13 Ways to Consider Getting Serious About Health and Wellness

It’s time to take a more serious approach to healthcare and wellness. In 2018, I was able to lose 30 lbs by living a more healthy lifestyle. The problem was I was using a health and wellness system and strategy that was not sustainable- for me anyway. Not only was it costly, if you were not selling it, but a person also needs variety and doing shakes every day for breakfast was not appealing. I began to see even the million dollar MLM makers were gaining weight back over time. Many committed have left or seeking other residual income efforts. I was happy I could make someone up the ladder have more $$ (rolling eyes here). It lost me 30 lbs but I gained it all back when I went back to my way of living that I have lived all my life. And, as the metabolism slows, the weight gain increases – year by year.

I came from a family, lucky me, ha- that basically was not into sports and mainly was sedentary, not encouraging of health, fitness, and exercise. Therefore in school, I hated gym as I felt awkward at exercising, very clumsy, and sports felt very aggressive to me. If you have children, please get them out and into exercising and fitness so they will learn to enjoy it and be natural at it. And begin teaching them at a young age the benefits of eating healthy. Life does not sustain us by hamburgers, pizza, and pasta alone. :-O

When I look back at my childhood and think of the donuts, sausage and biscuits, bologna and mayo sandwiches, potato chips, pork and beans, sugary cokes, candy, desserts, and more, I wag my finger at myself. But I didn’t know any better and I didn’t have anyone as example of eating healthy in my life – except for maybe my Nanny who was very thin. But this wasn’t taught, except in school, where we learned the various food groups and that beans and rice made a protein. I think we covered that in one day in health class. That is all I remember of health class. I am surprised there was such a class if that is all I remember from it, lol.

So here I am later in life, facing a series of situations because I too, have mainly been sedentary – like the family I came from. Not only though, do I need exercise, but I need an overhaul and a strategy about what I am eating and when I’m eating it. So as I have made notes and had thoughts about what to do different to help myself, I had told you I would share and help you too.

1. Have a Vision of What Health/Wellness Looks Like

Like everything in life, to reach some goals, you have to have a vision of the path you want to go down. You know where you are but where are you going? I have a size in mind I want to reach. And I will need to remind myself of my vision often. I’m considering doing a vision board of health/wellness to do this. Maybe I’ll keep it on my phone, in my office at home, my office at work, on the fridge at home, etc. Just for a reminder of my goals. My vision may include the size of the clothing I’m going for, my weight, my BP numbers, cholesterol numbers and so forth. I have some ideas. I think I will create a vision on the “Freeform” app. I’ve been wanting to try that out anyway.

2. Focus More on Other Things, Less on Eating

Well of course, if I can wait until I’m hungry to eat instead of eating because it is 7:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. or time for the evening meal, things might be a little different. While eating with George at night, it’s a little harder to control, but perhaps I snack too much during the day and eat when it’s time for breakfast and time for lunch instead of when the stomach growls. I should focus more on the tasks I’m doing and less about when it’s time to eat. If I can somehow do this, it will be beneficial.

What if I could do a task instead of eating as much? Or have a glass of greens instead of that popcorn because I drink the greens as I do another task. Popcorn calls for me to sit. I eat way too much of it by the way.

3. Foods to Trend Up and Foods to Trend Down

Well this is obvious and the extension of this section is below. Just need to eat healthier and move healthier foods to the top of the list and the non-healthy eliminate or move down the ladder of occasions eaten. Those on the No No list below just need to be booted out for the most part. Those on the Go To List, need to move up in its place.

4. Develop a No No List and a Go To List

There are some foods that I likely just need to give up. I’ve not actually developed my “no no” list, but I could probably mention a few that will end up being on it. Donuts, cake, hamburgers, pizza, and bread are probably on the top few that are issues for me. I really need to find alternative things that satisfy me that are similar. I have to decide when and how to eliminate – just never have them again or a limitation? It’s something to consider.

Red meat is one to reduce except for once a week. We are already doing better. Eliminate trans fats and reduce saturated fats. Baked beans are worse than we think for us. Less peanut butter. For me, I eat too much when I eat it. I eat way too much pasta for my own good. I also eat way too much mayo and things with mayo in it. Sugar needs to be eliminated in a big way. And I’ve almost given up cheese, or at least have reduced it to light mozzarella string cheese.

For the Go To list, I would include eating more fish, salmon, walnuts, flaxseeds, oatmeal, kidney beans, Brussel sprouts, apples. Kiwi and fruits, sweet potatoes, spinach, white and black beans. Green tea, bell peppers, broccoli, avocado. Most of those things are good for reducing either blood pressure or cholesterol. Smoothies with protein powders and healthy ingredients are fine. A switch to using dijon mustard and mustard products, and more vinegar based dressings with less sugar and less bad oils (to be further defined). I also found some green drinks that I like to fix over ice. I’ll share that too. I’m sipping one now as I cough my lungs out over this cold/virus I have.

5. Develop an Exercise Plan that I Look Forward To

So what I have in mind here is to start at 10 minutes a day since I’m having trouble even finding time to exercise and I am not willing / can’t afford to give up any other time during the day. Can’t quit work, can’t quit caring for Mom, have housework, God’s Work, and all things Less Hustle More Coffee. I don’t know where to budge. There is no more time. So I’m going to start with 10 and once I am used to that, I’ll move to 15, and then 20, and eventually 30 uninterrupted minutes per day.

It will have to be a variety of things and it will have to be fun and enjoyable. Walking, dancing, yoga – I’ll figure it out, but I need to begin moving my body. I’ll get there. I need a little work out routine.

6. Have a Food Plan in Mind for Emergencies

Maybe it’s something to keep in the purse for when hunger strikes. Maybe it’s knowing what the healthiest thing on the fast food menus is for when you are caught having to eat out. Maybe it’s picking your meal out online ahead of time when meeting with friends at a restaurant.

7. Pay Attention to the Nutrition Labels

Seeing what you are getting can really be sobering. I have found this to work well on me. Pay attention the labels and pay attention to the ingredients. Apps can help with this if the info is not listed.

8. Limit or Delete the Alcohol from our Lives.

We did not drink alcohol in our house when I grew up. My parents felt it was inherently evil. And perhaps it is to some people that have abused it or have been addicted to it. I’m addicted to it only the way that I like to envision coming home and distressing for the day. I really enjoy the thought of a glass of wine more than anything. I’ve pretty much given up beer though. It just seems to make me feel so bad when I drink it. Now I just don’t even have one unless we are going to a brewery or meeting friends. We had it on vacation. But I’m just kindof tired of alcohol. Give me my glass of wine some days, other days I have forgotten to even think about it. Coffee, green tea, bubble water, iced tea – other non caloric drinks are becoming my drink of choice. I’ve often wondered if I just quit this alone (having my daily glass of wine) would it reduce enough calories to make me lose. Who knows? I don’t want so rigid of a rule system I’m unhappy with life, but I want these changes to be happy, to be fitting, and to make me feel like they are worth the effort. I want to feel better.

9. Supplements and Vitamins

This is something I’ve been perfecting over the last few years. It’s very individualistic to each person and likely will change over time. For me, I take B Complex, D, and C. I take calcium as recommended by doctor, turmeric to rid of inflammation. At night I take a probiotic and magnesium because of the diverticulitis situations I’ve had. I also do two sprays of melatonin at bedtime too. I’m looking into fish oil or Omega-3 type supplements but left mostly confused at present. Some studies show brain bleeds or strokes. This makes me wary of it. So have not added it. Never add anything without doing some research and who knows how valid it is – so try to get the best sources of information you can.

10. Continuing to Combat the Stress in our Days

It is said that stress causes the hormones in our bodies to keep us from losing weight. Well that must be my problem, ha! I have been doing more praying, mindfulness – and moments where I just do a mind dump. It’s satisfying to me to just sit still and let the thoughts float across and watch them. Not try to solve them. I’ve found this to be soothing lately. Sometimes I write them down on paper if it’s something I can’t forget or afraid to forget.

Our lives go 100 miles a second and it’s so hard to keep up with the changing world around us – in work, with our parents, with our kids lives, with the fast moving calendar, all the appointments. My mind races sometimes.

You all tell me not to be controlled by my to do list, but it saves me. That way I don’t have to remember everything and worry that I’m forgetting and I can prioritize. I’ll be continuing my to do lists.

11. Recognizing and Dealing Head on With Why We Overeat

One of the reasons we over eat is that we say we will eat right until we celebrate something. But have you noticed, we tend to celebrate all the time? It’s always a holiday or someone’s birthday, or Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or vacation time. Or it’s Monday and we deserve it! It’s always the weekend or some fabulous special occasion, so therefore we never eat right.

I am also a stress eater and celebratory eater. For stressful days and for tired days I often dive toward hamburgers to reward me for getting through a bad time. I’m likely to also go for the sweets (cookies, cakes, ice cream) after eating dinner in such times. I also look toward salty crunchy things for snacks during the day. I need to develop and have available healthier options to solve this issue.

I think probably it is a good idea to do some continued research in this area, avoiding consultants, and trying to figure this out on my own.

12. Tracking

So anything worth working for is worth tracking. Tracking helps with accountability and lets you see movement toward or backward from your goal. I see several ways of tracking. First is with the scales. I’ve been bent toward not seeing how much I weigh mainly because I was afraid to see it and also because if you look at it too often it can rule your world negatively and make you down on yourself. So I think it needs to be weekly for me, not daily. Weekly is a good timing because I normally reset myself on a weekly schedule. A month is too far gone. I have a set of scales that sends the data to my phone. And I plan to use that. It is a RENFRO system. I hope it still works. It’s been a while.

I also intend on using a Fitness Tracking app, and I think it is called just that or maybe Fitness Pal. It was a free one at one time. It has a lot of features, calorie tracking, and so forth. Of course as I implement these things, I will do some entries and share with you. I would even consider paying a small premium if I thought it would benefit me.

We often don’t realize just how our calories or fats add up and seeing this info on the Fitness Tracker and calorie tracker will start to train our brains on what the nutrition is in the food we eat and we can make better decisions.

I also plan to use a monthly measurement of breast, tummy, hips, arms, legs. If it’s weekly I’d never have time, but for monthly I could try to do that. So I need to find my old measuring chart I used with the old plan, if I’ve not thrown it away. Might find a freebie on line.

13. Realize that there are People that Will Sabotage You

The last time I tried to change my diet, a family member caught me eating sugar and just COULD NOT WAIT to say “I thought you were cutting out sugar”. There are some nay -sayers that are failures at their own attempts to help themselves and love to cut you down as well to point out your flaws to make them feel better about themselves.

I also posted online recently that I was cutting back on sugar again and immediately two people brought me sugary items as a gift. Within the same hour. Whether it was just someone messing with me, tempting me, bets going on, or a coincidence – I don’t know, or just a fluke or karma, or evil spirits or all of the above. Just know it will happen. I needed to have been prepared for it.