Out & About Summer 2019

Out&About wellbeing

FITNESS

The summer months are a good time to challenge yourself says VICKI BROWN

I often talk about lifestyle. lives, including nutrition, movement, hydration, sleep, stress and overall wellbeing. Therefore, there are various elements to take into consideration when trying to create a healthy lifestyle. Do you struggle to make changes to your lifestyle? Do you find yourself avoiding change and challenge? I challenge you to challenge yourself. If you find yourself going through the same pattern repeatedly why not try something different? Ways to create a challenge Be more organised: tackle the areas that you struggle with most. It will take time, but will pay off in the long-term. Food challenge : do you need to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in your diet? Also are you eating enough fibre – did you know most people eat as little as half the amount they should for good health. Setting yourself and your family a rainbow or number target for weekly consumption is an idea. Get yourself a chart – maybe pop it on to the fridge – and see how many different fruit and vegetable portions you eat each week. Hydration: Get yourself a water bottle. If you know that you need to drink more water each day, a great way to increase this is to get yourself a big refillable water bottle, then you can track how much water you have drunk, how much you have left to drink. It will also mean you always have a bottle with you – once you remember to take it. Charity: Some people find entering a charity event a great motivator. Fundraising and the commitment to help others can stop you dropping out. Try something new or old: Did you used to play netball at school, run When I say this, I am referring to several aspects of our day to day

cross-country or go to swimming club? Once you left school you stopped? There is no reason not to start again. If there is an activity that you liked in the past, it’s a great way to get moving again. If you find something fun, you are far more likely to keep doing it. On the flip side, is there something that you have never done before but like the idea of? Give it a go, book yourself a lesson or find somewhere you can do the activity. Go out of your comfort zone – you are capable of more than you think. This principle works well for food too, see how many new things you can try in the next month. The magic answer: We live in a society selling quick fixes and miracle cures. The truth is there isn’t one. It is all simple stuff once you have the basic knowledge. But it is hard. It can feel like hard work to make all the changes and stick with them for the long term. Creating a new lifestyle and feeling better takes time and persistence. It can be small and slow, but the long- term results can be staggering. My biggest challenge to you is to be consistent. It’s not an all-or-nothing approach. You are not trying to make the perfect decisions all the time, but make good decisions every day. If you manage to tackle this challenge, I am sure that you will be in a very different place with your overall health and wellbeing. Give it a go. LiveFitNow will be running challenges to help you highlight and tackle your own personal lifestyle needs. Put yourself on the email subscription list or follow on social media to find out more about these challenges.

Vicki Brown runs: LiveFitNow, Wash Common, Newbury. Telephone: 07879 447829. www.LiveFitNow.co.uk

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O&A SUMMER 2019