How to start now, there’s no time like the present!
Are you struggling to figure out how to start now? Let’s talk about why now is the time.
Now is the time to get started and ditch dieting forever. You can watch the video I made about this below or keep scrolling if you prefer to read.
Now is the time to start working towards your health goals, whatever they are. Whether you’re trying to eat better, get fitter, lose weight or feel better about yourself. Now is the time, because there really is no time like the present. You know the old saying, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is now and it’s the same with making changes to your habits.
Do you find every time you want to make changes, every time you want to get to your goal you just keep putting off the diet until Monday? Then you spend the weekend having that ‘Last Supper’. You know what I mean, where you eat all the things that you think “I’m not going to be allowed to eat these things again, so I’m going to just completely binge on them now”.
Then you clear out all your cupboards before you go on the diet and it feels like this really big thing to do. Maybe you’re quite motivated, you feel quite excited and enthusiastic about it to start off with.
But it doesn’t last.
The thing is, if this sounds familiar – you’re trying to change too much.
Forget going on a diet or following some kind of plan. You’re making it too hard for yourself and if you think that you’ve gotta do it all perfectly then you’re setting yourself up to fail.
Life is always going to throw challenges at you, there is never going to be the perfect time.
When it comes to reaching your health goals, whether it’s to eat better, get fitter or to lose weight… Whatever your goal is it all comes back to your habits. Habits take time to learn.
If you’re trying to make changes, you need to practise those changes over and over again. It takes time to keep practising them until they become new habits. The sooner that you get started, the sooner you get to start practising. The more you practise, the easier it gets. Whereas the opposite is true, if you just keep putting off making changes to your eating or exercising habits, the more that you put it off the harder it gets. Especially when you then build it all up in your head so it becomes this really big difficult thing to do.
There really is no time like the present.
I have three tips for you to have a think about, to help you to just do it. To get started on eating better and building healthy habits and keeping it going forever, because it’s all about doing it forever not just until you get to your target.
How to start now:
1. Keep it simple
If you make it hard for yourself, you’re just going to find it too difficult to started making changes. Focus on how you could tweak your current eating habits, instead of trying to follow some kind of big drastic diet plan. If you think “I’ve got to change everything coz my entire diet is wrong” – STOP!
Forget that dieting mentality and ask yourself “how could I just tweak what I normally do now?” What would be the one little change that you could make that would improve things? What would make a big difference, but be small enough and easy enough for you to keep going? Something you could build up into a new habit, but wouldn’t feel like you’re doing anything too drastic. It needs to feel easy enough to start doing, but be significant enough to make a difference. That’s your first step and remember these little tweaks really do add up over time.
2. Be mindful of your habits
Be honest with yourself about how you eat. Do you know what you actually eat and how much? You need to be 100% honest with yourself so you know what you need to change. If you don’t know what you need to change coz you don’t know what you do normally, then you’re going to struggle. Build awareness of your habits without the judgement though, beating yourself up doesn’t help you. It’s about being honest with yourself about how you’re eating so you can start to figure out what tweaks you could make.
3. Figure out what’s really getting in the way
Figure out the issues that you’re struggling with. Be honest with yourself about what’s really getting in the way of you getting to your goal. Is it that you’re not really motivated; you don’t have good enough reasons to make changes? Or is it that you’re struggling with comfort eating and you need to find a solution for that? Be honest with yourself about what you’re actually struggling with. Again, there’s no need to beat yourself up about any of it. But instead of focusing on the problems, look for the solutions and obviously this is something that I can help you with. See below for more details or have a read through more of my blog posts.
Instead of going on that drastic, complicated diet:
- Keep it simple, make it easier for yourself by tweaking your current habits
- Be mindful & honest with yourself about your current habits, so then you know what you can change
- Figure out what the real issues are, but look for the solutions to help you deal with them
It is 100% time to ditch dieting forever, because you absolutely deserve better.
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.
Freebies!
My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week has been Lady Grey tea this week, usually out of my thermos mug at one of the parks while Genevieve has a play!
- This weekend we went to BeWILDerwood just north of Whitchurch and it was brilliant. I think it’s quite a new theme park, based on some kids’ books I’ll be honest I’d never heard of! There was a variety of adventure playgrounds with slides, zipwires, climbing-frames, mazes and treehouses. We all loved it, although it was a bit tiring trying to keep up with Genevieve as she raced round the mazes and climbed all over the place (I think I need to work a little more on my fitness level!).
- We were excited to find out that a friend from Australia was visiting the UK and not far from us. We’d not seen her in years so it was really good to catch up. I was totally oblivious to the fact that the Commonwealth games were on so we also accidentally saw some of the triathlon participants cycling past too (our friends were watching the race!).
- This week has been the first full week I’ve been solely responsible for childcare during the day. So it’s mainly been about long walks, with blackberry picking and trips to the park. We did have a movie day and living-room picnic on the rainy day, which Genevieve said was one of the best days of her life! I reckon I’m doing ok there with feedback like that…
- I’ve managed to get started on sorting and decluttering the house a bit. Sorted out a pile of games that were looking pretty messy in the living room, they’re all neatly in a storage box under Genevieve’s bed now – yay! One thing down, a million more to go…
- We didn’t manage to walk up another hill for our family challenge ’22 Hills in 2022′ this week as we were so busy at the weekend. But I’m feeling pretty good for doing a lot of walking and I’ve managed to get back into doing my little exercise routine every morning this week. It’s a combo of stretches, a few Pilates moves plus some strength stuff (like press-ups). Sometimes I follow a short yoga routine from YouTube too.
- Remember earlier this year I talked about doing some more supporting artist (extra) work? I had a look to see if there was any info online about the second job I did and there is! So I reckon I can share it with you here. The filming I took part in back in January was for an ITV drama called Stonehouse with Matthew Macfadyen. Not sure yet when it’s on, or whether you can see me in the the scene I’m in, but I’ll let you know as soon as I know more. There’s still no more info on the first programme I took part in…
- Bird Nerd Report: Despite going for loads of walks, I’ve not seen many birds. The kingfishers were all hiding even on ‘Kingfisher Corner’ (the bit of the brook I’ve seen the most kingfishers). We did see a buzzard flying really low overhead one day. Then I saw a few tree-creepers and a bullfinch, which is always nice as I don’t see them very often!
