I am so delighted to co-write a piece for The Echo Newspaper on why I think many of us need to focus on wellness instead of weight loss this January.
Here’s a brief extract from the article:
“IT’S that time of year when we feel the need to change how we look and lose weight. This can lead many of us into the familiar pattern of over-doing it, with strict exercise and diet regimes which for many isn’t sustainable.
So, we go back to under-doing. This leads us to feel guilty and so we are motivated right back into a weight loss regime again.
At the root of our dissatisfaction with how we look can be a general sense of feeling not good enough in some way.
For women, other than the weight loss – weight gain cycle, this can present itself as giving too much of yourself to work, family, and friends so that you don’t have time to look after yourself. Or feeling overwhelmed with a never-ending list of commitments. Maybe you are not feeling fully yourself and not feeling fulfilled in general.
So what can we do?
Addressing this root feeling of “not good enough” brings many women to look deeper and focus on their wellness. They are ready to go beyond quick fixes and want to work towards long-term and balanced health.
Consider looking at your Wellness through four lenses: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual and Mental.
These four areas are all interconnected and so working on one area will have an impact on the others.
This involves looking at our eating behaviour, our sleep routine and movement. Our biggest tip here is to start small and progress your new habits slowly if you want to make it sustainable.
1. Physical Wellness
This sounds in theory very simple, but it is so difficult when someone is so used to over-doing when they start something new with regard to their health. We get it, because we all get the urge to surf the wave of motivation but that wave never lasts. Consistency does last however, and this is backed up by neuroscience.
So if you are not currently consistent with exercise and moving regularly, then starting with something small such as a 15 minute walk on every lunch break. Resist the impulse to make it too big as we want to make it habitual and easy.
After a few weeks, you can decide to increase the time or the intensity of your walk or maybe you add in another form of movement somewhere else.”
