you enjoy with a muffin or a donut? Water or coffee/tea? Over the next few days and weeks, as you maintain a healthy water intake, you become more aware of what you’re drinking, and in turn become more aware of healthy lifestyle habits. After a couple of weeks, most people start to find little extra ways to make their lifestyles healthier. Some people tend to stop snacking after 8:00 pm, others choose to change snack options. For example, instead of a handful of OREO cookies, they could eat a handful of gingerbread cookies (less total calories). These lifestyle changes have nothing to do with what the perfect person who does everything right would do. It’s about finding ways within your lifestyle to modify your habits.
You choose what works for you. I can’t make a list that I can guarantee will stay consistent when you follow it. But if you have no idea where to start and how to adjust, consider starting with one of these few items: Increase your water by at least one bottle compared to what you normally have Increase the fiber in your diet (even a little) , buy a pedometer to track how active you are on a day-to-day basis, get a “buddy” to do things with (could be spouse, child, friend, neighbor). In each suggestion, it is about making each day a little healthier than the previous one. Some days you will make really healthy choices, other days not so healthy. The total sum must be healthy.
It is a world of mix and match with many options. Take advantage of it and don’t get stuck in a rut and make excuses why you can’t be healthy. Just because you made some less healthy choices today doesn’t mean everything is screwed up. Start making healthier choices at your next meal or snack. Remember: “Today healthier than yesterday.”