Deciding to make a health change in your life is never easy. Breaking old habits and starting new ones is challenging, uncomfortable and disheartening at times. The good thing is … you have taken the first step! You have identified and acknowledged that there is something about your health or wellbeing that you wish to change. 

But where do you begin?

Believe In Yourself

Changing to a healthy lifestyle is a common goal, but after deciding you want to make a change, the next step is to believe you can actually do it.

• Identify those habits that are bad or unhealthy and think about the reason why you want that change.
• Be accountable to making the change by making a promise to yourself.
• Get rid of the negative triggers in your life, whether that is that block of chocolate or those idealistic social media accounts you follow. Find ways to avoid the triggers.
  

Hint: If you’re eating it at the fridge, over the sink or behind a closed door 

… it’s a negative trigger for you.

• Ignore the negative voice that crops up and replace it with a visual of you succeeding.
• Allow yourself time because change isn’t easy. Setbacks are a natural part of progression, so when you fall backwards don’t fall in to a failure mindset. Just pick up a continue moving forwards.
  

Come Up With A Plan

In the same way that you might follow a schedule to get weekly routine happening, your new healthy lifestyle should also have tasks and a plan to follow.

• Set yourself some goals so you know what to focus on and what you are working towards. Be realistic and start small so that you can achieve success to propel you forwards.
•  Put self-care strategies in place to ensure that your needs are met. Make ‘you’ time to begin working on your new healthy change such as that non-negotiable 6am walk.

The most important time in the world is the time you make for yourself.

Get Into Action

Best laid plans can remain as such unless you actually put them in to action! So think about what your healthy lifestyle change involves and break it down to smaller little actions. Instead of generalising and saying “I want to eat healthier”, try being more specific and committing to eating 3 pieces of fruit a day or eating veggies with two of your meals. 

Here are some examples of small changes you could make:

• Drink 3 litres of water each day
• Break the overnight fast with a hearty brekkie containing 20-40g of protein
• Go to bed at a regular time and get 7 or 8 hours of shut-eye each night
• Snack smarter by carrying healthy options and avoiding the sugary or fatty snacks 
• Plan your workout days in advance, aiming for 3 days of exercise
• Beat the hunger pains with a glass of water instead of mindlessly munching
  

Small changes eventually add up to huge results

If you want to kickstart a healthy lifestyle the best advice for making sustainable, long-term change is to follow the KISS principle. Keep It Super Simple.

Make simple, incremental adjustments in these four main areas of health – nutrition, exercise, mental wellbeing and rest. And if it’s important to you, then you can’t go wrong as long as you JUST START

If you have moved your desire for healthy change from contemplation (I’m thinking about it) to preparation stage (I’ve made up my mind to take action) I would love to help you with the action and maintenance stages. Let’s Find Your Spark together!