Starting off on the right foot in the New Year can really help you carry yourself far toward your ideal health. But to move toward positive change, we need to be able to let go the unhealthy habits holding us back.
Here are a few of the biggest habits we see keeping our community members away from their potential.
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5 Anti-Health Habits That Will Hold You Back
1. Failing to plan.
Routine is not the enemy when it comes to adopting a new healthy habit. If you don’t plan time in your week to workout, go grocery shopping, cook yourself healthy meals, or even set out your workout clothes the night before, then it’s going to be much harder to replace your old habits with new healthy ones. Writing down a schedule will help you groove new daily patterns.
2. Not re-evaluating your relationship with food.
Ideally, we should use food for fuel: enough to support exercise and strength gains, no more and no less. But we often tend to rely on food for emotional comfort, instead. Using food in this way often perpetuates unhealthy decisions, like over-eating and sugar-laden choices, for instance.
Now, we’re not saying you can just snap your fingers and change all your habits with food. We understand it’s a lifelong issue that may take some trial and error to correct. But we strongly feel that by at least taking some time to reflect on what your food choices are, what you crave, and when/why you eat, you’ll be able to build some much needed self-awareness that will help you stay curious and accountable.
3. Doing too much too soon.
How do you build a wall?
One brick at a time.
In our experience, it’s often more successful to make one or two small daily changes rather than trying to do everything at once. Not only will this help you foster sustainability, but it can also prevent you from injuring or overwhelming yourself.
4. Setting unrealistic or non-meaningful goals (or not setting any).
Setting goals (and writing them down) helps you stay focused and avoid temptation. But it’s important to make sure the goals you set actually matter to you and are able to be achieved in a reasonable amount of time.
5. Not enjoying the process.
Here’s the bottom line: change is meant to be challenging. But even difficult things can still be enjoyable!
Be present with your process. Choose workouts you look forward to doing, cook healthy food in a way you like. And above all, celebrate your small successes (in health-affirming ways such as massages, manicures, pedicures, or favorite movies). You need to be on your own team!
Are there any major habits you’ve broken to help you transform your own health?
Let us know about it by sharing in the comments below!
