Lifestyle "Hacks" for Sustainable Health
What I see happen SO often:
A woman decides that it's time to get healthy. She's had enough of feeling like shit.
She decides that she's going to walk everyday, go to the gym 5 days a week, drink a gallon of water, and eat chicken and broccoli for dinner everyday.
The first week is 🔥FIRE🔥. She's doing the damn thing. She's proud of herself.
...and then the weekend comes... womp womp
Does this sound familiar?
So what can we do to prevent this from happening?
The person above got easily sidetracked by the weekend for 2 reasons.
1️⃣ It was just WAY too much, WAY too fast.
2️⃣ There was no plan ➡️ If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Let's take a look at what we can do in our HOME environment so that our surroundings match our goals.
Set up our environment for success = planning for success.
We are only going to look at the home environment for the sake of this blog post BUT you need to take the same steps in your work environment, your car, and anywhere else you spend lots of time.
Let's start with your kitchen:
Go open up your fridge and pantry. Right now. Seriously, go. I'll wait.
❓What foods are in direct eyesight and easy to grab?
Is it fruit? Cut veggies? Yogurt cups?
Or is it chips, cookies, unprepared foods?
Think of your fridge and pantry like a grocery store shelf. The items that the store wants you to grab will be on the shelves directly in your line of sight.
For example, if you go to the baking aisle at the grocery store and look at the cake mixes, right in your line of sight, you will see Pillsbury and Betty Crocker. The mixes that are gluten free or dairy free are going to be shoved up onto the top shelf where my 5 foot tall self can't reach because way fewer people are purchasing those mixes.
Your fridge and pantry should be the same way. Put the foods that help you reach your goals right in your line of sight while the other foods can go above, below, or even behind that ones you want to grab.
❓While we're talking about your fridge and pantry, how many "healthy" foods are in there that are unprepared to eat?
You realize that buying a bag of carrots but never cleaning and cutting them isn't helpful, right?
Just the act of buying healthier options makes us proud.
HOWEVER, never eating them because they aren't prepared when we get hungry isn't going to cut it.
So some amount of prepping, cutting, and portioning is going to be needed.
You can certainly purchase things already ready to eat if you're OK with spending a little more.
➡️ For example, you can buy yogurt cups or you can buy a larger tub and portion it into containers yourself.
➡️ You can buy carrots already cut up or you can clean and cut them yourself.
➡️ You can buy single serve bags of chips or popcorn of you can weight it out and bag it up yourself.
❗However you choose to do it, it needs to be done.
Allllllllright, now let's talk about movement.
❓Whether you workout at home or in a gym, are your workout clothes right where you'll see them so you can just grab and go or are they in drawers or the closet?
If you've ever read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, you're familiar with the idea of making your environment conducive to good habits.
You want to make it EASY to do the positive habits and make it HARDER to do the negative ones.
Needing to hunt through a drawer or closet for your tank top, another one for your sports bra, another for your leggings, another for your socks, another place for your shoes...this is NOT conducive to getting your workout done.
You have set up unintentional barriers to getting to the gym. Each time you have to go get another piece of clothing, you're opening yourself up to making an excuse to not go.
So how can we counter this?
➡️ Lay them out the day before.
It really is that easy. Whether you're a morning worker-outer or an after work kinda girl, pull out everything you need the day before, have it ready to go so you don't have time to make an excuse, put it on and go.
👏 Make 👏the 👏positive 👏habit 👏easier.
There you go - 3 ways you can optimize your home environment for easy, sustainable, health!
What other opportunities can you find in your home environment to make the positive habits easier AND the negative ones harder?
What opportunities can you find in your work or car space to make the positive habits easier and the negative ones harder?
Shoot me an email about it and let's chat! ➡️ [email protected]
Remember that you can always connect with me on Instagram as well! I am very active there and post most days of the week. ➡️ Mathandmacros on Instagram
Be sure to check back often for new blog posts on tons of topics that impact women!
Learn more about personal training services on my website.
