Making changes in a world turned upside down!

I hope you were able to read my last blog and are considering making changes to improve your overall health. Changes are difficult to make, and due to COVID-19 most of us are dealing with our whole world turned upside down. We are playing the role of parent, employee, teacher, and in some cases, therapist and nurse. There is no school for the kids to go to. You may find yourself currently unemployed and struggling to get by. The daily routine you crafted and perfected is gone and your day does not even compare to what a typical “normal” day once looked like.

With all these other changes occurring in your life you may feel overwhelmed and want to completely wave off any notion of adding yet another change to your life. But making changes for the benefit of your health does not have to be difficult. For some reason it is almost human nature that when we want to make a change, we feel we must take the plunge by jumping headfirst into the deep end: completely cutting out foods and activities that we love for the hope that we will improve ourselves in some way. More often than not this approach doesn’t work because major changes are stressful and hard to maintain.

For example, have you every tried a crazy no-carb diet and by day three found you were completely consumed with thoughts of bread? Or told yourself that you were going to run every single day, only to end up pulling a hamstring or injuring yourself by day 8 and had to quit? Looking back, you end up feeling like a failure that you couldn’t stick to your plan, decide the whole thing is hopeless and fall right back into your regular routine.

These are not uncommon scenarios unfortunately. We live in a world of fast food and next day delivery and we want to apply this easy, fast paced practice to our health. We want to lose 30 pounds in 30 days by popping a pill or drinking some tea. But it is not that easy and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The truth is your “normal” routines and food habits did not develop overnight: it was years of practice. So, it will take time to develop new healthier habits. The key is to be patient and take baby steps that don’t stress you out.

In the programs I develop I try to start every client by not taking anything away from them, instead I focus on adding something simple. For example, instead of me instructing you to cut out the soda and cookies I might tell you to add 2 servings of fruit to your diet every day. Your focus is on eating 2 servings of fruit every day. That should be easy enough without too much hassle, mental space or effort required. The purpose of this practice is simple in nature, if you had cravings for sweets and now you are eating fruit more regularly you might find the cravings for sugary drinks and snacks subsides because you are getting sugars through healthier sources of fruit.

As a health and nutrition coach it is my job to come up with easy and creative ways to help you adjust your habits into healthier ones. Together we will analyze the areas you want to improve and build a plan that guides you in the direction you want to be. Please note these programs take time if you want to be successful. Most coaches, myself included, offer year long programs, which is a big commitment, but the results these clients get last a lifetime.

If you are considering cleaning up some of your habits or have found yourself starting to develop some bad habits while in quarantine hiring a health coach could be significantly beneficial. In a time when we are all in isolation, I don’t want you to feel like you have to make difficult changes on your own. I offer a wide array of services from in-person coaching, in-home personal training services to virtual training and coaching services through web meetings and my mobile app. Learn more by visiting my website, wollertonwellness.com.