If you’ve decided that now is the time to take control of your health and actively want to boost it, then congratulations for getting this far. Deciding that some things will have to change can be hard to accept, but now you’re here, that’s half the work done.
You will have to want to alter how you live your life for the better because ultimately, the rest of the hard work has to come from you. You will have to be your own best self-motivator so well done for reaching this stage! To find out where to go from here to radically improve your health to feel happier, healthier, and be more productive, continue to read below:
Tackle Your Problems Head On
This part won’t be easy, but it can have some of the most positive effects in your newfound strive for health. Simply put, you need to accept that you might require professional help for problems pertaining to mental health, substance misuse, and trauma. There’s no shame in asking for support to help you turn your life around, so don’t waste time and begin contacting an outpatient drug rehab center, and starting on an outpatient drug program.
Acknowledging that you will benefit from expert intervention can truly aid you in making a radical difference to your health if you’re able to ditch the drugs for good, figure out a medication plan that works for you, and tackle your problems head-on. As aforementioned, this will be one of the most difficult steps, but it can be the most rewarding, enlightening, and life-changing.
Change Your Diet
That’s right, those chips, cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, and sugar-loaded cereal bars masquerading as healthy grain bars are going to have to go. Change your diet for good by drawing up a series of meal plans that revolve around avoiding processed sugars, simple carbs, and alcohol and swapping them for complex carbs such as brown rice, brown bread made at home, plenty of fruits and vegetables, good sources of protein and plenty of exercise. Stop buying food out in your lunch break and instead bring a packed meal from home that you can be confident in what the ingredients are, and that there are no hidden surges in sugar, salt, and additives.
Prepare a lunch consisting of brown rice, chicken breast (alternatively salmon or tuna steak – Quorn pieces if you’re vegetarian), steamed tender stem broccoli, nuts and seeds as snacks, and two or three pieces of fresh fruit.
Be Honest With Yourself
Straight off the bat, accept your fallibilities, your strengths, and what you’ve previously failed on before. If you know that running around the park every evening just isn’t achievable, then don’t include it in your fitness plan. Doing so will set you up for a loss, and you’ll feel disappointed in yourself. Instead, find the exercise that you do enjoy by going to a series of trials until unearthing which sport makes you feel excited to attend. You can also go to the gym, go swimming, walking, and hiking, for example.
The same goes for food, don’t add foods that you can’t stand to eat just because you know they’re healthy for you. Find others as there are hundreds of them!