Settling into the Routine Summer fun may not be over yet, but as school starts and vacations end, September is a time of getting back into a regular routine. It is a good time to fine tune your habits, getting some traction before all the food related holidays begin.
Start by choosing just one or two things to focus on. Setting too many goals all at once can make you feel like a failure, when it is really your expectations that are to blame. You can’t focus on 10 new habits at once – well, most of us can’t. It is overwhelming, making it easy to give up and reinforcing a belief that you just can’t change. That is not true, you can. It just helps to approach it a little differently.
I often have my clients set one to three specific food related goals, an exercise goal and something just for them. If you are doing this on your own, it is better to scale down the number of initiatives so that it is easy to manage and easy to keep track of.
If you’d like to make your meals more consistent and healthy, consider choosing something from this list (or come up with your own!): drink more water; add or expand breakfast; set a regular timeframe for lunch; preplan dinners for the week; shop at a farmers market more often; increase fruit and vegetable consumption; incorporate more beans and greens into your meals; experiment with different grains (like quinoa, amaranth, barley, oats and wheat berries); set a regular time for grocery shopping; try a new recipe each week.
If you don’t already have a good exercise program going, set a goal and then make incremental steps towards it. Joining a group or class can get you into the routine. You may need to change how you think about exercise. Some people prefer to “be more active” because even thinking about exercise makes them hungry. Focus on just getting started, having fun with it and notice how it makes you feel. You know you have a successful program going when you don’t feel as good on the days you don’t exercise!
Set a goal specifically for you. We spend so much time giving to other people, doing our work, keeping up with all the activities in our lives, we can end up endlessly drawing from our personal energy account without ever replacing it. Then we end up tired and worn out. What do you do for you? What do you love doing? It could be playing music, painting, reading quietly, or journaling – anything that renews and refuels you. It might be as simple as getting to bed earlier. Let this be your time to nourish yourself with something besides food; it helps you stay centered and make better choices.
We are all different in how much structure we like in our lives. I have an active mind that never leaves me alone; I love structure – it’s my way of taming the chaos. But not everyone does; for some it can feel like it stifles their creative urge. You may prefer to think of it as a framework. Having some sort of a plan actually frees you up. If you know when and what you are going to eat, you can have the right ingredients on hand and you can shift your attention to other things. Everyone tells me it is so much easier to eat well when they have good food in the house. When you have a plan for food and exercise, you can stop thinking about it and enjoy the other parts of your life.
Bring the autumn harvest, with its abundance of fresh healthy foods, into your own life. Enjoy the rich wholeness of healthy habits. As summer ends, and schedules settle, bring your awareness to what works and what doesn’t in your routine. If you’d like to make some changes, keep it simple and just focus on a couple things at a time. When those become a habit, you can choose something else to focus on. Having well established healthy habits will be helpful in the months to come.
Kathy Nichols is the Healthy Habits Coach. Kathy blends her background as a registered dietitian with life coaching to help you create healthy and sustainable habits. Contact Kathy at 707 431-7524, Kathy@HealthyHabitsCoach.com or www.HealthyHabitsCoach.com. Blog: www.HealthyHabitsCoach.wordpress.com |
