Why Can't I Keep Up With My Healthy Lifestyle Routine?

How to make it work?

I hear a lot from my clients and other gym members that they have had numerous attempts to start working out and eating healthy, but they often fail. They try again with no results. Also, when I talk to people, I realize that 85-90% of them know what healthy nutrition means and how crucial exercises are. So what's the matter? 

Two main issues obstruct them from achieving their goals. The first one is that we can't change everything at once, though we must start changing our life habits slowly, one thing at a time, or as we say, through employing' baby steps.' 

The second issue is that we need to imbed workouts and healthy food preparation into our regular daily routine instead of just sporadically doing things. Let's get more into details. 

Baby steps. Usually, in society and nature, changes come slowly, and we have time to accommodate them, or sometimes we don't even notice them. In cases where they come rapidly, we call them either a revolution or a natural disaster, despite their, at times, good outcome. The same happens with our body, where every process and every change should be implemented slowly and gradually. Even if you've been eating one ice cream a day and want to change this habit, don't drop it all at once. First, reduce it to one ice cream every other day. In cases of you've been drinking one glass of water a day and you'd like to drink 2 liters a day, don't start doing that all at once. 

Start increasing water intake gradually and add one glass per day. The same happens with working out. We should start with easy exercises, increasing intensity week by week. If we don't do that, we won't be able to keep up and most likely will get an injury. For instance, this rule works when we change our nutrition routine from sweets to chicken breast and broccoli. If we cut out everything we like in one day, a week later, we will feel so miserable that we will drop everything and return to our old habits. We need to remember that we aren't robots but human beings. We have our preferences and likings. Instead of fighting them, we need to accommodate them or change them slowly. Ask yourself, why do you crave sweets? Is it because you don't have energy? Why don't you have it? Is it because you lack some micro or macro element, or instead of eating good carbs, you eat bad carbs (sweets) that make you crave them even more? As we've learned from the previous article, 'What your daily food intake should look like,' good carbs release energy slowly throughout the day, and bad ones release it immediately and then fade away right after that, making you feel tired again. Instead of cutting off on all the sugars, try to add some brown rice and protein to your meals first, and after that, you might not even want to eat that cheesecake. I have seen my clients going through these changes as it always worked.

Make it your routine. I know you are busy with your life, work and kids. I also know you'd like to look and feel good. In that case, more than just signing up for the gym and hiring a personal trainer is required. You will need to restructure your entire routine, so working out and healthy food preparation will have a permanent place and time. If you do it, you will avoid canceling lots of your workout sessions or having no results because exercising without eating and resting (sleeping) will only take you so far. 

First, set up a regular schedule and follow it. Second, you should always have food you can eat at home but never stack up your fridge with food you aren't supposed to eat. In case when you are hungry, you won't have any other choice but to eat healthy food that will always be around. As I said earlier, we aren't robots, and no one can make the right food choices when we are starving, and that is why we need to minimize any possibility of being around food we aren't supposed to eat and also feeling starving. Food preparation will be part of your routine (unless you'd like to order it).

Every trainer, every fit and healthy person has a routine they follow. You are just now aware of it. You can always interview these people and ask how they do things and how their week looks. You can do something other than what they or I tell you. You need to ask them how they do it and take from them what works best for you. 

This article sheds some light and helps you to understand the principles of a healthy lifestyle. No one knows your body or your life better than yourself. You might need some time to think and figure things out. Just remember, it isn't rocket science!