Healthy Lifestyle
The first day of your new healthy lifestyle arrives. You vow to avoid all fatty foods, only snack on fruit and raw vegetables, stop taking sugar in your coffee… the list goes on. Do you tend to dive straight in with huge expectations of what you can realistically achieve?
It’s something we can relate to! Trying to change lots of bad habits overnight, which may have built up over the years, is an impossibly unrealistic task!
That’s why it’s important to set goals and take one small step at a time to achieve them. There’s research evidence showing that small, realistic goals are a key characteristic for successful weight control. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-specific (SMART) goals work – vague, unrealistic ones don’t!
Use a food diary to identify the first thing you’d like to change about your eating behaviour. If you don’t have the time to keep one, take our free Diet Profile and use the Nutrition Card™ to discover your eating patterns.
For example, you may notice that you eat hardly any fruit or vegetables. So you could decide your goal will be to simply ’eat more‘. Is this a SMART goal? No, it’s quite vague. Instead, a SMART goal might be to have one portion of fruit with breakfast on three days of the week.
Think about when you’ll review your goal and what you will set yourself next time. Remember smaller changes often lead to greater benefits in the end – and they usually always last longer!
Healthy Lifestyle - Healthy Rewards!
And promise yourself a reward when you have achieved each of your goals! Maybe buy yourself that CD you wanted or book a much needed massage. Your reward can be anything you know you’ll enjoy – except food!
[GetFit Nutrition] believes strongly in the goal setting approach for success. We’ll give you personal suggestions of which little changes or ’Healthy Habits‘ you can introduce into your life.
Not only that, your Virtual Health Coach checks how you’re getting on with new ‘Healthy Habits’ and gives you helpful tips and suggestions on how to succeed, until you decide you want to move onto another achievable ‘Healthy Habit’.