Are you ready to change for life?
Let me tell you how to make changes that last forever. But first lets talk about why it needs to be ‘forever’.
If you want to reach your health goals then stay there, you need to focus on building habits for life. Whether you want to eat better, get fitter or lose weight, it all comes back to what you do day in, day out. There’s no getting away from it, your weight and fitness is linked to your usual habits, not what you did on that one day or one week.
If you want to be different, you have to do something different. But you can’t just do something for a short time and expect the results to last. You need to make changes that you can stick to forever if you want the results to last forever. So forget following the latest trendy diet plan or 30 day hardcore exercise regime, then stopping when you get to your target. It all comes back to your day to day habits otherwise you’ll just regain weight or lose that level of fitness or feel rubbish again when you go back to old habits.
There is no substitute for making changes to your day-to-day habits.
Changing habits is hard. Ha! Understatement right?! Human beings are creatures of habit, we like to do the same things coz it feels easy and comfortable. This is why I recommend taking it slowly. Just tweak it; make small changes one step at a time. That way you don’t feel like you’re changing too much so it’s easier to keep going. But it takes longer to see the effects. You need to keep at it to see the results.
This is why you need the 3 Ps; Practice, Patience and Perseverance.
Practice
Doing things differently is hard. You can’t expect it to go right all the time. Think about how people learn to play a musical instrument or learn a new skill. It takes practice. Building new habits involves putting in some effort over and over again. The more you do something the easier it gets to keep doing it. A wise woman once said to me ‘practice makes permanent’. You have to keep doing it over and over before it becomes engrained, before it feels natural and normal. Then suddenly you realise you don’t have to think it through as much like when you’ve been driving a car for a while, you just do it. It doesn’t happen overnight does it? Which leads me nicely onto the next thing you’ll need…
Patience
If you’re used to going on a diet and losing weight fast then you’re going to have to ditch that expectation and maybe stop focusing on the scales so much. Making slow, gradual lifestyle changes will take time to produce results. You won’t notice the difference for a while so you’re going to need to be patient. It’ll help you to switch your focus onto building the habits rather than watching for the results – they will show up eventually. Think about how long it’s taken you to build your normal habits- they’re habits of a lifetime. It will take time to learn new habits. There is no quick-fix miracle cure for reaching your health goals.
Perseverance
You have to just keep going and going. What perspective are you taking about your eating habits? If you’re telling yourself you don’t believe you can change or get to where you want to be, you’re setting yourself up to fail. When you tell yourself you can’t do it, straight away you’re not going to put in the effort needed. Remember you’re the only one who can do this, you have to put faith in yourself. Slip-ups will happen, old habits will try to creep back in, it’s human nature to slip back into a familiar routine. It’s about recognising when the new habits are slipping and the old habits are popping back up. You have to keep picking yourself up and trying again.
Again I want to emphasise that healthy eating isn’t about perfection. You don’t need to change everything, make it easier for yourself and tweak it. Remember it’s all about what you do most of the time.
Need help to ditch dieting forever?
Want to eat normally again AND lose weight healthily? While still enjoying the cake & chocolate? Hell yes!
I will help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you will learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
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My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week has been Lady Grey this week – so yummy and orangey. Especially with a homemade cookie dunked in it – I didn’t make them, Genevieve and Sam made them on Sunday.
- I’ve been doing pretty well at eating more mindfully this week after all the cheesecake the other week. It’s amazing how when you really pay attention to your appetite you do notice that you don’t need as much after overdoing it! It’s almost like I know what I’m talking about – ha!
- This weekend we went up Nesscliffe hill, bringing us up to 8 hills for our little family challenge; 22 Hills In 2022. I thought I’d never been up there, but as soon as I saw the sign about the Kynaston Cave I remembered going up there as a child. The cave was the hiding place of ‘Wild’ Humphrey Kynaston, who was Shropshire’s real-life version of Robin Hood. When I visited as a child I’m sure I remember someone saying he took his horse up the dodgy looking stone steps into the cave when he was hiding there. But now I’m wondering if I imagined that part. The steps are fenced off now, but you used to be able to go up them to have a look into the cave. We saw a bat flitting around even though it was still daylight!
- At the end of last week a podcast interview I did last month went live! You can go and listen to my chat with Helen Hill for The Last Rung here. Warning; may contain ranting about dieting!
- Bird Nerd Report: I didn’t see many interesting birds on a few of my walks down by the brook. Then I saw a few treecreepers for the first time in a while. There were also loads of babies being fed by their parents, mainly great tits I think – loads of tweeting! I really felt for the parents, they were working hard and I know the feeling of having a child constantly pestering for food! Also seen quite a few black caps the last few days. I hadn’t seen many kingfishers, but then suddenly this morning I saw one who did a few laps round a tree past right by where I was stood!
