How to get healthy, in five easy steps.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a series of articles on 60 in 3 called 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. I thought it laid out the specific details for a healthy life change but one of my readers pointed out a flaw. This series provided a lot of the individual steps but none of the overall planning. I suppose that’s due to the fact that I believe people should be able to plan such things on their own. However, when I look back at my own health turn around, I see many cases where I lacked a plan and this caused me various problems. So I’ve decided to remedy the situation with this new series of articles that will lay out a simple plan for getting healthier, improving fitness and losing weight. As with previous series, this first article will give an initial overview of each step and we’ll then go into the details in subsequent posts.

Step 1 - Research

This is probably the step most people miss. People, and I include myself in this, who have realized they’re in bad shape and need to do something about it, will just jump into something such as a new diet or workout routine. What they should do instead is collect information. They need to take a careful look at their own life. What bad eating habits do they have? What physical activities are they doing now? What physical activities did they used to enjoy? What foods or flavors do they really like?

All of these things are important items to know before starting out. They’ll help you decide how to fix the bad situation you’re in. I would recommend that the first step of any health turnaround be keeping a food journal and an activity journal for about a month. I realize you want to jump into things and start getting healthier, but believe me, this information is useful and you need to write it down before you start changing yourself. By the way, part of the research might involve a trip to the doctor’s for a physical.

Step 2 - Goals

Again, most people just skip this in favor of just jumping into things. However, I like knowing why I’m jumping. I like knowing what my goal or target is because this will help me determine what direction I should jump. Goals need to be exact and they need to be achievable. “Lose weight” is not a good goal. It’s not measurable or exact enough. Neither is “Get in shape”. Better goals would be “Lose 20lbs over the next 6 months” or “Be able to run an 8 minute mile by March 1st, 2008″. In fact, the best goal would be a combination of these items. Something like “By March 1st, 2008, I want to lose 20lbs, run an 8 minute mile and hike up Mission Peak in under 1 hour.” That’s a great set of goals there. It’s exact, it’s measurable and it will tell you what you need to do over the next few months. By the way, when we look into this step in detail we’ll see just why simple weight loss goals like “loss 20lbs” are actually bad.

Step 3 - Eating Plan

Now that you have your goal, start planning ahead. Don’t jump into a silly fad diet. Instead, come up with an eating plan that you think you can maintain for the rest of your life. Think carefully about when you like to eat, the foods you enjoy and the type of meals you prefer. These are all vital parts of a sustainable healthy lifestyle. Calculate your metabolic rate and see how many calories you’ll need for your target weight. Then plan accordingly. Too often I see people saying stuff like “I’m going to cut 1000 calories a day!” Why? Did you do the math? Do you know how many calories you need per day? Make sure your plan matches your goals. If you want to lose 20lbs, then plan accordingly. Also, decide when and how gradually you will implement these new eating habits. Remember, sudden changes are rarely sustainable which is why I recommend the slow and gradual method.

Step 4 - Activity Plan

What we just discussed for eating applies to physical activity too. Figure out what activities you enjoyed. Research other potential possibilities and write them down. Take a look at your schedule to see when you’ll have time to work out. Look for a gym. Again, these are all things you should do as part of your plan.

Once again, your goals are going to shape your plan. If your goal is to run an 8 minute mile then you should focus a bit more on cardio and a bit less on weight lifting, although I would still recommend that you do both. If your goal is some hike that you’ve always wanted to do then maybe you should try that hike every other weekend to see how you’re doing.

Come up with a plan for slowly adding workouts into your life. Again, sudden changes are almost never sustainable. So decide which changes you’ll implement first, try them out and make changes until they become a part of your life. Then move on to the next change.

Step 5 - Evaluate and Retune

No plan is ever perfect the first time, or even the tenth time. So you’ll need to constantly evaluate your eating and activity plans and see how you’re doing. If something isn’t working, change it. Just don’t quit when you hit your first obstacle. Believe me, you’re going to hit a lot of obstacles. They key is to not lose hope. Just adjust your plan and keep moving forward.

Summary

That’s it, those are the five steps you need to follow. Tomorrow we start discussing them in detail when we look at Step 1, research.

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How to get healthy, in five easy steps. Step 1, research.

We’re working our way through a simple plan to good health this week, starting with step 1, research.

First of all, I want you to understand that getting healthy will not happen overnight. It won’t happen in a week or in a month or even in two months. It doesn’t matter what those diet programs on TV promise you about losing 25lbs in two weeks. That’s all crap. It’s either outright lies or it’s the kind of weightloss that’s unhealthy and unsustainable. True weightloss is gradual and comes from making permanent changes to your life.

The reason I say this is because you won’t be making or seeing any improvements in your life during the research portion of this plan. I know this sounds disappointing, many of you want to jump right in and get started, but information is one of the most valuable things we have. Good information will help you make the right changes to your life while bad information or no information will lead you down the wrong path.

So yes, during the research or information collection portion of this plan you will continue living your life as is, all bad habits included. You will not improve anything nor will you try. You will simply collect information on what you’re doing and when.  One note, if you have some kind of medical condition and your doctor has told you to make changes to your life right now, then by all means, ignore me and go with your doctor’s advice.

What information do we collect?

There’s two pieces of information we want out of this period. We need to know your eating habits and your activity levels.

Eating Habits

We need to know what you eat, how much and when. For this purpose, you’re going to keep a food journal. Every single piece of food you eat is going to go into this food journal. From the largest dinner to the smallest nut or piece of chewing gum. You need to write it all down along with quantity, time and what you were doing when you ate this food. Things like “went out to lunch with friends”, “had dinner with family” or “snacked on this while at work” are all important because they will tell us why you ate this food. Don’t forget to add any drink other than water, yes, even the diet soda. If it’s not water, you need to write it down.

I’ve seen some people actually cheat when they write a food journal. They’ll underestimate what they ate on purpose or simply “forget” to write something down. It sounds silly but it’s natural. We know we’re supposed to eat healthy, so we’re a bit embarrassed to write down our unhealthy eating habits even if we’re going to be the only ones reading this food journal. However, the only person you’re cheating is yourself. Writing an inaccurate food journal will only cause you to make bad decisions later on. Please, make things as accurate as possible even if it doesn’t feel comfortable to write down that you ate an entire cheesecake.

You’ll also want to write calorie information next to each entry. If possible, add in protein, carbs, fiber and fat, but for the most part, you just need to write the calories. This kind of information is usually available on restaurant online menus, food packaging and so on. If you can’t find it there, you may want to look at a site like Nutrition Data. If you can’t find a calorie number for a specific dish, try to estimate it by looking at similar dishes or by looking at the ingredients.

I know this sounds difficult, and it is, but it’s a necessary step towards changing your life. Just keep a notebook or PDA with you at all times. for example, when I did this I would send myself SMS messages with the food I just ate. Then, at the end of the day, write it all down in your food journal and add in the dietary information such as calorie numbers, fat, protein and carbs.

For an example of a food journal, look here.

Activity Journal

An activity journal is like a food journal only instead of tracking what you eat, it’s tracking what you do.  It’s a bit simpler than a food journal since you don’t need to research calories and such, but it has just as much information.

In this activity journal you’re going to be writing down everything you did during the day.  It doesn’t have to be very complex, it can be as simple as:

• 7:30 to 8:00am - commute
• 8:00 to noon - work
• noon to 1:00pm - lunch
• 1:00pm to 6pm - work
• 6pm to 7pm - commute
• 7pm to 8pm - dinner
• 8pm to 10pm - watching TV
• 10pm to 7:30am - sleep

There you go, that’s an activity journal for an entire day.  Make sure to write down any physical activity like walking, yard work or exercise.

The Physical

One last part of our information research is a physical.  This means going to the doctor’s and getting a check up.  If you’ve had a physical in the past year, that’s fine, we can use that.  However, if you haven’t had one in a while then please go sometime during this month.

A physical can provide us with a lot of useful information.  It will tell us things like your blood pressure, cholesterol levels and heart rate.  A physical can also tell us body fat percentage although not all doctors will go ahead and test this.  Finally, a physical will tell us if you have any special conditions that you need to be aware of as your start to change your life.  Make sure your doctor is aware of what you’re doing and ask them for advice.  Most doctors love hearing that their patients are finally going to take responsibility for their own health and will be happy to provide you with guidelines.  So listen to them, they know your individual body better than I do.

How long?

You’re going to be keeping these journals going for a month.  That’s about enough time to see a good overall picture of your life.  Remember, keep your habits as is during this month, we need to have a baseline or a starting point when we begin to make changes.  These journals are going to provide that starting point.

Tomorrow, we take the information from the journals and start planning based on it.

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How to get healthy, in five easy steps. Step 2, setting goals.

We’re working our way through a simple plan to good health this week, continuing with step 2, setting goals.

Like research and planning, goals are often overlooked.  Either we ignore goal setting or we move ahead with an unrealistic goal.  For most people, goals are something along the lines of “lose weight” or “get fit”, things that are nebulous and cannot be measured.  This is bad because if a goal cannot be measured, how do you know when you’ve achieved it?  This kind of goal can be demoralizing because you never feel successful.  It can also lead to poor performance since you don’t have something specific you’re striving for.  Losing weight for example could mean losing 1lb or losing 100lbs.  So let’s take a look at some better ways to set goals.

General Goal Setting

A good goal is one which is measurable and has a time frame associated with it.  For example, “I want to go to Europe by end of next year.”  That’s a great goal.  It clearly spells out what I want to do and when.  Now I can start working on this goal.  By comparison “I want to travel” is not so good.  It doesn’t tell me anything I can start working on or a time frame so I can schedule things.  This also applies to any health goal.  You want it to be specific, measurable and have a time frame associated with it.  You also want to make things realistic.  “I want to be a multimillionaire by next week” is measurable and has a time frame but I doubt it’s realistic.

Weight Loss Goals

The first and probably most common goal people set for themselves is a weightloss one.  We’ve all heard this one “lose some weight” is the most frequently used version.  First of all, this is a bad goal because it cannot be measured.  However, it’s also bad because weightloss by itself is not necessarily healthy.  You can lose weight by starving yourself but I wouldn’t say you were healthy.  I could lose weight by not working out and losing muscle mass but that too would be unhealthy.

If your only goal is weightloss then you’re setting yourself up for failure.  Weightloss is not a health goal, it is a side effect of being healthy.  In fact, some people can get healthier and actually put on weight.  For example, if you’re severely underweight right now and have low muscle mass, you could begin eating better, working out and then gain weight as part of becoming healthier.

Of course for most people, it’s true that some weightloss might be beneficial.  So a weightloss goal might be useful, but only in conjunction with other goals.  That is, never let a weightloss goal be your only goal, it should be one of a number of goals you will work towards.

If you do want to set a weightloss goal, make it realistic.  You will probably lose an average of 1 to 2lbs a week.  So keep that in mind.  Also, keep in mind that a healthy body has a good amount of muscle and that muscle weighs a lot more than fat.  So you might be underestimating your ideal weight.  Rather than having your ideal weight as your goal, I would recommend setting interim goals.  For example, if you felt you were 80lbs overweight, don’t set up your weightloss goal as “lose 80lbs in the next 12 months.”  Instead, say something like “lose 20lbs over the next 4 months”.  That’s realistic and doable.  When you’re done with this goal, you’ll feel as though you’ve achieved something and this will hopefully keep you motivated.  Also, you’ll be able to reassess things when you’re done with this interim goal and see what the next goal should be.

Size Goals

These are actually better than weightloss goals since size is a better indicator of health than weight.  A good example of a size goal is “lose 1 inch off my waist in the next three months” or “1 smaller dress size by end of the year”.  Again, keep it realistic and set interim goals rather than end goals.  It may be nice to have an end goal, but it’s more motivating to have interim goals.  Those are more immediate.

Eating Goals

Eating goals are things like “By end of this year, I want to stop drinking caffeine” or “by end of this month, I will eat three servings of vegetables a day”.   They’re very good but they only represent a part of an overall plan.  I would recommend that you use them as a way of incorporating healthy eating habits into your life, but they’re really more of a planning tool than a goal.  That is, this kind of goal is more of a way to achieve other goals than a purpose in and of itself.

Activity Goals

Just like eating goals, activity goals represent some targets you set for yourself in terms of the activity level in your life.  They are things like “Workout three times a week” or “bike to work once a week this month”.  They’re really more of a planning tool I think but they can still be useful as a way of incorporating physical activity into your life.  If they work for you then by all means, feel free to use them.

Performance Goals

Now we’re getting into the best kind of goal.  Performance goals are where you really set yourself great health goals.  These are the ones that measure how well your body is doing and not just how small or large your rear end is.  Performance goals are related to some kind of physical activity.  They can be expressed in very straightforward and very measurable terms.  For example “By the end of the year I want to be able to run 2.5 miles on a treadmill at 1.5degree incline in under 30 minutes”.  That’s a great goal.  It’s measurable, it’s doable and it tells you exactly what you need to do.  When we get to the planning portion of this series, you’ll see how goals like this can translate into very specific plans, which is what makes them great.

You can also use performance goals with things other than cardio.  For example “I want to do ten reps of a 100lb bench press in three months” or “I want to hike up Monument Peak in less than 2 hours by end of Summer (September 1st)”.  I would really recommend performance goals because of how well they translate into a very specific plan of action.

Health Goals

These are the most exact and also the most difficult to measure.  Health goals are “I want to reduce my cholesterol to the following level: ____” or “I want to lower my blood pressure to ____”.  They are the most exact because these numbers can give us a great view into your health.  However, the are difficult to measure since we can’t really see them on our own and usually need to consult with a doctor in order to obtain these measurements.  If you followed my recommendation and got a physical as part of your research phase, then you at least have a starting point.  Talk to your doctor when you get your physical and see what he or she would recommend as a health goal.  Write it down and next year, when you go for your physical, see how well you’re doing.  Your doctor might also give you some tips on how to achieve these health goals.  Make sure to write them down since you’ll want to incorporate them into your plans.

Goal Sets

The best goals are the ones made of of multiple smaller goals.  Here’s a good example:

• I want to lose 4lbs each month for the next 12 months
• I want to improve my running speed by 1mph each month over the next 12 months
• I want to reduce my waist size by 1 inch each 6 months over the next 12 months

This person has a set of three goals that together make up a very good health target.  Even better, each of these goals is made up of a series of smaller goals that can be worked on over a short period of time.  They’ll know exactly how they’re doing at the end of each month and will be able to change plans accordingly.

Summary

Goals are what drive us.  They motivate us when they’re good, but they can demoralize and confuse us when they’re vague or badly set.  Look at your life and then write down a set of goals that will challenge and drive you to greater health.  Tomorrow, we’ll see how to use these goals as part of our planning stage.

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How to get healthy, in five easy steps. Step 3, the eating plan.

We’re working our way through a simple plan to good health this week, continuing with step 3, the eating plan.

We’ve talked about some research and goal setting the past two days and if you’re going to be following this plan at home, you’re probably doing this part a month after you first started. The first month was all about information. You figured out what you were eating and when you’re active. You also set yourself some goals. Now we’re going to start using this information in order to plan our goals.

Interim Goals

If you read yesterday’s post about goal setting, you hopefully have a good set of goals set up. Each of these goals should have a series of interim goals. For example, your weight loss goal should actually be something like “lose 10lbs each 3 months over the next year” or “lose 20lbs by August 1st and then reevaluate weight.” These are great interim goals and we’re going to use them as part of our planning. Essentially, we’re going to set up our eating plan in order to hit your first interim goal, not your end goal. So even though your end goal might be to lose 100lbs, we’re going to set up our first plan to meet your first interim goal of losing 20lbs by mid next year. That way you have an immediate goal you’re working towards, plus you’ll have an opportunity to readjust your plans when you hit this goal and see the effects.

Calculate Calorie Requirements

The first step is to calculate how many calories you’ll need for your interim target goal weight. We do this by using a BMR calculator such as this one.  You’ll note that this calculator gives results based on your activity levels.  We’re going to use level 2, “lightly active” for now, because that’s what you’re going to be once we’re done with the physical activity plan.

I just used this calculator and it showed that I need 2729 calories per day if I was in the lightly active category.  Great, now we know how many calories I need per day to hit our goal weight.

Splitting up the calories

How are we going to consume these calories over the course of a day?  Well, first of all, we’re going to skim 20% right off the top.  We’re going to do this to account for unexpected snacks and such, plus to promote weight loss.  So my 2729 just went down to 2183 calories per day.  Now we’re going to split up these remaining calories into several meals per day.  My recommendation is to split it into four meals with the bigger meals coming at lunch and dinner.  However, do what feels right to you.

If we’re sticking to my plan, your daily eating plan would be something like this:

• Breakfast - 1/6 of your daily calories, which for me is around 364 calories.
• Lunch - 1/3 of your daily calories,  which for me is 728 calories.
• Afternoon snack - 1/6 of your daily calories, which for me is 364 calories.
• Dinner - 1/3 of your daily calories, which for me is 728 calories.

Two things to remember.  First, these numbers are based on my weight, age, height and activity levels.  Your numbers are going to be different.  Second, feel free to adjust this breakdown.  If you like eating more at breakfast and less at lunch, that’s great.  Moving calories around is fine.  You can even eliminate one of these meals altogether.  The only things I would recommend keeping are breakfast and at least two other meals per day.  How you want to split up your calories between these things is up to you.

Counting Calories

This sort of eating plan seems intimidating at first.  It looks like you need to count calories at every turn.  However, remember that eating journal you kept during your first month?  This is where that information comes in handy.  After keeping track of your food for a month, you should start getting a feel for how many calories are in various types of food.  You should know what’s good for you and what’s bad.  That’s going to be very useful as you try to stick to this eating plan.  You don’t have to be exact, we took out that 20% of calories to account for little mistakes here and there, but you should have a decent feel for how many calories are in the food you eat.  If you don’t then look it up BEFORE you eat it.  Remember, you are no longer just noting down your calorie intake, you are actively trying to control it now.  So if you don’t know what something contains you need to look it up ahead of time or not eat it.

Eliminate Bad Habits

At the same time that you start reducing calories, you’re also going to start eliminating bad habits.  Again, the food journal comes in handy for this part.  Go through what you ate the last month and start identifying stuff you don’t really need.  Common things are: sodas, coffees, candy, junk food and so on.  Now make yourself another interim goal.  By whatever date you set for your first interim weightloss goal, you want to eliminate one bad habit out of your diet.  So if you set up December 31st, 2007 as the date by which you want to lose your first 10lbs, add another goal to that.  By that date, you will eliminate sodas from your diet.

Other possible interim eating goals could be elimination of junk food, cooking more meals at home, eating more vegetables and so on.  Just set one goal and work towards achieving it.  Remember, you’re not going to revolutionize your diet over night and go from unhealthy to healthy.  Just work on one things at a time and make it into a habit.  Once it’s ingrained into your lifestyle, you can move on to the next bad habit and so on.

Overall Eating Plan

So the outcome here is a meal plan that lets you plan out your calorie intake per day, plus another goal to add to your goal set which gives you a bad eating habit to eliminate.  Remember that this eating plan is only targetted at your first goal weight.  We’re going to need to adjust it once you hit the date for that goal weight.  At that point we can adjust it to your next goal weight or make any changes necessary in case you didn’t hit your goal.  Overall though, the process is always the same.

1. Figure out how many calories you need
2. Take 20% off the top
3. Split the remainder among your daily meals
4. Choose one bad habit to eliminate or improve

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How to get healthy, in five easy steps. Step 4, the activity plan.

We’re working our way through a simple plan to good health this week, continuing with step 4, the activity plan.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you cannot get healthy without also getting active. Those of you who think it’s all about diet and eating better are wrong. Eating healthy is half the solution, being active is the other half. However, since we’ve covered that topic before at 60 in 3, let’s move on to see how you can actually incorporate physical activity into your life.

Check Your Research

During the research portion of this plan I asked you to put together an activity plan that showed how you spent your time. Now we’re going to use that activity plan to start incorporating exercise into your daily routine.  Throughout this entire step, your activity journal is going to tell us where you can devote chunks of time to physical activity.  So take a look at it right now and check how many hours you spend on things like TV, surfing the internet, going out drinking, movies and such.  This is all time that can be better used for physical activity.  For most people, this sort of exercise provides quite a shock.  It’s amazing how much of our lives we spend on the couch or in front of the computer.

Gradual

Just like the eating plan, we’re going to add these activities to your life one a time. Each one of the following steps is meant to be eased into over a period of one or even two months. We want to make sure these things become a habit before we move on to the next item.

Mild Workout

The first thing we’re going to do is incorporate a mild workout into your daily routine. Take a look at your activity journal and identify a time of the day where you have 30 minutes to yourself. This can be during work just as long as you don’t need to do active work at this time. All we’re going to be doing at this time is walking. That’s right, we’re going to go and walk for 30 minutes a day. Actually, work is a perfect time for this because this kind of break allows you to better focus on your work when you come back from it. I often find that I do my best thinking while walking around and I like taking a short walk break if I’m stuck on a particularly complex problem.

Morning Workout

Once a daily walk is a part of your life, we’re going to add in a morning workout. Morning workouts are quick, usually around 5 to 10 minutes, so they’re very easy to add into a busy schedule. Once again, the key is going to be adding them into your life until they become a habit. You’re going to want to press that snooze button, but this 5 minute workout is a lot more important that an extra 5 minutes of staying in bed.

The morning workout is really simple and can be done with a minimum of equipment. It consists of 4 sets of exercises:

• Crunches
• Lunges
• Dead Lifts
• Push Ups

You can do these with or without weights if you want. If you can’t do the entire movement, you can start out by cheating a bit. For example, while you’re doing your push ups, your knees will remain on the ground. Just try to do 10 of each at a slow and steady pace. Altogether, this shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes of your time.

Life Style Activities

Now we’re going to add physical activity into your lifestyle. Each week, you need to do at least four physically active things. That could mean:

• Sport such as soccer, racquetball, tennis or basketball
• Hiking or biking
• Dancing

Whatever you pick, it needs to get your heart rate moving and last for at least 45 minutes to an hour. That means easy sports like baseball don’t count. Now if you don’t want to do any of these activities, you can move to step 4, cardio. However, if you do decide to add these activities into your life, you can skip the whole gym thing altogether. Yes, you heard me right. For most people, adding the first three steps of this physical activity plan is more than enough. Gym time is only for those really serious about getting in perfect shape or those who don’t wish to spend time on these other activities. Your choice, do you want to spend hours at the gym or do you want to go out with friends and play ball?

Gym Workout

Well, if you’re like me, you may not have a schedule that allows for a lot of outside physical activity, or you may simply prefer a more structured workout plan. For that, we have the gym. By now it’s been about 5 to 6 months since you started all this. You should be walking every day, eating healthier and doing a little morning workout every day. Now it’s time to add in some serious exercise. Take a look at this past series from 60 in 3 called The Four Day Workout.  In it, we explore a basic gym routine that you can add to your daily life.  It includes weights and cardio and is simple enough to be performed at home with few changes.  Start out easy, and slowly increase the difficulty.

By the way, I said that this step and one before it are interchangeable.  Well that’s true.  You can do one instead of the other if you want.  Ideally though, you’re going to do both.

Summary

That’s it, four easy steps to add exercise into your life.   Remember, gradual change is the key.  Make sure each of these sticks and becomes a part of your life before you move on to the next one.

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How to get healthy, in five easy steps. Step 5, evaluate and retune.

We’re working our way through a simple plan to good health this week, finishing up with step 5, evaluate and retune.

I think this step was the hardest for me to understand.  As I added more and more healthy habits to my life I found that some were simply not working.  Unfortunately, I kept trying them over and over and then blamed myself for failing.  The truth is that some things just don’t work for some people.  Everyone is different and what works for me may not work for you.  If you find that you just keep failing at something, take a look at it and see what’s going on.  Is there a way to fix it?  Is there a way to change it?  Is it possible to substitute something else for it?

Here are some examples:

Bad Goals

Goals are frequently a problem.  We tend to set them too high.  We want to lose 40lbs in one month, we want to run a marathon in under 2 hours.  These are great goals but are they realistic?   Another problem goal is BMI.  BMI stands for body mass index.  It’s a measure that many people use for obesity.  However, if you work out a lot, your BMI might be in the obese category even though your body fat % is just fine.  For all of these goals, if you get to a point where it just doesn’t seem like you’re going to meet them, stop and do the following:

1.  Examine the goal, is it realistic?  Be honest with yourself here.

2.  Is the goal smart?  The BMI example shows a goal which is not smart.  Perhaps you should talk to your doctor or look for a different health measurement that’s more suitable and accurate.

3.  Examine the reason for failing at this goal.  Did you follow your plan?  Was the plan flawed?  Are you still seeing improvement but not as fast as you expected?  Perhaps you just need to delay your goal slightly.  This is fine as long as you are still improving, but don’t use this as a way to indefinitely delay something.  If you’re no longer seeing improvement and have not yet met your goal then something needs to change.

No Fun 

This is another problem with a lot of health plans.  We tend to try and stick with them but we keep complaining that we’re having no fun.  We’re not eating the food we like, we’re not enjoying the activities we’re doing, we hate going to the gym, we despise our workout and so on.  This is a problem since it will cause you to eventually abandon your plan and go back to your previous, unhealthy life.  So try some of the following:

1.  Switch activities.  There are a thousand and one possibilities for you to choose from so why get stuck with one you don’t like?  Don’t like jogging?  So try swimming.  Not enjoying weight lifting?  Try yoga.  Not enjoying your jazzercise class?  Try a martial arts one like kick boxing.

2.  Get other people involved.  Anything is more fun if you do it with friends.  So get them involved and make it into a social activity.  Not liking your daily walks?  How about asking your friend to walk with you and spend some time chatting while you walk.  Not enjoying the gym?  I bet it would feel better with a workout partner.

3.  Switch times.  Maybe you’re not a morning person.  So try working out in the evening instead.

4.  Live a little.  This is especially important when it comes to eating.  Face it, bad food tastes good!  There’s no way around that.  Sure, there are plenty of healthy foods that taste great but sometimes you just get a craving for a candy bar or that double cheese burger.  Don’t punish yourself for these cravings, use them by using these foods as a reward.  Had a great week where you worked out, ate healthy and lived well?  Reward yourself with a candy bar.

Painful

This one is especially true for workouts.  Some people just can’t do certain exercises.  I have a friend who’s fine with just about anything at the gym except shoulder presses.  Something in his shoulder just gives out and it hurts.  Instead of trying to work through that pain, just pick a different exercise.  Remember, you’re here to improve your body, not punish it.

Summary

The tips and advice we offer here on 60 in 3 are just guidelines.  Read them, learn from them and continue educating yourself.  However, feel free to adapt or even ignore them.  The best health plan is the one that works for you.

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