2017 for most of us is a world of non-stop, never ending merry-go-round of rushing from job to job, chore to chore: rushing to work, sitting in traffic, rushing home to tend to the kids or the partner or the sick relative or even just the house. Perhaps madly trying to squeeze in some exercise and somehow managing to find time to gobble down a cobbled together meal. Many of us have very little time to spend thinking about ourselves, to take time out to improve our lifestyle, our diet or our health, despite being very aware that really we should.
As a personal trainer and nutrition coach, one of the biggest obstacles my clients claim that stops them making the changes they need to their diet or exercise regime to get the results they want is TIME!! And I agree – if you need to make changes to your life, it does take time and thought and planning. However, I also know that if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. But, once you have put in that little bit of initial effort, you can maintain these behaviours with very little effort. I also know that it is most definitely worth it – for health and longevity, now and for the rest of your life! It really is possible to make small changes to your life that will add up to create big results.
So, take a bit of time out and make you the focus, for just a short time to see if you can take on some of my top tips for improving your diet and fitness.
- Make your health your priority.
Make a decision to create change, because until you do, nothing will happen. Decide to input a little bit of extra effort to reaching your goals and then make it happen!!
- Plan your weekly meals.
Start by thinking about where you are going to be through the week ahead and plan your meals based around this. Once you have decided what you are going to be eating, do your shopping and make what you can ahead of time. Poor food choices are often made out of habit, or when we are hungry and reach for the closest thing to hand, so put a stop to unconscious eating and plan to succeed! Front loading your effort to once a week will mean that you have to spend less time thinking about and preparing meals at every breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the long run you will save yourself a lot of dithering time and running round looking for missing ingredients!!
- Batch cook and create a store of healthy, homemade meals in your freezer.
My favourite time saver – whenever you’re cooking a meal or snack that will keep or freeze well, always make double. This way you will start to build a stock pile of healthy, homemade ready meals and snacks for NO EXTRA EFFORT!!!!
- Plan your weekly exercise.
If you’re looking to build exercise into your life, don’t just expect it to happen or for the free time to magically present itself to you. It won’t, so book it in!!! Just as with your food, look at the week ahead and decide when you are going to fit in your exercise. Even write it in your diary and treat it like any other appointment – don’t let other things get in the way.
- Increase your incidental activity levels whenever you can.
Walk to work or to the shops or even just park the car a little further away. Take regular breaks from your desk. Take the stairs instead of the lift. This is FREE EXERCISE(!) and all of these things will add up to increase your daily and weekly calorie expenditure with very little extra effort or demand on your time.
If you would like help improving your diet, fitness or health or reaching your body or performance goals, get in touch for nutrition coaching and/or personal training.
Fanny x
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