5 changes to make right now
Changing habits — health-related or otherwise — is not easy to do. Sarah Money, wellness coordinator, and Erika Setzler, fitness specialist, offer the following five tips that are relatively easy starting points to get you headed toward your goal.
SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE
Without question, one of the most common pitfalls that doom most health-and-wellness plans is making too drastic a change too quickly, Money said.
“We’ll have that client who comes in, and they drink 12 sodas a day and say, ‘I’m not going to drink a soda ever again,’” she said. “It’s probably more realistic to say, ‘Let’s just drink six for a little while. Then let’s drink four, then just two, kind of weaning off. Then they build this habit of I only drink six, so now I drink this much water. That way, we’re easing into it, and we’re establishing healthy habits that are sustainable.”
DO WHAT YOU LIKE
People often get turned off at the thought of exercise simply because they focus on a certain activity they don’t like. The solution, Setzler said, isn’t to grit your teeth and bear it, but to find an activity you do like and go from there.
“Find something that you enjoy to do,” she said. “Don’t base your workout on someone else. If you enjoy playing basketball for your cardio, do that. You don’t have to get on the Stairmaster for an hour. Find what works for you.”
BEWARE OF FADS
Remember ThighMaster? Soloflex? Shake Weight? There is no end to the gimmicks that litter the fitness world, not to mention the number of fad diets coming out all the time. Both Setzler and Money advise people to save time and money by avoiding anything that promises unusually quick results or makes other outlandish claims. In other words, if something sounds too good to be true ….
ASSESS YOUR ENVIRONMENT
You might be committed to making healthy changes in your diet or level of activity, but if you’re surrounded by people who aren’t, changes are much harder to achieve. Taking time to get your family on board with your new life changes — or at least to not undercut your efforts — is a critical step, Money said.
“If a husband wants to make these changes, but the wife does all the cooking, and she doesn’t want to make any shifts, that can take a lot more time,” Money said. “But if you’ve got a husband and wife who are on board, it’s easier for them to make changes together.”
LEVERAGE TECHNOLOGY
Technology can be a wonderful aid in tracking the effectiveness of a workout, keeping tabs on what you eat or showing progress toward a health goal.
“I recommend writing down what you eat, preferably in an app. My favorites are Lose It or Cronometer because they’re based on caloric content,” Money said. “One thing we offer here is called Nourish Well. It’s a food log that’s an app on your phone that’s based on pretty well everything about the client’s wellness.”
“A lot of people use their Apple watches or Fitbits,” Setzler said. “We have record logs that we keep, and they list each exercise equipment or name of an exercise, and they write down their sets and reps, and little by little, you see your progress.”