YOU. Right now, how you feel, how you look, how you are…is a result of everything YOU have (have not) done. Today, yesterday, last week, last year, the last 20 years. It is all accumulated to where you are right now.
Accept it. Live it. Own it.
Have you neglected your health? That’s on you.
And only you.
It’s hard for people to accept this fact. But once you do, you can actually do something about it. Sitting around whining about how hard things are, and how crappy your day was will get you absolutely no where. It will only stress you more, and make you feel even more hopeless.
When was the last time you actually took ownership and did something about it?
Something bugging you? Change it.
Someone bugging you? Talk to them about it.
Don’t like how you look. Do something about it. Do EVERYTHING about it.
This is on you, not your friend, not your kids, not your boss – YOU.
Okay, now I think you get the point.
Here is how to approach it – and since this is a health blog – we will look at how to take ownership of your health and turn this ship around.
1. Your current state is your responsibility.
“I got busy, and now I weigh 50 pounds more than I did 5 years ago”
Chances are, you didn’t gain 50 pounds overnight and ignored it for 5 years.
This is a culmination of everything you have done or have not done in the last 5 years.
You need to accept this fact, stop blaming external factors, and get to work – NOW.
2. Track progress…track SOMETHING
“I don’t want to track ______, it takes too much time”.
Yep, and so does watching TV, browsing facebook, looking at cat memes, and watching youtube tutorials on how to lose fat in 10 days.
I have a client who tracks their food while sitting on the toilet. This may sound funny, but my God is it a great use of time.
Do you need to track your food?
No.
You need to track something. If you keep ignoring everything, how do you think it will change?
Some objective things that CAN be tracked:
- Your food intake
- Your weight
- Your waist circumference
- Your visual progress (progress photos)
- Your strength
- Your cardio health
- Your workouts
So say you want to lose weight, but don’t want to track anything…yep, I’ve heard it before. How will you know if you are progressing if you literally don’t want to track ANYTHING?
I want to have 2 million dollars in my retirement fund by the time I am 65…but I don’t want to manage my money, track my investments, or monitor changes in the market.
How dumb does that sound?
Call it a bit harsh, but you need to be aware of SOMETHING.
So you don’t want to track food. So maybe track your waist circumference. Is it going up? Then you are probably eating too much – so eat less. Is it going down? Awesome, keep doing what you’re doing – but PLEASE track SOMETHING!
3. Manage and Adjust
Once you figure out what you want to track – and you figure out how to know if what you are doing is working or not, you need to manage your life and adjust based off of your desired outcome.
Scale not moving? Then maybe it’s time to have a good ol’ heart to heart with yourself and figure out what you can do to change that. Maybe your clothes fit better, but the scale isn’t moving – that’s awesome, you are probably getting some great body composition changes (losing fat, adding muscle)
Still have no clue where to even start?(I promise, you can probably pinpoint a few areas once you accept that “yes, maybe I need to stop putting 1/4 cup of creamer in my coffee and pounding a 800 calorie muffin every morning”) – then find help.
A good trainer and nutrition expert will guide you – but they still cannot do everything for you – (see the top of this post). Obi Wan didn’t blow up the Death Star, Luke did.
Does your trainer give you advice? Does your nutritionist tell you how to change your diet? Awesome…but did you follow their instructions?
I’m guessing they didn’t give you this advice just for kicks and giggles.
Follow good advice, and good things will happen.
- Accept self-responsibility
- Decide to change
- Do it
- Adjust and Manage
- Carry on, and repeat steps 3-5.
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Stay healthy my friends,