Is New Year’s the time you normally make a resolution to lose some kilos for the rest of the summer?
I get it.
Most women wanna look great in shorts. And some want to look great in a bikini.
But my attitude to weight loss is that if you want a permanently healthier weight, it’s not going to happen in a few months let alone a few weeks (Book a 15 minute call with me and we can have a chat about why)
My belief is that you deserve a healthy body in preference of a skinny one.
If that resonates with you, then you might just be open to some of the following ideas on 5 Ways You Can Get Healthier This New Year.
…. But before I share my list with you:
If you’ve been following me for a while, then you’ll be familiar with the MORE and LESS table that I frequently talk about.
It’s a simple tool for taking the next step towards optimal health. Let me show you how it works:
Take a blank piece of paper, and draw 2 lines to create 3 rows.
The top row is titled ‘MORE’.
The middle row is titled “LESS’
The last row is called ‘PRIORITIES’
Using the table is easy.
First, take a few moments to brainstorm what you know for sure you need MORE of, and list those things in the MORE row.
Maybe you know you need more nutrient dense foods like vegetables, lean protein and fruit. Maybe you know you need to move daily in ways that give you joy!
Next, contemplate what you know for sure you need LESS of. Note those items in your LESS row.
Perhaps you know you need less processed foods, less stress, a fewer toxic personal care products, for example.
Then, pick just a couple of doable items to work on right now. Write them in the PRIORITIES row.
Create a goal to do those things consistently for 2 weeks, until they become habit.
This exercise doesn’t have to be about making a long list of things you’re not allowed to enjoy anymore. There are plenty of things you can do that are not about depriving yourself that will make a big difference to your state of health.
Return to the table after two or so weeks, cross off what you’ve achieved, and pick the next two things that you think are both achievable and will make a difference to your health.
Your MORE and LESS table can be a living, breathing record of your effort to health coach yourself. Or, you can start a new page each time you return to the practice.
Sometimes, we don’t know what we need. Looking outside ourselves is sometimes a worthy exercise if input from someone or something else will take us to the next stage of our Wellness Journey.
With that in mind, here’s my list:
5 Ways You Can Get Healthier This New Year
1. Be Your Own Health Coach
Make a commitment to Health Coach yourself. Or, engage with a professional if you feel you need their advanced skills on your team. A great health coach will keep you accountable, inspired and help you understand the root cause of your chronic issues and most importantly, what you can do to support your body to heal.
Whichever you choose, commit to making small steps towards better health every single day.
Use tools like the MORE and LESS table above to remind yourself what you need to do. And set small goals to achieve in a week or two. Not huge, insurmountable, unattainable goals over a long time period.
Put one foot in front of the other each day. And if you fall off the wagon… get back on!
2. Hydrate. Drink enough clean water, every day.
Dehydration is a much more common root cause of disease than most women realise. Ideally, you need to drink around 30mls per kilo of your own body weight each day.
I recommend drinking most of your daily water quota in the AM, preferably not long after you get out of bed.
Make sure you know the real quality of the water coming out of your tap. Don’t rely on council-sourced data. In SA at least, you will need to invest in a water filter, both for drinking water and (yes!!) shower water. I’m happy to help you select a good provider of water filtration in your locality – just drop me an email or contact me via Facebook. There are a huge number of dissolved toxins found in regular mains water that our water supply services are not required to measure or inform us about, and many of them pose a serious risk to our health.
3. Go to bed early.
You already know this, but let me remind you: If you don’t sleep, you don’t heal.
The hours we sleep before midnight are valuable to the body. Make it a habit to catch as many as you can as often as you can.
Go to bed early enough that you wake up in advance of when an alarm would otherwise go off.
Avoid disturbed sleep by minimizing television, alcohol email, mobile phone, using bright overhead lights or other full-spectrum light exposure in the full hour prior to your bedtime.
Sleep problems are becoming more and more common, especially for women at midlife and beyond. And when you don’t get sufficient sleep, you not only become tired and irritable, you can become more accident-prone and exhibit decreased concentration, efficiency, and work motivation. Plus, you will tend to reach for caffeine and highly refined and sugar-laden foods for an energy boost. Stress hormones are also higher when we’re sleep deprived, which over time can disrupt your hormonal balance and depress your immune system.
4. Eat Real Food, not “edible food-like substances”
If you’re not healing chronic disease, then at least 80% of the time choose to eat REAL food.
(And if you are healing disease, then you will need to commit to a healing environment that includes nourishing food close to 100% of the time)
When I talk about ‘Real Food’, I’m talking about food that your great grandmother might have eaten when she was growing up… or at least would have recognised.
Learn to say NO to the huge array of chemical flavorings, preservatives, colors, sweeteners, texture agents, hormones and toxins in the standard diet.
If you struggle to do that, enlist good support.
5. Do regular detoxification cleanses (at least twice a year).
In the modern world, we live in a toxic soup of chemicals. Over 100,000 new chemicals have been introduced into commercial use since World War II. Even with efforts to protect and isolate ourselves and our family, we are still inhaling, eating, and absorbing through our skin dozens of chemicals each and every day. Our liver/kidney/GI tract can easily become overwhelmed. Then we can store toxins in our body fat, and over time, this can create chronic inflammation which then creates chronic disease (the big ones that most of us fear).
You can do your body a huge service by taking a few days every few months to cleanse.
I know that detoxing can feel hard and downright scary. That’s why I created my 5-day Easy Summer Detox : A detox that feels easy, community-based and FUN.
The Easy Summer Detox includes The Easy Summer Detox Meal Plan, plus a set of guidelines for your daily habits (we call that the Easy Summer Detox Protocol).
You’ll be supported by our community chat group in the JOIA Members Portal, plus optional live zoom support calls every day for you to jump in and ask your questions or share your experience of detoxing your body!
We kick off on 4th Jan 2023 with a Pre-Detox Prep module – then Monday 5th through to Friday 9th, we eat clean and live well, supporting each other along the way and reaping the many benefits for a long time afterwards.
The price to participate in the Easy Summer Detox is $96 per person, but when you sign up by midnight on Tue 3rd January, you’ll get to join for the early bird price of just $78.
I hope you’ll join us! Register HERE now (or HERE for the early bird special!).
What are some of the ways you’ll become healthier and happier this new year? I’d love to hear from you! Send me an email or write to me on my Facebook page.
Tori X
