I love the New Year. It’s such a wonderful time of celebration and hope. I have fallen prey to making complicated New Year resolutions just like everyone else. You know the ones, “I want to lose weight”, “I want to save more money”, “This year I will be a better person”, “I promise that this year I will remember to change the oil on my car every 3,000 miles” (just kidding!), “I will call my Mom more often”…I mean, no one can keep all those resolutions and still have time for anything else!!!
I have been told that I can analyze and over think things. That’s probably a character trait that helped me be a successful State Trooper, but sometimes all that analyzing can take me into the weeds and I lose sight of the big picture. So, this year as the New Year approached, I decided that I wanted to simplify my goals for the year and three words came immediately to mind.
Fitness. Food. Focus.
Yeah…..those three words captured it for me.
Fitness: Our bodies crave exercise and reward us quite properly when we do! We get the rush of endorphins after a great workout. Endorphins are the “feel good” hormones that are released into our bloodstream after intense exercise. Fitness is such an important component of our health. We want to stay strong, flexible and have a healthy cardiovascular system because it brings such quality to our lives. We feel energized. We lose weight. We can lean muscle. We are able to participate in activities with friends and family without a second thought.
Have you ever been asked to go jogging/walking with a friend and panicked because you didn’t feel fit enough? What about when your kids want you to come outside and play with them. They want to play tag and you are running around for a minute or two and feel so gassed you can hardly stand up straight…You tell yourself, “Wow, I really need to get in shape.” And, you do. Not for your kids. Not for your spouse. Not for your friends. For YOU. Life can open up for you in ways you can’t imagine: You can now try snowshoeing. You aren’t afraid to run a 5K. You actually WANT to work out on vacation. It’s amazing the changes you will experience.
Food: We have our own relationship with what we eat and why we eat. So, that is for your contemplation only. I won’t go into all the emotional and social reasons we eat. So, let’s do this: Let’s keep it simple. We promise ourselves to eat as clean as we can. We will only eat when we are truly hungry. We will be mindful of our portions. We accept and acknowledge that everything we eat has an affect on us; some foods will fuel us; energize us; nourish us. Some foods will poison us; make us ill over the long haul; and rob us of our energy. We will make choices in food that are healthy for us. We will respect our bodies and not treat ourselves like a garbage disposal.
We will hydrate ourselves daily with water. We will slow down and enjoy our meals. We will plan ahead and have nourishing and delicious meals ready when we are on the run and have a busy day. Enough said. That’s the easy part. Changing our food patterns isn’t as hard as we might think. Make one good decision about what the next thing you are going to eat will be. Change comes one decision at a time. Right? Right.
Focus: Pick three goals you’d like to work on for the next three months. Write them down and read them every morning and every evening. Let them sink in and believe you will achieve them. Be realistic and make your goals measurable. They can be anything. These will be the three things we focus on for the next three months. This is fun, isn’t it?
Sometimes three little words can make a big difference in our lives. Once we get the momentum moving; we keep it moving.
I’m with you! Let’s do this!
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