3 Ways to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

In this episode of The Claudine Phillips Show, I discuss how you can achieve a sustainable healthy lifestyle! It is not the newest diet hack or the one goal to lose weight. It is not a gimmick or a sales pitch to buy the latest work-out plan. It is a simple, clear, and doable health plan that becomes just a part of how you live your life. And it starts and ends with you! Go ahead, set some time aside, get your notes open on your phone of go old school and get a pen and paper out because this one is a note taker! Here are 6 strategies to achieving your health goals once and for all!

What Wasn't Working

As a new mom, my goal/hope was to stay fit and healthy, yet I soon discovered that my incredibly broad goal needed a plan in order to make it happen. I was living in a reactionary state of mind. First of all, the kids were waking me up every morning. This is the cardinal NO NO rule of getting anything done. It set me off into this reactionary pace the rest of the day. I looked to see how the kids were before I planned my workout, and I was grocery shopping on the fly and making whatever was reachable at the time. It was utter chaos.

I was living in this “Emergency” state of mind, waiting for it to calm down came up. And calm never came. Chaos grew and and I was servicing absolutely no one. No me, not my kids, and not my marriage.

“I was living in this “Emergency” state of mind, waiting for it to calm down came up. And calm never came. Chaos grew and and I was servicing absolutely no one. No me, not my kids, and not my marriage. “

My Attempt to Create Order

I tried things like printing off schedules for the kids. Trying to look up recipes that were healthy. And signing up for gym memberships and yoga classes. I would go to bed hoping there would be time for me and lay my work out clothes out on the dresser. But to no avail, I would do great for a week or two and then it would all fall apart.

I always had this drive, however. I knew I would get to this “place” that would make a difference. With perseverance and research, I realized that I was in fact in this reactionary state of mind and needed a plan. I also realized that each time I set a goal like a triathlaon or a 5k, I would have three things involved each time that would get me to the goal: a schedule, accountability, and a reason why I was doing this.

The Transformation

Yet, the hardest lesson I learned that I resisted for quite some time was that we must go through a transformation from the inside of us in order to see the lasting transformation on the outside of us well beyond than meeting one goal like finishing the race or making a better time. It is not just a diet to follow or a running schedule to implement, it is a total transformation that must take place for it to become a way of life. A transformation creates a lifestyle. Anyone can lose weight. Anyone can follow an instructor. Anyone can follow a plan. That is the 20%. It’s what YOU DO with the plan that makes the true difference. What are you doing with the other 80%.

We quit when we see that the 20% isn’t working for us and make exercises to justify our quitting. “It wasn’t the work out for me. It is impossible to eat like that. I just don’t have the time and want to be with my kids more.”

“…we must go through a transformation from the inside of us in order to see the lasting transformation on the outside…”

What you will learn this week:

We have to really WANT this transformation. We have to own the journey to a healthier you. NO ONE will want this more than you! And before you embark on the steps to transformation to a healthy you can start, it begins with asking yourself three questions:

The Three Questions To Ask Yourself In Order to Maintain A Healthy Lifestyle:

Where Am I? In order to see our progress, it is so important to write down and take note of where you are starting from. If we lose sight of where we came from, we simply cannot appreciate where we are right now.

What is My Goal? It is like building a house without the architectural plan and not hiring the contractors that will help you execute the build. We are building a new from the inside out and we must have a plan to get us there. We can see what the house looks like. We can see what the end result is. A beautiful, well built, pleasing to the eye and heart home.

Why Am I doing This? We must establish our WHY in the beginning. Know your why, then you will find the motivation to keep going when it gets hard or when we get tired or when we get the flu and find it impossible to restart.

When you establish where you are, what you want to achieve, and why you are doing this, we must realistically understand that it takes a plan to get to the end game

What are the 3 Ways to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle?

Have you ever set a goal, gone to the gym and then wondered as you looked in the mirror that night why you abs weren’t ripped yet after one work out? Just for a second, you thought, I am making a difference and then when you saw that you didn’t after one work out, your motivation was crushed. Just for a second…

We look at the big WHAT we want to do, get overwhelmed and we often stop at that point. We say, there is no way I will ever lose the baby weight, I don’t have the time like I used to, or I have no idea how do even start.

That is why a plan is so important, but even the word plan can get overwhelming. Going back to the house analogy: We know we don’t have the house, we know what the house is we want, and we know why we want it. It is time to figure out how.

1. Clean Your House : Elimiate

When you make the decision to go all in and take on this health goal, you answered that first question of where you were and quickly saw what wasn’t working for you.

Emotionally: Your body follows your heart. If you have a habit or a cycle you keep repeating, it is worth going deeper with it and getting to the root, the why you keep going back to that behavior.

Physically: When you clean your house emotionally, you will find that your physical world will start to make more room for you. Your schedule will protect your self care routines and your world will start to support you in ways that you could never have imagined.

Nutritionally: You must establish “non-negotiables”: Water, Plan-Purchase-Prapare, and Create a Rescue Plan.

2. Cultivate Knowledge: Learn

We must learn how to live to support this new health goal. It is obviously different than the way we are living, so we need to get advice from the experts and and find mentors to learn from. You are moldable. You are teachable.

Study What the professionals Offer. Whether it’s someone you admire, a mentor, or a YouTuber, see what they are offering and decide what exercise plan, meal plan, or life coach you want to follow and follow JUST THEIR IDEAS at first. You will gain momentum and then you will have the ability to try new things once the first systems are in place. There’s nothing wrong with using what’s already out there; if you can use someone else’s system to good effect, go for it. Tweak what you need to, adopt what works for you, and incorporate it into your PLAN of ACTION (which we will discuss in a minute)

Make sure you focus on one thing for each category. One mentor, one eating plan. What to Eat, How you Move, and How you think.

3. Curate a Plan: Plan

You are much like a museum director: You are the curator of your collections, your research. You are the curator of the food choices decided, exercise plans that are picked, and the emotional support you have chosen. You are the director of your health plan.

Three pillars to Curating a plan:

Your Mental game plan is placed on the calendar
Your Meal and Exercise Plans are placed on the calendar
Then Everything Else is placed on the calendar.

When these three things are met, you will create habit and routine. Life can happen, but you have taken care of the core things that meet your needs in order to deal with life. You’re probably not going to get the system perfect, ever! Be honest and open enough with yourself to recognize and admit where your process breaks down. Learn how to tinker and experiment with them until you build systems for successes that work. Bottomline. You’ve got this! Be all in and you will see that this “new lifestyle” will be just how you live!

Resources

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