Tag Archives: exercise

Why healthy living can’t wait for tomorrow

June 28, 2016 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

The biggest problem with the, “I’ll just eat cake today and start eating well tomorrow” mindset, is that it assumes it will be just as easy to change tomorrow as it is today.

It’s not.

Decades of research finds that today’s decision is connected to tomorrow’s behaviour. When you choose to behave in a certain way today, you increase the likelihood that you will behave that way habitually (without conscious thought) the next time you find yourself in the same situation.

Our choices define our habits. And our habits define who we are.

To start choosing what’s important over what’s easy, it helps to:

  1. Find your motivation: Ask, how does each behaviour contribute to the person that I want to become, and why does that truly matter to me? If you’re not feeling motivated to change, you need to keep digging, or explore a new behaviour.
  2. Be mindful: When you find yourself about to engage in an old habit, breathe calmly and recognise the unhelpful thoughts or emotions that are driving the behaviour. Once you understand what’s driving the behaviour, it’s easier to separate yourself from it.
  3. Understand habits: Remind yourself that this decision not only affects who you are today. It also affects who you are tomorrow.

How you choose to do anything, is actually how you choose to do everything.

Why the “healthy” weight may not be so healthy

January 27, 2016 By in Love your body Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

1. Healthy behaviours and healthy weights are not the same thing:

  • Overweight people who exercise and eat healthily develop excellent metabolic health, even if they are still an “unhealthy” weight.
  • Slim people who are inactive and eat poorly typically have poor health, despite their “healthy” weight.

2. Much of what contributes to body weight is actually healthy:

  • Many people who work out regularly will develop significantly greater muscle and bone mass, improve their health substantially, yet are at risk of becoming an “unhealthy” weight.
  • Not all body fat is associated with poor health, with more fat in some areas (such as the buttocks and hips) linked to better health.

3. Not accepting our current body weight is highly stressful:

  • Body weight has a strong genetic component, and I don’t know of a single person who has found weight loss to be an easy and stress-free process over the long-term.
  • Seeing yourself as an incorrect weight is a constant emotional stressor (consider that 9 in 10 formerly obese people would choose blindness (!) over being obese again).
  • Constant emotional stress predicts significantly poorer health and early mortality.

4. A large difference between your current and desired body weight is considered a better predictor of physical and mental health, than a large current body weight!

  • There is no clear bodily mechanism that directly links being overweight to poor health.
  • The association between weight and health differs between cultures who perceive the same body weights differently.

Yes, a clear association does exist between body weight and mortality for the population.

But how can one point to this data and accurately conclude that a single individual must be of a particular weight if they wish to be healthy? Especially when the association between weight and health is largely influenced by the way that we perceive our bodies.

Healthier, I think, to do more healthy behaviours, than to stress about needing to be a “healthy” weight.

One of the easiest ways to get you to exercise more

November 9, 2015 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Is to stop saying “I will” and start asking “will I?”

“I will” implies requirement. You end up doing it only because you should do.

“Will I?” implies choice. You end up doing it only because you want to.

Research shows that simply asking ourselves “Will I go the gym?” is significantly more motivating than saying to ourselves “I will go to the gym”.

“Will I go to the gym?” engages the part of us that is motivated to go from within.

“I will go to gym” shuts the door on that very part from coming through.

If you want to change long-term, step 1 is to find the part inside of you that wants it.

Step 2, however, is all about giving it a choice to keep on coming back.

A simple tip for achieving your health goals

October 19, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , 1 Comment

When we say we’re going to make a health change, we typically only concentrate on the ‘what’. Exercise more, meditate more or eat more fruit and vegetables, are some of the many examples.

Of course, achieving the ‘what’ will soon become a constant struggle, a battle between our conscious and unconscious mind.

A better solution is to not only call out the what, but the where, the when and the how:

“I will exercise, at the gym, on Monday after work, on my drive home.”

“I will meditate, in my bedroom, at 6:40am on Tuesday and Thursday, by setting my alarm.”

“I will eat an apple, in the park, during my Friday afternoon walk, by placing a reminder in my calendar.”

We clearly state the where, when and how for our work, time with friends, extra-curriculum activities, and favourite TV shows.

Interesting that we so often forget to apply the same simple concept for our health goals, too.

One type of medicine that’s definitely worth taking

September 28, 2015 By in Holistic health Tags: , , , Leave a comment

What if you read about a pill that could help to increase your:

  • metabolism
  • self-esteem
  • strength
  • mental abilities
  • physical performance
  • muscle mass, and also,
  • reduce your fat mass.

Would you take it?

Suppose you read further, and it did have a number of side effects, but they were all good. It too can improve:

  • how your cardiovascular system works, reducing your risk of heart disease
  • how your muscular system works, reducing your risk of diabetes, and
  • how your skeletal system works, reducing your risk of developing brittle bones later in life.

What’s more, this pill is perfectly natural, and doesn’t have to cost anything.

Now would you take it?

All the benefits of such a pill exist. They are found simply from doing resistance (weight) training.

Resistance training is not just for young men: everyone benefits. And resistance training doesn’t need to be done in a gym: squats, lunges and push ups are simple examples that can be done in the living room at home.

If you don’t do any resistance training now, what’s truly stopping you from starting as just a 15 minute practice once a week? If you don’t know how to, how can you find out from someone who does?

I think it’s interesting that we are waiting and hoping for a natural, affordable pill that will one day successfully deliver just one of these benefits, without the side effects.

The reality is, there is really no need to be waiting at all.

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