Make a Healthy Choice Program

Okay, so you're interested in making healthy choices, but where do you begin? Are you feeling overwhelmed with all the changes you want to make? At any time you may find it helpful to book a personal health consultation to help you on your way.

What follows is a simple idea to incorporate that first healthy change into your life, followed by many others. Grab yourself a journal and let's start, it's time to take action!

There are 4 steps to this approach;

• Establish Where You Are Now
• Commit To A Small Healthy Choice
• Re-assess
• Be Gentle And Supportive

At any point during this process, you may find it helpful to take our free 7-day e-course - click below to sign up.

1. Establish Where You Are Now

First of all, establish where you are now and where you think you would like to be in the future. A good way to do this is to work with a journal. Write down what your typical day is like now, write down all the things you ingest (meals, drinks, snacks), how much exercise you are getting, what you are doing in your free time and anything else you feel relevant. You now have in your journal a 'picture' of where you are now. When thinking about the future, ponder on what making healthy changes means to you. Perhaps you know you would like to cut out coffee and cigarettes or that you would like to eat only organic produce or you would like to be at a certain weight. Keep these goals in mind (you can even make a list of these goals in your journal) as you move to step 2.

2. Commit To A Small Healthy Choice

When making a resolution to be healthier try working with small changes. Small changes over time produce a slow steady approach to health that is more apt to be lifelong. There may be some out there that can break a bad habit ‘cold turkey’ or make other healthy changes overnight but for most of us this is very hard to do. The easier it is to make the changes the more likely it is that we will follow them for a longer period of time – hopefully the rest of our lives. The idea is to set yourself up for success. Choose a healthy change that will be easy for you to implement, easy for you to succeed at. The size of the change doesn't matter here, what matters is that you choose to make any small healthy change and then you do it.

So, look at your ‘picture’ of where you are now and make a realistic healthy choice about something small on that picture that you are willing to change now. It can be something as small as, instead of having 4 cups of coffee each day you will have 3.5 cups or for one meal in a week you will eat a vegan meal. These are changes that you will hardly notice but they are steps in the right direction. Keep moving in the direction of health and you will always be getting closer to your goal.

3. Re-assess

The next step in this process is to re-assess. Pick a time marker, say 3 weeks, then every 3 weeks (21 days) look at your journal again, and again make a healthy choice of something else in your picture that you are willing to tweak just a little. Perhaps this time you could choose to walk a flight of stairs instead of taking the elevator once a day or perhaps choose to stub out your mid-morning cigarette after a few puffs rather than smoking the whole thing. Keep track of the healthy choices that you are making so that every 3 weeks when you re-assess you will be looking at the new and improved ‘picture’ of your day. Continue to make these small healthy changes every three weeks and at the end of a year you may be surprised at how far you have come. I have chosen 21 days as a time marker because after you have done something for 21 days it is very likely to have become a new habit in your life.

4. Be Gentle and Supportive

This last step is one that you use at any time you feel the need and it involves being kind to yourself and engaging your patience and persistence. It takes time to see big improvements when you are making only small healthy choices every 21 days. This approach is a slow steady one and there will probably be times when you are feeling impatient and frustrated and like you are not seeing the results you would like. BEFORE you get to this point put some things in place that will help you. When you are feeling motivated is the time to collect books that inspire you, bookmark some good websites, communicate with like-minded individuals or find restaurants and places like juice bars or yoga/meditation centers that support healthy living. Keep these resources close to you. Then, if you get to a low point in your journey make use of these things – open one of your books and read a paragraph, phone one of those friends, post questions on an on-line forum, attend a class or sit and have a juice in a supportive environment. Surround yourself with the people, places and resources that support the healthy choices you are making.

Also, make use of that journal that you have been keeping, look back to your first entry when you first described the ‘picture’ of your day. Look at all the healthy choices you have made thus far. You may be pleasantly surprised as to how far you have come.

Finally and most importantly, be gentle with yourself. Remember to have fun with all of this. If you find yourself, at times, making less than the most healthy choice remember that that is okay. Keep your goals at the front of your mind and as soon as you have realized you have slipped, gently bring your focus back without regret. Hanging on to regret and guilt will only make this process harder. Pick yourself up and continue to move forward. This is all a learning process for each of us and it is a lifelong process. You don't always have to be moving at lightening speed towards health but as long as you are always pointed in that direction you will get there.

Continue to make solid healthy changes every 21 days. Use these healthy choices as your stepping stones to get you to the next 21 day marker.

You are the only one that can make these healthy changes for yourself but there is support available. At any time make use of a personal health consultation to help you on your way.

Be your own cheerleader and stick with it. Think about how great it will feel to look at your journal in one year from now, to be able to see all the healthy choices that you have successfully added into your life. Go for it, start today, you are so worth it!!

“You are the masterpiece you are working to create, and every moment you are re-shaping yourself”

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