Being healthy needn't be a chore

Let me take a couple of minutes busting a myth for you….. being healthy needn’t be a chore.

Throughout the course of December, I am running a DR ME health advent, whereby every day I release a daily health suggestion to get people energised, strong and in control of their lives in the run up to Christmas. The hope being that people thrive during this time, not simply survive.

This time of year, people don’t need complex things to add to their never-ending to do list, and therefore I have made the health advent suggestions really simple and easy to implement.

For me, it is vital to approach health from a whole-body perspective, looking at diet- what we eat, resilience- how we sleep, mindset- how we view the world and ourselves, and exercise- how we move our bodies. Therefore the calendar has addressed all of these 4 areas and I have even colour co-ordinated them!

The body is one big interconnected system and as a result when we make changes in one area, they often impact others. For example, when we eat colourful plant-based food that we cook from scratch, it impacts our mental health, giving us a more positive perspective on the world. It also gives us more energy to move our bodies more, it helps fuel our microbiome (gut bugs) to help defend our bodies from illness, as well as helps us to sleep better at night. Therefore, by making one small change to our daily routine, it can exponentially impact so many other areas of our lives.

People often associate being healthy with hard work. Perceptions of being healthy may include:

· Going to a lot of effort and expense to buy and prepare healthy food

· Restrict and banish the food and drink we know isn’t as good for us

· Spend a lot of time exercising, sweating, and feeling generally uncomfortable

· Restricting things in our lives that we enjoy (watching TV, staying up late socialising)

My job as a health coach is to make healthy change happen, and make these alterations long-lasting. If I ask my clients to complete tasks that are too hard, take too long, or dis-interest them, I fully understand that people have a finite amount of willpower and this will quickly run out.

Instead, I need to introduce people to easy-to-action health hints and tips, to make it simple to complete each day. We all lead busy lives, and I understand that for best results they need to be quick and cheap.

Let’s take drinking more water for example. Our bodies are made up of approximately 70% water. To keep our bodies hydrated it is recommended that we drink about 1.2 litres per day, about 8 glasses. Water is free (or practically), and I would suggest it could take about 10 seconds to drink a glass. Therefore, if we can’t find one and a half minutes in our day to help our bodies work to their maximum capability (a reduction in 2% hydration impacts our mental and physical output by up to 25%) then something is going wrong.

To make sure we keep our bodies hydrated we could keep

· a tally in our diaries,

· alternate hot drinks with a glass of water,

· set an alarm to remind us hourly to leave the desk and drink a glass of water,

· buy a water bottle with timings on,

· drink from a larger glass (I always drink from a pint glass).

Hydration is one of the simplest ways to improve your health, which is why I made it day one on the health advent.

If you would like to know more easy-to-implement health hints and tips, why not sign up to my upcoming ‘Get control of your health’ webinar challenge starting January 18th. You could start the new year with a new you, and learn how to improve your diet, resilience, mindset and exercise with me. Over the course of a month, you will be sent 4 informative science-based sessions from me, have live access to me for Q&A, and a free workbook to help keep you on track and refer back to- all for just £29. Sound good? For more information click here.