A healthy lifestyle is just that: a lifestyle. It’s not a crazy exercise routine. It’s not a quick-fix diet. It requires you to develop a healthy mindset. You have to think fit.
When fitness and healthy choices become your lifestyle, it really does become easier to make such choices. But where to start? Here:
Let the morning set the tone for the day.
I’m a firm believer in this. I get things started right and let my whole day follow that example. I wake up, dry brush my body, drink a cup of warm lemon water, do yoga, and have a healthy breakfast (usually a smoothie). Starting my day with a healthy mindset (before anything else has a chance to creep in) means I’m more likely to think that way until I go back to bed that night.
Look for opportunities to move your body.
See stairs as a gift. Walk the long way home. Your daily movement should not be confined to your workout.
Make small substitutions.
Start drinking water instead of, well, just about everything else. Don’t like water? Not a good enough excuse, but try flavoring it (naturally, not with that chemical-laden packaged crap) with fruits or herbs. (Cucumber mint YUM.) When faced with the baked or fried dilemma, ask yourself, “As a fit, healthy person, what choice do I make?”
Stop your complaints before they come out of your mouth.
This really applies to everything, but I’m talking mostly about the “Ugh” sort of stuff we’re inclined to say while we’re walking up a hill or our bags are getting heavy. Eventually, you can stop the complaints before they enter your head, but for now just avoid spreading them around.
Catch your negative thoughts and correct them.
Start becoming very aware of how you spend your time thinking about fitness. If you see a fitness model on a magazine, what do you think? When you see your neighbor running up the hill, what goes through your head? If those thoughts don’t serve you, let them go and replace them with things like, “She must have worked so hard for that body! Good for her!” and “He’s such a hard worker! If he can do it, I can too!” Make it as cheesy as you need to until this happens naturally.
Congratulate yourself for every healthy choice you make.
A mental “good job, you’re making excellent decisions for your body, you’re on a roll, this is so GOOD for you!” on drinking a glass of water or going on a walk helps to reinforce those habits.
Give yourself reminders.
Put your healthy food where you can see it. (And hide, or don’t even buy, the crappy stuff.) Ask your friends and family to offer verbal encouragement when you do a workout or make a healthy meal. Leave your walking shoes where you can easily get to them.
Surround yourself with people who do what you want to do.
It can be hard to work out if your friends hate working out. (Send them to this blog.) I’m not saying ditch your friends, I’m just saying you need to add a few new ones to the mix, maybe even in the form of magazine cutouts and quotes. Put those pictures and sayings where you can see them and let them remind you of the kind of lifestyle you’re striving to live. Put yourself face-to-face with images and ideas of fitness, health, exercise, and wellbeing throughout the day until it becomes a part of your landscape, until your mind starts to live there.
How do you think fit?