Health goals are those pesky little things that you always tend to make in a fit of enlightenment but then end up giving up on those in a matter of just a few days. Have we not seen this happen ever so often if not with ourselves, but with our near and dear ones? The only problem with this scenario is that all of us start with a lot of determination but end up with not even a bit of it left at the fag end. What if we tell you that we have specially curated some of the best ways to help you in sticking to your long term as well as short term health goals?
Yes, you read it absolutely right. We have a list of little things which you can follow and incorporate in your day to day life in order to live a balanced lifestyle and accomplish all of your health and fitness related goals that you have set for yourself and have been wanting to fulfill for a long time.
- Practice Mindful Eating:
Does it not happen a lot that when you have just eaten a meal, you are either still hungry or can not for the life of you remember what and how much of it you ate? This is a sign that you are not indulging in something which is known as mindful eating. What it means is that if you are eating something, you should dedicate all your senses and time to fully relishing the food item. This will help in making you more aware of what you are eating and your body will be full much sooner. Putting your full attention and your mind to eating can really aid you in eating less as well since you notice a lot more of things that you eat throughout the day.
- Give Yourself Credit:
It is important to give yourself positive affirmations from time to time if you want to succeed in your endeavour of sticking to your health goals. Since these goals are very personal to your own health, nobody will be able to encourage you in the way that you will be able to encourage yourself to fulfil these goals. This is why you should seek minimal outside validation in this aspect of your life especially. Make your health goals more holistic like having better health to be active for longer, rather than losing a few kilos for a friend’s wedding.
- Reduce Temptations:
It is absolutely necessary to reduce the temptations around you especially when you have just started onwards to the fitness journey and may be facing certain withdrawal symptoms. They can make you feel vulnerable and that is when most people tend to fail their diet plans. Learn to recognise the temptations and try to avoid all contact with them in order to keep yourself strong and determined to follow through with your fitness goals. Another good way to avoid temptations is to eat all the healthy food and provide your body with all the nutrition which it requires. This can be had in the form of multivitamins as well. This will keep your stomach satiated and you will be much less likely to cheat on your diet.
- Reward Yourself At Regular Intervals:
One major reason that people find it challenging to stick to their fitness goals is that they forget to reward themselves after some milestone in their journey which they have achieved with a lot of hard work. It is important for the human brain to get that motivation at timely intervals so that the body remains continuously motivated to further achieve even more milestones with more rigour and effort from its side. Rewards do not have to be huge, they can just be celebrating with something that you like to do like going for a movie or getting yourself some flowers.
- Minimise Triggers For Bingeing:
Most people find it hard to say no to junk food and they relapse into their earlier unhealthy lifestyles many times because of it. So it is a good idea to throw out all the unhealthy and junk food from your pantry and your refrigerator so that you do not get triggered to cheat on your health goals in any way. Also avoid hanging out at places which you know will serve unhealthy food that you will not be able to avoid eating.
- Keep Going Back To What Motivated You To Begin:
It is important to recognise one major motivation before your start on your healthy life journey. You may have a number of small motivations which can add up but it is imperative that you have one which matters the most to you. This is useful as whenever you will be tired enough where you will want to give up, you can keep going back to that one major motivation which hopefully will help you to defy all odds and will keep you going no matter whichever hurdles you face on your path.
- Restrain A Bad Habit, Do Not Cut It Out Suddenly:
While it is not such a difficult task to recognise all the unhealthy and inappropriate habits that you do in your everyday life, getting rid of them completely and suddenly is the most tricky part of such a situation. Since you are in the habit of engaging in them every single day, to completely cut them off from your routine in a sudden way can do more harm than good. All this will help in accomplishing is to compel you to go back to your old and unhealthy ways which will bring you back to square one. It is advisable to let go of some aspects of those habits one by one so that you can gradually cut them off completely.
So now that you have seen all the various ways in which you can stick to your health and fitness goals, what is your reason to shirk them off? Make it a point to incorporate healthy habits in your life so that you can live a longer and a largely disease free life.