Healthy Now & Forever
Have you ever heard anybody complain about being healthy?
“I wish I had excess body fat” “I want to suffer the negative effects of chronic disease” “I wish I did not feel this good” “I have too much energy” “I wish my body hurt and I was in pain”…
We know that people don’t complain about good health. Consider how many times we or others complain about not being well. All the time! Healthy living to me is not just the absence of disease, but when a person is able to live their best life and be free of the challenges and concerns that accompany poor health.
There are many factors that influence our health including but not limited to our individual behavior, biology/genetics, social/cultural factors, economic factors, environment, and so on. Some things we cannot control; but, there are some behaviors that we can and should control. The core lifestyle behaviors that contribute to healthy living now and forever include:
- Eating smarter – consume a diet primarily filled unprocessed fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds.
- Moving more – move daily through physical activity and exercise.
- Sleeping soundly – sleep 7-9 hours daily.
- Managing stress better – identify your stressors and positively respond to them and consider downshifting if needed.
- Cultivating relationships – build and maintain healthful relationships.
- Improving mental and spiritual health – improve your thinking, feeling, relating and live your purpose.
- Avoiding risky substances – avoid tobacco, alcohol, drugs and other toxins.
- Managing a healthy weight – reach and maintain a healthy body composition.
- Preventing chronic diseases – through all of the above areas you can prevent, treat and reverse most chronic diseases (obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, etc.)
Throughout all of our courses, we utilize the Progress Behavior Change System. This system is designed to help you transform your health and maximize your life. You can improve your health by leveraging the below:
- Assess – Evaluate your current habits and think about how you would like things to be different.
- Purpose – Find your why and your reason for wanting to make a healthy change.
- Prioritize – Narrow it down to one main health behavior that you want to focus on changing.
- Mindset – Determine how you will choose to think about your change efforts.
- Game plan – Determine what is required, what strategies would yield the greatest return/reward. Set a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented goal to reach for.
- Action – Put the game plan into motion and implement the strategies you came up with to help you achieve your goal.
- Reflect – Think back on what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience.
- Improve – Continue to progress and consider using this strategy to improve in another area of your life.
- Lead – Lead by example and serve others. You are able to demonstrate to others what is possible and have a positive influence on them.
Change is not always easy, but it is possible. Behavior change is a step-by-step process that requires planning, commitment and perseverance. The above system helps you: assess your health, learn more about health topics/challenges, decide what you want to accomplish, select your priorities, prepare for lifestyle changes, set goals and objectives, create a support system and take action. You can improve and make progress if you value your health and make healthy living a priority!