How to Stop Pressing Pause on Your Health Goals! ⏸️
Whether you are very busy, completely stressed out or just on vacation, pressing the pause button on your health and fitness goals can seem like the most sensible option.
But it’s not.
Today, I am offering you an alternative way of thinking about your life and wellbeing.
One that may help keep your health goals on track when the going gets tough. 🌱
When times get tough…
Start by thinking of your current goals.
This may be something you have always wanted to do, or it may be one of your New Year’s Resolutions.
This may be to get to a certain weight.
Or to look a certain way.
Or to run a certain distance.
Or just to feel healthier and more energetic.
Whatever it is, to achieve these goals, it’s often clear what we need to do.
We have to practice things like good nutrition, ample movement, enough sleep, and an appropriate way to manage stress.
Whatever the goal — whether weight loss or running a marathon — most of us can put the work in that is required to achieve these goals.
We know what we need to do and we do it.
But what happens when normal life is interrupted?
What happens when there is some stress, uncertainty or disruption in your life?
It could be something like a child or partner is ill. Or it could be a big life event — like a wedding, changing your job, or moving home.
Or, it could even be something quite nice, like Christmas or a summer vacation.
When life is disrupted — for good or bad — many people will often just slam on the pause button.
The problem of the pause button
Think of your life as a radio or stereo system here.
Times get tough and you press that pause button. ⏸️
Take Christmas for example.
The gyms close, you spend your days sitting on the sofa eating sugary foods and drinking alcohol, you stay up late because of parties.
This is acceptable — it’s Christmas after all. 🎅
But many people tell me that they find it difficult to get back into it after Christmas or a holiday because they stopped completely.
Then what happens if, in the new year, something else happens. Like one of those stresses, I mentioned. You lose your job? Or someone gets ill. Or you have to move home suddenly?
It doesn’t matter though. Two weeks living like this is fine, isn’t it? After all, we all need time to relax.
Of course we do! So you press the pause button again.
The problem is that life has a funny way of throwing things at you constantly.
Constantly pressing pause and play like this can really disrupt your goals, especially if you are doing it once every month or so.
So what’s the solution?
Well, let’s stick with our sound system analogy.
Underneath all those play and pause buttons, you will find some volume dials. Think of these volume dials as components in your life. One dial for nutrition, one for movement, one for sleep and so on.
When the dial is turned up to 10 on each of these things, you are doing things perfectly.
For example, your movement dial at 10 may be you doing six strenuous workouts each week and a daily hour-long walk after dinner. That’s incredible!
Your nutrition dial at a 10 may be eating homemade whole-foods based dishes for each meal, all with servings of organic vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains, with no refined sugars or processed foods.
Of course, most of us — myself included — have other things going on in life, and being at a 10 isn’t usually possible. It’s also not always enjoyable!
So, you may be at an 8, a 7, or a 6.
Your 6 on the dial may be three gym sessions a week and a 30-minute walk each day. And that’s great. If you are at a 6 on your dial consistently — and your nutrition and sleep dials are all at 6s too — then you’re going to make really good progress.
A consistent 6, 7 or 8 is amazing and your body will thank you for it.
(If you are curious, I am probably at a 6 or 7 on most of my dials most weeks. Nobody is perfect, especially not me!)
So what I suggest is that when life hits hard and you have to deal with stress or unprecedented busyness, instead of hitting pause, you simply turn your dials down.
It could be something as simple as you have a very busy week in work. You have to pick up extra shifts and you just don’t have time to do what you usually do.
So, with the dial way of thinking, you turn your movement dial from a 6 to maybe a 3. Instead of three gym sessions a week and a daily 30-minute walk, you are only managing the daily 30-minute walk and maybe a ten minute workout in your home.
It’s not ideal, but it’s better than doing nothing.
Your nutrition dial that week may need to be turned from a 7 — where you may be batch cooking nutritious meals to eat through the week — to a 2, where you aim to eat at least one meal per day which isn’t processed.
Again, it’s far from ideal but it’s way better than just giving up for the week and pressing pause.
Turn down your dials and reap the benefits
The thing to take away from this is that when life gets busy, you turn your dials down.
You don’t stop completely. You just look where gains can be made.
Then, when life slows down again, you can crank the dial back up to a 7, 8 or 9!
How does this look in real life?
Take me for example.
Sometimes, life is quite quiet.
When this is the case, I do my best to go to the gym five times in a week, I go for short walks twice a day, I eat meals mainly made up of veggies and protein, and I sleep well. Again, I am at a 6 or 7 on my dials.
But when life is stressful, I have to dial things back.
I may only be able to go for two or three gym sessions a week, and one short walk a day.
The dial system really works with me when it comes to food. Sometimes when things are really busy I have to rely on takeout food — like Chinese.
I say that because there’s a Chinese restaurant just a few minutes’ walk from me. They have a great vegan menu, which I love.
(Edit: This restaurant has since moved. 😩 However, it’s only a ten minute drive, so I still use it now and again!)
A lot of the food is swimming in sugar and fat, and if I press the pause button I could just think, “Well, my nutrition and fitness goals are on pause, I might as well order the sugary sweet and sour tofu and noodles… with some deep fried spring rolls”.
But instead, I use the dial system.
I think ‘I am still working on my nutrition and fitness goals. I know Chinese takeout isn’t the best option, but I will make it as healthy as I can.’
So I ask them to make me tempeh with broccoli, carrots and Chinese mushrooms. No sides. I always have little packs of microwave wholegrain rice in my kitchen, so I use one of those.
Suddenly takeout food, while still not ideal, is not too bad — wholegrains, vegetables, lean plant-based protein, not much sugar and fat.
Then I go for a five-minute walk after dinner to aid digestion.
Had I pressed pause, I’d have just gone for the stickiest, sweetest, fattest thing on the menu and then sat on the sofa all night.
What can you do to maintain your goals?
You can probably think about little things you can do to turn your dial down as opposed to pressing pause.
This keeps you in the mindset of your goals.
Something is better than nothing. Something keeps things ticking over.
As a side note, you can see how preparation can help you in these circumstances.
Have healthy snacks in the cupboards, have your gym kit ready to go, have running shoes in the car. Then when life strikes, you are prepared.
In my eyes, this kind of practice is the best way to maintain a healthy weight without having to count calories.
You may already practice this and that’s great. Hopefully I have reinforced this philosophy.
If not, I hope this has helped you think differently about being too busy to reach your goals.
(🎙️ You can also listen to this article as a podcast episode here)
Originally published at http://planethealth.online on April 20, 2023.
