Small steps – Changes that last!
Every day I open the papers to find an article about healthy eating, the latest healthy lifestyle trend, a new supplement or a new cookbook being released. And while I think this is absolutely wonderful, as it shows that many more people care about what they eat, I am also aware that it can leave us feeling a little under pressure. Should I follow the latest diet? I have not yet tried this supplement! You know what I mean!
Very often we do try new diets, full of enthusiasm and determination, only to find that sooner rather than later life gets in the way, work, careers, family…and the often rather unsustainable ideas of a ‘healthy diet’ are really hard to follow over a long period of time. So we are back to square one. Feeling a little disappointed and slightly deflated about the fact that we have not sustained our so wanted ‘healthy lifestyle’!
Perhaps we are trying to do too much at once? Making too many changes at the same time, so that sustaining them becomes pretty unrealistic. Set yourself one or two healthy aims. Make them as small or big as you want, like walking the last few bus stops or cutting out sugar in tea. And once the fist couple of changes have become so embedded that they are part of the norm, perhaps then is a good time to make the next positive change – slowly taking us where we want to be. For me, right now, this means cutting down on black tea, which I seem to down like water. It’s much better to focus on doable challenges rather than so many that we are setting ourselves up to failure right from the beginning!
