Five Wellness Tips for Overcoming Common Health Struggles

Common health struggles run rampant in our society. Some of them include, Obesity, Chronic Fatigue, High Cholesterol, Pre-Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, GERD, IBS, Chronic Viruses, Hormone issues, Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, etc., etc.

When people visit their Doctor, the prescriptions may differ, but the advice seems to always be the same…. Eat better, relief stress in your life, exercise, and lose weight. We walk away thinking, OK I can do this, but then after the first month, or even a few days, we begin to struggle. We opt for prescriptions and life goes on.

When we go this route, it provides symptom relief for awhile, but in my experience with clients, and for myself, these prescriptions come with side effects that have normally lead to more medications being prescribed.

So, what can we do to stay on track with the Dr.’s orders and help ourselves be successful? Here are some tips that are universal to the common health issues listed above and many more not listed, that will assist you on your journey to better health in 2021.

1. Start with 1 specific health goal.
   Whatever your health issues are, as you begin your journey to better health, choose one goal to start with, and make that one goal very specific. For example, your goals might be: Lose weight, exercise and eat better.
   
   
   
   Take one goal at a time – Let’s concentrate on “Eat Better. ”Now, let’s make that very specific with action steps
   ACTION STEP
   a. Cut High Fructose Corn Syrup out of diet
   b. Cut white flour products out of diet
   c. Eat salad at least four times per week
   d. Reduce my red meat intake by half.
   e. Plan my meals
   
2. Incorporate goals into your routine.
   If you have a routine, but you don’t put your goals in it, you will never get your goal accomplished. If you don’t have a “healthy Living” routine, please give me a call!! I am happy to assist. Free of charge, this is what my ministry does for people. Our routine is how we stay sane, especially during COVID days. It’s also how we focus best.If you concentrate on one thing instead of three broad things, you will see results by March if you start now! As you progress and you build this habit, add more steps like “drink 8 cups of water per day”. Then, move to your next goal, which in this case would be exercise, and begin specifically with that. Your steps would be – Choose exercise, choose place to exercise, choose time, and finally exercise MWF each week.
   
   

*7-12 p.m. Monday Routine
*Wake Up
*Pray and/or Read Scripture –
*Make Bed
*Feed Dogs
*Throw in a load of Laundary and fold a load of laundry
*Exercise (10 min. Yoga Stretching, 7 min. Interval Training, Walk our property with the Dogs for cardio.)
*Shower/Dress for Day
*Take Vitamins
*Eat Breakfast (Bowl of Oatmeal w/ apple and flax, and some hot tea)
*Make Phone calls
*Begin Work. (At work, I have a schedule because I have to be in meetings at specific times, etc., I also have my list of To Do’s with my deadlines, etc.)

A routine, unlike a schedule, has flexibility. A routine can be taken anywhere you go. It’s like a rhythm that you sing over and over in your head. It keeps you on track. Example: Here’s my Monday morning routine:

Then……you have your afternoon planned the same way and your evening. This ensures that your “one thing, gets done and you are specific with this one thing (Eating better) by planning your meals”.

3. Self-Affirm goals consistently through writing, and speaking affirmations out loud.
   Example – An affirmation for eating better might be: “I am a healthy eater”. So, when I arise I look at this card that is by my bedside table that I wrote and I say out loud, “I am a healthy eater”. Then, in my personal routine, I pray every morning. So….the Lord and I have a conversation about it and I might say to the Lord, “Lord thank you for this new day and for making me a healthy eater. Thank you for the new food that I am eating today. Thank you that it satisfies me. Thank you for your provision of this healthy food. I am a healthy person because of your power within me.” By doing this, I am trusting in something bigger than myself to assist me!
   
   
   
   Next I carry my affirmation with me. I put it on the dash in the car, hang it on my bathroom mirror, etc. “I am a healthy eater”.
   
   Finally, I say my affirmation out loud to myself throughout the day at least three times. Since this one is about eating, saying it before your meals would be sensational!

4. Be mindful in your intention.
   What does that mean? Whatever your intention or specific goal is “be mindful while participating in it”. If it is to eat healthy, be in a mindful state while you are eating.
   
   
   
   Here is an example of mindful eating:
   A. Eat at the table without the computer or the phone
   B. Eat with the TV off
   C. Think about and enjoy your food while you are eating it.
   D. Taste each bite, by taking smaller bites and chewing more thoroughly.
   E. You should be able to recognize when you are feeling full and stop when you feel it.

5. Track your progress daily.
   Journal what steps you took towards your intention or goal daily. For Eating better, that would be a food journal. This helps you see where you need to work and you can make adjustments to your specific plan for the following week. So, for eating better, if you ran out of your healthy whole grain bread on Wednesday, and the last two days, you found yourself eating canned soup, which didn’t fill you up and then ate a bag of chips, you’ll know to plan your grocery shopping differently for the next week.
   
   

You know the definition of insanity don’t you? It’s doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. Tracking daily helps you not to do the same wrong things over and over.

You will notice that I used index cards a lot. They work, they are cheap and I can redo them easily. Everyone has their own way of doing things, but the process of writing is a way to implement all of these steps into your brain so that they become habits more quickly.

Blessings to you on your health journey and remember…“it’s in the struggle that we become strong!”