Making Healthy Choices for the New Year!

So……a new year…..some new resolutions? How about some health resolutions? Given the health crisis we are facing, if you could change one thing over the next 6 months, what would that be? And if you did change something, how would you know it was being beneficial? What would you notice? What would others notice? How would you know you were progressing up your ‘ladder of success’?!

 

Come on, now! You can do it! What would you like to focus on? Would it be exercise? What would be realistic for you? Walking for 10 minutes three times a day at a pace that gets you out of breath? What about taking a leaf out of the books of children all over the UK in running a mile a day – it only takes about 15 minutes?! Or how about seriously reducing your sugar intake or the amount of alcohol you drink? What is your focus going to be?

 

Think in a solutions focused way! You don’t have to make unrealistic goals or promises you are going to break next week. Be honest with yourself. Think about what the barriers and pitfalls might be and get prepared for them. Your inner chimp has had too much control and it’s time you lived out your values this year. (Read the Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters). What is your number one health value? Feed that value to your mind every day as you wake up and when you go to sleep, so that you can re-program your brain and get living in line with what is important to you! Two of my values for this year are that I value being active and I value feeding my body with things that benefit my health.

 

So, let me give you an example of how you can work this up on your own, to have goals that you can achieve. Firstly, choose the thing you want to change. So, I might say, I want to do 3 lots of 10 minutes of exercise every day. Does this feel achievable? Yes – I think so, but I won’t beat myself up on days where work is crazy or the kids are sick. But I am going to make a determined effort to ensure work does not stop me being healthy. OK, so what will I notice if I am doing more exercise? I’m going to challenge myself to make a list of 10 benefits:

 

1) I will be able to fit back into my favourite jeans.

2) I will feel less breathless when climbing stairs – now I challenge myself and instead of using a negative (I will feel less), I try and phrase it in a positive way – I will have more energy when I climb stairs.

3) I will have more focus in my work because I will have cleared my head with a midday walk

4) I will be more fit

5) I will be looking in better shape

6) I will have more energy to play football and other sport with my kids

7) I will feel more alive and active and I will know this because I will be breathing more easily

8) I will enjoy walking with other people and talking with them

9) I will be sleeping better

10) I will have less back ache, as I will be losing weight

 

Ok – so what will other people notice?

 

  1. My wife will notice I have more energy and zest for life
  2. My kids will notice I am playing more actively with them
  3. My patients will notice that I practice what I preach
  4. My colleagues will notice that I am more present in conversation because my head is more clear
  5. My friends will notice that I’m taking my health seriously
  6. My wife will notice I’m in better shape
  7. My wife will notice I’m snoring less and waking up more refreshed
  8. My kids will notice we start going for more walks after dinner and at weekends
  9. My family will notice we are spending more time together being active, no matter what the weather
  10. My friends will notice I am more relaxed and happy

 

And the next step is really simple. All I have to do is simply recognise ANY time ANY of those things happen and it will encourage me on my journey of change. The secret is this: We have to imagine another way of being, paint as much colour onto that canvas as possible and slowly watch that picture emerge in our lives as we take hold of the future we actually want. It’s not the power of positive thinking. It’s the power of acting in line with positive choices we are making. Come on! Let 2017 be the year when you made a choice and acted in line with it! Put your chimp in it’s cage, stop making your excuses and be a more healthy you!

 

Share This:

Share

Wake Up to Our Health Crisis

imgres.jpgIt’s all over our news today – our health is in a real mess, and this is our wake-up call moment – we really do need to take it seriously. It’s all very well us protesting about the under-funding and under-recruitment in our NHS (and we are right to do so), but we can no longer shy away from the burden our own health choices are planting on the NHS. I’m telling you, it’s a mess and we have to do something, because genuinely, if we don’t there won’t be an NHS left for our children or their children. We simply cannot afford for 80% of us aged 40-60 to be overweight, exercising too little or drinking too much alcohol. We cannot afford to be spending 1 in every 5 pounds in the NHS as a direct result of our lifestyles or 1 in every 11 pounds on diabetes.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38402655

 

images.jpgDo you know who doesn’t care? The sugar giants – they don’t care – they are more than happy to keep our kids eating a bath-full of sugar every year, and they are more than happy to take the lovely tax breaks from our government and not even contribute to the cost our NHS picks up on their behalf. The Chocolate industry – they too are pretty happy that chocolate is no longer a luxury (people used to have it as a real treat) and that we are so willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that their empires are built on the slavery of children, whilst we fulfill our insatiable greed. Who else doesn’t care? The Alcohol industry – they do not care that every time you drink one pint of beer, you are eating the equivalent of 16 fingers of kit-kat in one go – so a night out with 4 pints is 64imgres.jpg fingers of kit-kat in one evening – think about it! And by the way, they don’t pay their fair share of tax either, and yet what they cost our country is far more than they contribute. ….Then let’s not even go there with the huge Pharmaceutical giants, who are rubbing their hands together at the thought of how many of us will be prescribed medication for blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes over the next couple of decades, when we could all do without most of it, if we made some simple changes now! And what of the Fast Food outlets that cram our high streets with ill-health choices – who makes these decisions about town planning?!

 

imgres.pngSo, if these corporate giants don’t care, we should care – and maybe we haven’t until now, but it’s time we did!! And we should be pretty angry about the fact that successive governments have been on the side of greedy corporations, who are literally poisoning us. They have chosen, time and again, to support big business and the unaccountable growth of their money, above the wellbeing of their own people! And these companies have advertised the benefits of their delicacies, placed their products very carefully in collusion with the Supermarket giants and who are the fools who believed it all? That would be us! But we must not let our anger be a cause to blame someone else. We must fess up to our own weaknesses and vices, understand them and no longer let them rule us. We have been led right down the garden path of temptation, succumb to the the idea that we’re worth it and we can have whatever we want, without thinking of the consequences…..well…..now we’re at the tipping point. So let’s wake up!

 

If you could change one thing about your lifestyle heading into 2017, what would it be? In my next blog, I’ll give you some simple ideas of things you might want to think about – but no one can make the change for you. It is time for us to make some choices about what kind of legacy we want to leave for the future. The past has caught up with us, but we can determine a different kind of future, if we are willing to make the changes now! It won’t be easy, but if we adopt the spirit of 1945, it really is possible!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share This:

Share

Understanding Brexit (and Trump)

Tweet I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about how the Brexit and Trump campaigns were so successful. (I owe most of ths thought process to a very inspiring session about our shadow selves from Paul and Angie Woods, during a weekend focussed on the Enneagram). What was it, apart from the arguments made and [Continue Reading …]

Share

Personality Health

Tweet We often talk about physical, mental, social and even systemic health, but we don’t often think or talk about the health of our personalities. Our personalities are shaped by our self-esteem, our values, our truths, our needs, our struggles, our instincts and our gifts. They impact every part of our lives, relationships and interactions [Continue Reading …]

Share

Reimagining Medical Education

Tweet We’ve got a problem (well 4 actually), when it comes to medical education! The first is this: Jeremy Hunt is promising loads of new places at medical school – I know this doesn’t sound like a problem, it sounds like a solution. But the truth is, once you actually do some number crunching, the [Continue Reading …]

Share