Hello there and Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full year since I wrote the 2022 New Year’s blog post 5 tips to Achieve Your Goals No Matter What! In that post, we learned how to celebrate our wins no matter how big or how small. We learned the importance of acknowledging lessons learned. How to evaluate our goals and determine things like why am I setting this goal? Who am I setting this goal for? And, is this a goal that I really and truly desire to achieve for myself? After all, we should be spending time working toward the things that are most important to us whether that be building relations with our spouse or are children, achieving a higher level of success in our business or career, learning something new like playing a musical instrument or how to detox our kitchen, or learning ways to improve our health so that we can look and feel our best.
Each year many of us vow to have the healthiest year ever! We plan to exercise more and to eat better. Some people plan to drink less alcohol and to drink more water. I have a friend who went so far as to signup to run a marathon, thinking that would motivate her to start running and get in great shape. My friend was not a runner but had really good intentions. She googled training plans and mapped out her runs including how far she would run each week to get in shape and run the 26 miles. She filled out her entry form, paid the dues and she even got the t-shirt. She did great the first 10 days, climbing out of bed at 5am to pull on her Lululemon running pants (the motivational pair she bought for herself because of course you need the right exercise gear if you are going to take on a new sport, right!?) She laced up her tennis shoes, grabbed her iPhone that had been queued with the new running play list she created, and out the door she went, tired but proud of herself for getting up earlier to run. But before the end of the week, her plans began to faulter. It began one morning when her alarm went off at 5am. She tiredly moaned. As she lay in her warm, cozy bed she thought to herself, I’ve been good all week. I deserve a day off. Besides I’m a little sore and my body could use a rest. This was the beginning of a series of mornings that my friend did not get her run in. Soon she found herself not running at all and she did not achieve her goal of running a marathon nor did she improve her physical fitness. Does this sound at all familiar?
Like many people, my friend quit within the first couple of weeks of setting her New Year’s goal. Studies have shown that 43% of all people, who set goals at the new year, expect to fail before February. One in four people quit within the first week and most people quit before the end of January. But, 9% of people who set new year’s goals actually see it through. So, what’s different about them? What’s their secret?
People that follow through and achieve their goals have a few things in common. First, they like their goal and the activities that lead to achieving their goal. My friend who signed up for a marathon didn’t like to run. She knew other people who ran and they seemed to be in pretty good shape so she thought that’s what she should do. But she didn’t enjoy it. Chances are if you don’t like what you are doing you are probably not going to follow through with it.
The next thing that these people due to achieve their goals do is they create a habit that they can live with it. They think about it as being as essential as brushing their teeth. They wouldn’t dream of getting up and leaving the house without brushing their teeth and they wouldn’t dream of not taking the steps they had laid out to achieve their desired goal.
The third thing that people who achieve their goals do is they let it be easy. They discover tips and tricks to help them. Perhaps its laying out their workout clothes the night before, signing up for a class to attend instead of practicing on their own, or planning their meals in advance at a certain time each week.
To help you have the healthiest year ever, I created the 5 Strategies For a Healthy 2023 to help you like the changes you want to make and to help you easily fit them into your life so they become a habit just like brushing your teeth
5 Strategies For a Healthy 2023
Enjoy What You Eat
With so many delicious foods that are available to us, it’s important to choose the ones we like. If you prefer romaine lettuce over kale, eat romaine. While it’s always good to be open minded and try new things, it’s important to eat the foods you actually enjoy but with a few guidelines.
Make sure the first meal of the day includes protein and some healthy fat. Whether your first meal is at 7am or 1pm, the first meal of the day breaks your fast that your body has been experiencing since dinner the night before. By making sure your first meal is protein packed and includes healthy fat, you will keep blood sugar levels stable, provide steady energy and improve your mental focus. Protein promotes the cellular growth of every organ and system in the body and is essential for developing a strong immune system, for structural development, and for the regeneration of organs and other tissues.
Eat REAL Food
Choose foods that are as close to their original source as possible including protein from chicken, eggs, beef, lamb and fish. Eat a variety of colorful vegetables such as greens, winter squash, carrots, beets, and bell peppers. Eat healthy fats including olive oil, avocadoes and avocado oil, coconut oil, nuts and nut butters. If tolerated, eat high quality whole milk dairy including aged cheese, grass-fed butter and whole milk unsweetened yogurt. Enjoy a serving or two of fruit daily that provide nutrients and fiber such as berries, melons, apples and citrus.
Eating REAL food is the most important strategy of all when it comes to improving your health and it’s one that I teach in my new book that is soon to be released The Simply28 REAL Food Cookbook. When working with clients the biggest challenge that many of them face is that making changes to their diet and lifestyle feels hard. We are so use to grabbing food that is quick, easy and completely devoid of nutrients. We live busy lives and don’t have a lot of time to meal prep or to plan. I found that by giving people resources to enjoy really good food that is easy to fix and easy to obtain, they could follow their new plan and get the results they were wanting. So, in my book that was my goal, to give people a simple approach to optimal health and a REAL food lifestyle that helps lower blood sugar and A1c levels, reduces inflammation, boosts our immune system, reduces bloating and intestinal discomfort, balances hormones, give you more energy, and helps you look and feel better than you ever have before in Simply28 days! It also includes more than 100 recipes that are all gluten and grain-free and paleo friendly. It will be released in February 2023 and available on Amazon. But you don’t have to wait! To get you started now, I have created the Quick Start Guide to Healthy Living with a complete What to Eat Shopping List. Just click on either link to get the guide and shopping list and you will also be the first to know about updates on the book release.
In addition to eating REAL food as close to its original source as possible, avoid processed foods, especially white flour and white sugar and eliminate high fructose corn syrup from your diet altogether. High fructose corn syrup (HFC) is 20 times more damaging to the liver than any other type of sugar and is a key player when it comes to slowed metabolism, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease leads to inflammation of the liver and liver damage which can potentially lead to cirrhosis or scarring of the liver and potentially liver. Fatty liver disease, once thought to occur only in alcoholics, is now notably a condition resulting from high sugar diets and as a result of the consumption of high fructose corn syrup.
And finally, include quality sources of omega-3 fats in the form of salmon, sardines, cod liver oil, eggs from pasture raised hens, butter from grass-fed beef, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, flax seed oil, and walnuts to reduce inflammation and promote a healthy immune system.
Keep Moving
It’s not necessary to set huge fitness goals like running a marathon if that is not something you enjoy or truly desire to do. But it is necessary to keep moving to feel good and to protect your health. Moderate exercise including walking, swimming, dancing or yoga are great ways to get your blood circulating. Moderate exercise produces endorphins that improve your mood, making you feel happier and more productive. Moderate exercise reduces stress and lowers the stress hormone – cortisol.
Get Outdoors
Get outdoors as much as possible. Don’t be afraid to get outside even a during the winter. A brisk walk on a cold winter day provides many physical and mental benefits. It reduces stress and boosts your mood even more than indoor exercises do by producing higher levels of our ‘happy mood’ neurotransmitters – dopamine and serotonin.
Getting outdoors on a sunny day, whether it be winter, spring, summer or fall, increases your body’s generation of vitamin D from stored cholesterol which protects us from depression and a number of other medical conditions.
Get Plenty of Rest
Most adults benefit from getting a restful night sleep of about 8 hours. Children and teens often need even more. Aim for a sleep time from about 10pm to 6am. Going to sleep sometime around 9:30 or 10:00 provides for a deep and most restful night sleep. After midnight our sleep cycles tend to eb and flow and many people either wake up or sleep lighter during these hours.
Sleep is an important time for the body to heal, rebuild and regenerate. It gives our immune system time to recover making us more resilient to viruses and disease. To get a restful night sleep avoid screen time from computers or your phone at least 2 hours before bed time. Avoid caffeine after 2pm, avoid alcohol, and avoid late night snacking, especially on sweet treats. Implementing a regular bedtime routine will also help settle your nervous system and get you into the sleep zone. Do you need a little extra help falling asleep? Take a nice warm bath with Epsom salt and lavender essential oil. Epsom salt contains magnesium which helps relax our muscles. A warm bath with lavender oil help to soothe and relax your nervous system and is a perfect way to treat yourself after a long day and have a relaxing and restful night.
I hope these 5 strategies help you to set goals that you enjoy and that really matter to you and most of all I hope that you have a very healthy and happy 2023.
P.S. Don’t forget to watch for The Simply28 REAL Food Cookbook coming soon!
The Simply28 REAL Food Cookbook
