Last year my New Year’s Resolution was to run a marathon. Didn’t happen. With a two-year-old and a new baby life happened instead but I’ve made peace with it and put it on the to-do list for, oh I don’t know maybe five years time.
This past year I’ve learned a lot about slowing down and living in the moment. What’s currently known as mindfulness, I suppose, but dear God was ever a word more overused in a year?
Anyway whatever you’d like to call it, I’ve been bitten by it and so my resolution for 2018 is quite simply to strive for balance in my life in as much as that is possible. There will be no transformations or records broken this year.
No food groups will reign supreme. My intention, instead, is to pay attention to my body. Stay active but not push myself too hard. Run but stretch. Squat but Shavasana (it’s a yoga pose, for those asking!). Green veg and protein will be followed up with a good portion of Green and Blacks.
That’s rich, says you, with your 6-Week Online Slim-Down launching in January just in time for the post-Christmas food and drink hangovers. But actually I’ve been secretly infiltrating my online courses with this balanced mind-set for quite a while now.
Each week I discuss a different topic with members that relates to their health, fitness and general life balance through the private Facebook support group. Here are a few of the topics discussed and a little about how each one impacts us:
Preparation
You know the quote ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’? (like mindfulness it’s a been done to death). Well annoying as it might be, it’s true.
There are very few people who have so little to do that they have time to cook healthy, balanced meals from scratch each day. That’s why preparing at the weekend can do wonders and as long as you allow yourself a little flexibility not to mention some “treats” throughout the week you should still be able to respond to what you’re body wants.
Body Image
How many people exercise and eat “healthily” with purely their body size or shape in mind. And worse again how many do these things because they hate their body?
In my experience until a person gains even a small amount of respect for their body then it doesn’t matter what they look like as they will never be truly happy or balanced.
Relationship with Food
I ask my online members to eat a certain way for the duration of the course so that they can experience what it’s like to eat a healthy, balanced diet that doesn’t leave them feeling hungry or deprived.
This is unusual for many of them as they’ve spent years going between overeating and feeling like they are out of control to being on deprivation diets that restrict certain food groups or limit them to calories, points or syns.
Then I ask them to do a little digging into their relationship with food to try and find out why they eat the things that they eat in the way that they do.
Is it for comfort? As a reward? To numb out? Understanding a bit more about yourself and your habits can help you to figure out what it is you really need because it generally isn’t the crap food that you’ve been turning to!
Giving these three topics a bit of thought can really help with getting yourself to a place of better balance. Life moves so fast that we rarely take the chance to stop and think about what we really want or listen to what our body really needs.
We’re all so busy going, doing and achieving but taking a step back from the madness and finding out what really matters to you might do wonders for your health and fitness this New Year.
To find out more about my 6-Week Online course starting January 8 or to sign up you can head over here.
SEE ALSO – Fit with Brid: How perfect is your body?
