Ok, I agree. Living a healthy life-style isn’t easy for everyone!

If it was, I guess we’d all be doing it. And, depending on your starting point, it can often seem very difficult to get started.

For those of you who are keen to get started, life hack.com offers some great advice to help you move forward:

  • Approach everything you do from a place of self-compassion. In other words, you’re where you are because of the choices you’ve made in the past, true. However there’s nothing you can do about the past, except accept it and move on. When those moments of regret start to leak in, take control and ask yourself: ‘how are these thoughts going to help?’.
  • Focus on the long-term benefits of the journey you’re about to take, reminding yourself that you’re changing your nutritional strategy and fitness approach because you desire to be the best you possible. A bit like writing a business plan…
  • Like all new things in life, learning how to live a healthy life-style is a skill you need to learn. Just like you may have learnt how to play a musical intrument or a video game..you need to learn how to incorporate healthy habits into your life. Everyone needs training to learn difficult things.
  • Focus your efforts on making positive changes that last. Whilst many of us can get distracted by quick results, short-term diets, intense exercise periods, diet pills and diet clubs; these initiatives have been proven over and over again to be ineffective. In fact, according to the TV programme: ‘The Men Who Made us Fat’: as much as 95% of weight loss methods don’t work. As lifehack.com puts it:

‘Deciding to go on a diet is easy. Sticking to it is a completely different story’.

  • Find an exercise that you enjoy doing and doing it consistently is key, not worrying too much about early results.

‘If you focus on results out of the gate, instead of building habits, you’re already on the wrong track.’

  • Seek out exercise that rewards you mentally, emotionally as well as physically..
  • Start slow with your new habit by doing something you know you can do, even if it’s once per week. When I started to cycle the 10 miles from my home to my office, I set myself the goal of cycling just once per week which I knew I could manage. I stepped up from there once that was a regular habit.

‘Just like a video game, as your fitness improves, more options will open up.’

  • Your body will give you feedback, so listen to it and adapt and adjust your approach.
  • Don’t stop at weight loss. Too many people talk about weight loss and health interchangeably. They are not the same thing. Many slim people are unfit, so it’s important to keep working out throughout your life. I run a lot which helps me sleep so much better, have more energy throughout the day and deal effectively with my stress which is very important given the level of stress i have to manage on a day-to-day basis.
  • Try not to do it along. Research shows time and time again that you’ll have a much greater chance of success if you work out with someone else.

In summary, writing down what to do is always much easier than doing it. Like a well-run business which require solid strategies and insights to guide the activities; a healthy life-style also requires solid strategies in nutrition, fitness and life-style to sustain energy and health.