BEGIN BY SETTING GOALS YOU CAN REACH

When it comes to your health, the most important difference between actually doing something and merely saying you’re going to do it is a statement of intent. For a health change to work – really work – you need to say you’re going to do it, tell other people you’re going to do it and actually write down that goal and how you’re going to get there. The research unequivocally shows that once you’ve said you’ll do something, you’re most of the way there. Without that initial commitment, change is impossible.

That’s why we’ve given two whole pages to the process of finding and setting goals on pages 4 and 5 of your Good Health For Life Wellness Journal. As a fundamentally important part of this health-improving process, we are urging you to write down the ways in which you want your life to be different. Your goals can be big or small, immediate or long-term, personal or professional, but having that statement of intent will give you a sense of purpose like nothing else.

Call them goals, ambitions, whatever you like, but write them down. We’ve suggested a structure for setting out your goals, but you can alter it. The daily planner will then move you close to these goals, but writing down the goal will motivate you and allow you to tweak the planner if you need to.

Set aside 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to do this process properly. First, ensure you are completely calm by taking five minutes to sit silently and just allow your mind to wander. Then see what comes to the surface. Are there aspects of your health you’d like to improve? What about your weight? Fitness levels? Mood? Do you have chronic pain? Insomnia? Are there bad habits (cigarettes, too much alcohol, internet surfing, YouTube hopping, computer gaming, nail biting) you’d like to try to give up?

When you’ve established your goals, you’ll need to spend a little time thinking about how you can and will realistically get there. Are there changes you need to set in motion? Any equipment or books you might need?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOSE WEIGHT?

Almost all of us would be healthier if we carried around a little less body fat, but obesity is the precursor to a host of life-limiting diseases. So it’s a good idea to find out if you are a healthy weight, or whether you might have nudged closer to the ‘overweight’ category over time.

First go to the NHS website (nhs. uk) and search ‘BMI calculator’. If you tap in your height, weight, age, gender and level of activity it will calculate your BMI (which stands for Body Mass Index). If your BMI is in the overweight category, the online tool will work out how much weight you could aim to lose and suggest a daily calorie total that would nudge you towards a slow but steady loss of 1-2lb per week.

Next, set a date for how long it is likely to take you to reach your chosen target weight. So, if you have 8lb to lose and you plan to lose 12lb a week, give yourself a goal of reaching a healthy weight in five weeks’ time.

Your daily calorie requirement will vary according to your age, gender and activity levels, but as a general rule men usually need 2,500kcal per day and women 2,000kcal per day to maintain their weight. Bear in mind that these broad averages wer e es t ab - lished in the 1950s when we were all much more active than we are now, so you might find you gain weight when eating this much food and will need to set your sights lower.

You can type ‘total daily energy expenditure’ into any search engine and you’ll be directed to a calculator that will ask you your height, weight, age, gender and activity level and give you a number. If you want to lose weight, you should aim for at least 250kcal less than that number.

In your journal, we encourage you to keep a tally of your total calorie intake each day. It might be a little time- consuming at first, but you’ll find the same meals come around often, and you’ll very quickly learn the basic calculations for the kind of food you eat. You’ll find a calorie counter on pages 50-51. You can also check most foods on nhs.uk ( just search for ‘calorie checker’), and you can save the page to your phone so it works like an app. Another useful app is MyFitnessPal, which has a database of more than 5 million foods and a barcode scanner that allows you to instantly enter the nutrition information of some packaged foods. You can also sync to fitness tracker devices.

The problem with weight loss is that the human body is amazingly efficient – 100g of fat contains roughly 1,000 calories and it’ll take you about two hours of hard running to burn that off. Very few of us are fit enough to run hard for two hours! So don’t expect miraculous results after 28 days of working through your Wellness Journal – but be confident that you will have put habits and rules in place that become routine and will carry you to the sixmonth mark and beyond.

You may prefer to weigh yourself daily or weekly, or rely on the fat-spillage over the waistband of an old pair of favourite jeans, to check your progress, but we urge you to make good use of the weekly catch up sections in your journal and record both your weight and your waist measurement there.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE FITTER AND STRONGER?

We all know being fit contributes (spectacularly) to the goal of ‘living a long and healthy life’, but that can be scant motivation on a rainy day. Most of us need a more measurable and inspiring fitness goal.

Do you think you might one day be able to achieve a 5km or 10km walk or run? It’s a great goal. What about just being able to walk to the nearest shops? Keep your goals simple – and social, if you can. Maybe you can challenge a friend or partner to climb a particular hill or cycle a certain distance. Studies show you’re more likely to stick to a goal if you do it with others – it’s usually more fun that way, plus an active social life is consistently reported as a lifelengthening factor worth cultivating at every opportunity.

Once you’ve set your goal, start thinking about a training plan. It might be as simple as walking to or from work one day a week, or getting off the bus one stop early. In the journal, we’ve laid out a simple set of strength exercises – our five-aday fitness plan (see page 30 of your Wellness Journal). Just spending five minutes doing the five exercises five days a week is a great goal in itself. Even spending one minute a day is better than nothing. Chris has set a fitness goal of running 5km before Christmas and has a training plan in place to achieve that.

DO YOU WANT TO BREAK A FEW BAD HABITS?

Everyone has a few bad habits that it might be wise to break. Are you one of the few people now who still smoke? Do you drink more than you know you should? What about gambl ing or gaming on your phone? Perhaps you’re still horribly hooked on Candy Crush?

We infuse our lives with bad habits, big and small. Some, like overuse

of the mobile phone (stand accused, Xand), creep up on you from behind and start taking over your life without you realising. Others, like smoking, gambling, even sex addiction, can accelerate into problematic proportions that might require the calling in of extra support.

For this journal, we urge you to take a long, hard look at your bad habits – whether you chew your nails or routinely skip toothbrushing before bed at night – and think about their possible health impact. Whatever your bad habit, why not set yourself a goal to quit it for the next 28 days? Go on, make it your goal to go booze-free, give up takeaway food, maybe even delete social media from your phone. If it’s a serious addiction, speak to your GP practice nurse. They will be genuinely excited and very keen to help. Or go cold turkey.

Habits can often be hard to break, and sometimes the best advice is to replace a bad habit with a good one – this is certainly something you can think about when planning how you might achieve this particular goal.

You’ll find a space in the journal where you can chart your commitment by recording your progress each day. Just note down whatever bad habit or habits you’ve done.

DO YOU WANT TO BE PAIN-FREE?

Some medical conditions bring on pain that is hard to treat and which might require some specialist intervention, but most of us just have to live with some kind of musculoskeletal pain every day. By the time we hit the age of 40 our joints will inevitably be aching, and by 60 just getting out of bed in the morning can be a slow process for us. But that kind of pain can actually be reduced.

Most musculoskeletal pain is linked to inactivity. If you spend all day sitting at a desk or slumped on the sofa then your body adapts, with some muscles tightening and others becoming weak. This causes inflammation and can put pressure on your joints and your back, making you vulnerable to problems if you twist or turn suddenly. It also makes falls and (sorry to say) death more likely. Being strong keeps you alive.

As we’ll show you on pages 5253, most body aches and pains will respond to strength work, exercise and weight loss. The recommendations in your Wellness Journal will usually help ease many kinds of musculoskeletal pain. If you feel your pain is not related to joints, muscles and bones, then it’s worth having a chat with your GP.