These three steps will help put your nutrition goals within reach—and make your new habits last.
Start With One Goal
Identify one area where you regularly fall short of your nutrition goals and decide what you could—and would do—to fix that one area.
Maybe you keep running late for work, so you go through the drive-through instead of preparing a healthy breakfast. If you buy the ingredients during your regular grocery run and put your blender out on the kitchen counter where you’ll see it every morning, you can make a healthy smoothie in a fraction of the time it takes to go through the drive-through—and you can still eat it on the go.
Give It Two Weeks
For the next two weeks, focus your efforts only on that one area.
This is not to say that you should eat and drink with reckless abandon after your breakfast smoothie. Just go about your meals as usual and focus on making this one healthy habit stick before worrying about adding others.
Focus on the Wins
Celebrate every small victory and take the setbacks in stride.
You bought your healthy ingredients. You made your smoothie Monday morning, Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, when you used the last of the frozen berries. Then Thursday you hit the drive-through again.
That’s three days of getting closer to your goal. Be proud of that!
Don’t let the rest of the week get away from you because of one small setback. Stop to pick up the berries you need on Thursday evening so that you can get back to your plan on Friday.
Michael Gallant is the Clinical Programs manager for Carilion Wellness.
