A Few Good Habits…

It takes a long time to establish a fit and healthy lifestyle. If you were to look at mine, you’d probably think I’m the most boring, non-spontaneous person around. And you’d probably be right to a certain extent. I know what works for me to keep me feeling good though, and I do all I can to keep doing what seems to be working.

I learned this early in life. I was a serious competitive swimmer and spent morning and night in the pool. I was probably the only kid whose parents never told to go to bed. I had to get up before five most mornings to be in the water for 5:30 am. I remember getting up at 2:30 am sometimes and my mom coming into the kitchen and asking what I was doing. I’d be eating breakfast and getting ready to go, I’d be so worried that I’d miss my alarm that I’d misread the clock and just get up and get going.

Now granted, that’s just weird for a 10 year old. One thing I knew though was that in order to feel good in the day, in order to get my morning and evening swim workouts in and to feel good all day in school, I needed to sleep. So off I’d go to bed every night in the daylight to get my sleep.

I guess you could call me a disciplined person. I wasn’t really born that way; I just learned that I didn’t enjoy feeling over tired and cranky. When I didn’t get enough sleep Id get stomach upset, head aches and have no energy. I learned an easy solution and applied it. That’s not discipline so much as common sense.

I thought I’d share with you a eleven tips that may be helpful in getting your fit and healthy lifestyle off to a good start in 2011:

• Make food count

Stop mindless eating and make a promise to be more mindful of what goes in your mouth. Then promise yourself that everything you eat should have some nutritional benefit.

• Don’t starve yourself

This is slow down your metabolism and makes it more difficult to lose weight. Eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism revved up.

• Go for the most decadent

If you’re going to splurge for a dessert, go for the very best. Make it an occasional occurrence, but truly enjoy it. A quality treat of what you really want is more satisfying and will likely result in not overeating.

• Find exercise that you love

It’s so much easier to do an activity when you love it. Spend the time to learn about yourself and what you like to do so that you can incorporate it daily.

• Workout with a friend

I don’t train with anyone currently, but in the past this has been a great way to keep commitment, motivation and energy up for any workout.

• Be uncomfortable

Seriously, if you can talk all through any kind of workout, you’re clearly not working hard enough. If you want your body to change, you need to challenge it.

• Try a fitness date

See if your significant other would be interested in a date that involves fitness. You may just end up between the sheets for more intimate fitness with the fun that exercise brings to a relationship.

• Treat yourself

Give yourself something to look forward to, whether it’s a special meal or an outing. Break up your every day life with special moments that create memories.

• Turn off the TV

Exercise your brain by reading a book if you need some down time. Honestly, what good has ever come of watching TV? At the very least, limit your viewing to what you really enjoy and stop the time wasting habit of turning it on just because.

• Enjoy some quiet

Life is so busy that if you look at your day, there may be very little time when there is no back ground noise, people, traffic, whatever. It’s hard to ‘think’ in this chaos. Give yourself 10 minutes a day to do nothing, hear nothing and just let yourself enjoy some quiet and think clearly.

• Sleep!

This brings me back to the start of this conversation. I think going to bed is one of my favorite things. I know that after a busy day, I look forward to crawling into a warm bed and turning off my head.

And, I know that tomorrow will be a great day when I give myself at least seven hours of shut eye. You need to figure out how much sleep you require to feel great and then just sleep. If I can figure this out as a 10 year old, surely this isn’t that hard a lesson.