bythemethod.com blog

I guess everyone would like to be more healthy. Even those of us who like to over indulge in fatty foods and sugars. We would all like to be more healthy but sometimes it seems to me that the only way to we are encouraged to become healthy  is to take the extreme route perhaps eating uncooked fruit and drinking filtered water. I have nothing against such an extreme view but it is not the way I want to live. I enjoy a good cooked breakfast and the occasional beefburger and I need a way to be healthy and still enjoy these better things of life.

Here is my suggested three stages to getting a healthier life…

Stage 1. Motivation

Unless we are motivated to do something we will not succeed in doing it. So the first step has to be to get motivated. The earliest stages in motivation are what is often called pre-contemplation. This is when you tend to get very defensive about your situation but you are aware that there is a problem. Perhaps people keep telling you there is a problem or you notice that your waist keeps expanding.

What do you do if you are in this stage?

You need to start getting educated about your situation. You can do this in secret if you want to – you don’t have to admit to anyone else that you have a problem. Perhaps you might try measuring yourself or weighing yourself (I don’t recommend doing this too often though – most of us know when we are too big or too heavy and we don’t need to be reminded by a machine!). You could try reading up on the dangers of being overweight to get you started. Here are a few sites you could use (from a quick search on Google):

http://www.mamashealth.com/eat/oweightdam.asp

http://uk.askmen.com/sports/health_150/160_mens_health.html

and in the interests of a good balanced diet of information here is an article that tells us the situation might not be as extreme as many feared but that obesity is still the major killer it has always been thought to be

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/19/health/main689523.shtml

Now the truth is that if you are getting bigger you are heading in the wrong direction.  If you keep getting bigger unchecked then you will become obese and if you become obese your weight will probably kill you. Now we all have to die from something but personally I would rather it was something outside of my control.

Then think through what life will be like if you are very fat. How will you tie up your shoe laces? How will you feel in the summer when you have to take the family to the beach.

I’m not saying that fat people should be ashamed and our obsession with skinny is just plain wrong (being very skinny is as unhealthy as being obese) but some things start to get hard when you are fat.

Then think about how your family and friends will feel when you die (especially when you die young). You could die tomorrow of course from something else but do you really want to kill yourself?

During this phase you need to get as much information as you can about what is bad about being unhealthy. Don’t just think about being overweight (if I had time I’d talk about lots of other stuff).

Now you should also start to think about all the stuff you could do if you were healthy. When you watch T.V. and see a fit and healthy person doing something great (I like watching Athletics and football – soccer to those from U.S.A.). Ignore any age issues  – most of us don’t want to compete at professional sports level – but think about how great it would be to be fit like them.

Wouldn’t you love to be able to run down the road if you needed to without getting out of breath? Wouldn’t you love to be able to go dancing and move like a dancer does? Wouldn’t you enjoy being able to play a game with your children and have them trying to keep up with you?

I’m sure you can think up a few more of these reasons to be fit.

Now you move on to the contemplation and planning stage

Stage 2. Contemplation and planning

Start thinking about what you are going to do. Don’t think about all the stuff you can’t do – this just wastes time and makes you depressed. My advice is to ignore it. If you can’t afford a gym membership or you don’t have the time to go to the gym then don’t moan about it just forget about it.

I reckon there is one thing that everyone can afford and find time for – walking. If your neighbourhood isn’t a good place to walk in then take the bus to somewhere that is. If you have children to look after then take them with you. Make it a family trip every day to somewhere you can walk. Walking has so many benefits, everyone should be doing it.

Then write down what you are going to do. Write it down (or perhaps use the bythemethod.com system to help with this). Set yourself a goal for just one week.

Now do it.

What do you do if things go wrong?

I can make you a cast iron guarantee at this point. Somewhere in your plan something will go wrong. It is the way of life that something every now and then goes wrong for us. Some of these things can be big some will be small but something somewhere is going to go wrong.

No this is not pessimism.

When something goes wrong you need to understand that it is not a disaster or even a problem. When things go wrong it is an opportunity. Here you can learn something about yourself and something about the world you live in. That learning will help you understand how to stop that same wrong thing from happening again.

Don’t ever be afraid of making mistakes and having things go wrong. I meet a lot of people who think they should be optimistic all the time and that they think this means you have to believe nothing is going to go wrong. This is just rubbish. Things do go wrong from time to time but we learn from them and move on. An optimist is someone who knows things will go wrong but believes good will come out of that wrong.

Stage 3. Keep going and evaluate

You now need to make your change stick. This means you need to keep going and build those changes into your life. When once you set yourself a goal of going walking every day you now need to make that going walking a normal part of your life.

I’m running out of time here but the best way of doing this is to keep setting goals until you feel that the goal is not necessary.

Whenever you come to the end of a goal you need to evaluate it. How did it go? Was it too easy or too difficult? What can you change to make it work?

Conclusion

Being healthy is not about going on the latest fad diet. Being healthy is a way of thinking. You need to make looking after your body part of your life. You do this by getting motivated, making plans and doing them, and then by making those changes a part of your every day life.

You need to start from where you are and make one change at a time. Do it now.