Hold yourself to account
In the last blog I talked about how we are all a result of our daily habits. These habits that we create around our daily activities will help along with organisation, structure, consistency and will help build an all round healthy lifestyle.
I’ve given some examples of how to do so and I’ve taken into account it’s not just a case of “doing it”, it’s creating a plan for it.
One of the biggest factors here is accountability.
Doing the things you said you were going to do long after you said you were going to do it.
Accountability isn't to anyone else apart from yourself.
Sometimes, we get people that come to us and say that they want me to hold them to account. But if you can't be accountable to the person that looks back at you in the mirror, then being accountable to me isn't going to work. I think it's important to understand, like I have said before, that you have to take control of your own life.
You have to be in charge of your own decisions. These decisions lead to habits. These habits that I have listed below are the full fundamentals along with some ideas on how to implement them in your life.
1. Drink more water. Drinking more water will 100% improve your concentration levels and your energy levels. Dehydration can cause you to have poor performance, headaches and generally not drinking enough water is a major contributor to eating to excess. The reason I say this is because a lot of the time we can feel hungry where in fact we are actually dehydrated. Some simple tips to drink more water is to have a glass of water at every meal, have a glass first thing in the morning before you start your day or fill up a full bottle of water that you try to consume as the day goes by. Aiming for 2-3 litres is ideal but remember we don't want you going from 0-3 litres, slowly build this up over time.
2. Aim for a portion of protein, fruit or veg with every meal. Making sure you fill your plate with 50% fruit or vegetables is a great idea for eating more food volume, basically for your calories you'll get to eat more food. This is always a good idea for anyone that is looking to drop body fat or improve the quality of your food. From there, with protein, we always suggest 1g of protein for 1lb of body weight, if you weigh 10 stone (140lbs) that's 140g for example. But similar to water, we aren't looking at going from 0-140 that's just too much. An easy suggestion to get for example 140g of protein over 3 meals , that would be around 40g per meal and a 20g snack. Easy good sources of protein are chicken, beef, turkey, ham, eggs, greek yoghurt, whey protein. Getting this in is absolutely essential.
3. Move more. Have a weekly step target that’s easy for you to achieve. Don’t go from 0 to 10k. We recommend tracking your steps and trying to improve them, especially in summer months. The lighter nights and better weather are a great time to move more and increase your activity levels. There is a target that we recommend, but also consider where you are in your journey. Slowly improve it by parking further away from a destination or walking specifically instead of short drives. Making time to get steps in and go for a walk or have a target destination to walk to, this is all about improving your activity levels over time. Remember for your long term, walking is a great, and probably one of the best methods to use as it's something that is relatively easy to do.
4. Train. Aim to train in the gym 2-3x per week. If you have adequate time to do so make this a non negotiable. At this time of year get sessions in at the times you are less busy with the intention of adding extra in as the week progresses. Make these non negotiable in your diary, a meeting that you cannot miss. Book your gym sessions around your life, early morning, lunchtime, after work or weekend, make your sessions not something you miss out on.
5. Sleep. I’ve specifically put this as point number 5 as I think if you hit some of the above targets then naturally you’ll start to sleep better. A great method for improving your sleep is to work back from your awake time, for example if you want to get 7 hours and wake up at 7am, you'll need to be sleeping by 12pm. But you'll also likely need a night time routine to work backwards from e.g. if you are reading a book for 30 minutes before sleeping you'll need to be in bed by 11:30 at the latest. This means that you have created a basic nighttime routine that will help you sleep.
These are simple hints and tips but remember the secret is consistency not doing it as one off. The results and improvements will happen with factoring in some of these elements in your life. Look at your own life and see what you can put in place, don't ignore this type of content in the hope of looking for a recipe book or a nutrition plan. You have to get these fundamentals right before you can build on the foundation created. There is no secret to improving lifestyle, there is no secret to improving your health, you have to just simply be accountable to yourself over the long term by continually sticking to your daily habits.