Changing the habits of a lifetime without stressing your body…

How is it that we make things so complicated and hard for ourselves in aid of being fitter, stronger, and healthier?  I can hold my hand up to this, as for years I made things as complicated for myself as possible and the change was short-lived.  I would say that I stressed myself and my body more than doing it any good at all.

Over the past 6 years, I have been changing my lifestyle.  Changes that would be permanent and good for me.  This included nutrition, exercise, work-life balance, and career.  All of this is in aid of giving my body and mind the balance required to function at its optimum level physically and mentally. 

I have read a plethora of books that covered clean eating, Keto lifestyle, Intermittent fasting, carbohydrate/Sugar addiction, Diabetes, cholesterol, meditation, yoga, and mindset to name but a few. I did this to educate myself to make informed changes rather than following the latest fad diet.

Educate yourself

Reading is an amazing thing and opens your mind up to new things, in ways you could never have imagined.  One thing I will say is that reading and educating is one thing, but real education came in how my body and mind would adapt to the changes I made.  Did it agree with the change and was it good for me, was it easy to make the change and would the change become a habit?

It was this thought process that led me to ‘The Blue Zone’, a book that looks at different parts of the world into communities of people who live long and healthy lives.   They live a minimal-stress life, have a back-to-basics eating style and don’t have any weight or health issues.   All things that I have been striving for in my own journey.    

The stories of the different communities of people are amazing and there is no one type of food they eat due to the cultural differences. So, it is not about cutting carbs, fat, or protein but more about a good balance of basic foods with no processed foods in sight. One common thing that stuck out across all the stories was that they don’t use excessive or strenuous exercise to stay fit or slender. 

They use basic physical movements to get them from A to B to keep themselves physically fit and able, instead of jumping on a bus or in a car.  This is very different for most people in the world including myself, who choose workouts to lose weight and these workouts will be the ones that burn the most calories.

Is your environment effecting your choices?

One other thing that was thought-provoking was you generally follow the same path as others in your environment.  So, if your family, friends, and colleagues eat unhealthily and have unhealthy habits you will tend to follow this same example.  In ‘The Blue Zone’ the communities of people all followed the same way of eating and living so that felt natural to them.  They were not white-knuckling it to follow the lifestyle daily as everyone around them was the same.  There were no temptations to eat processed foods, no overeating, binging or excessive exercise routine to burn off excessive overeating.

This makes a lot of sense as it is what we do as humans when the latest diet fad or exercise routine hits the shelves.  We see someone having success with it and we want the same, but it is generally short-lived as most time it is the strength of mind that keeps us in the zone.  Even if we see results this is not enough to keep us continuing and maintaining the new way of eating and exercising.  If it does not fit in with your surrounding environment, then this will eventually take over.  Everyone else is eating what they want and bailing out of their exercise routine so eventually, we follow suit.

Success of Changes you make

This made me think about why now at this time in my life I was getting more success with the changes I have been making.  It should be getting harder with age and not easier right?  Then it struck me that the difference with me these days is that I am not making meaningless changes that are short-term.  They are also not drastic changes, and I am not depriving myself of everything that I love. 

I chose not to white-knuckle it to force a change that my body does not like or that I am not mentally ready to accept.  I am now more inclined to make small tweaks to my everyday life to see how it makes me feel and if it has a positive effect, then I naturally adapt to this new change with no stress to my body. It has become a change that is personally good for me and my body.  I have found something that works for me personally, I am not following the one-size-fits-all mindset anymore. 

I am still surrounded in some respect by people who eat unhealthily and are not in the same place as me.  What I have noticed is that family, friends, and colleagues are starting to ask questions about why I have made certain changes.  They are becoming more educated and are also choosing to make small changes to their own nutrition and fitness choices to benefit them personally.

So maybe changing habits of a lifetime is more beneficial and permanent for people when it is one small step at a time and is specific to them personally.

This is definitely something to think about!