Healthy choices look different to everyone
This week we have been chatting to our members about how healthy choices might feel and look different to every individual person and their circumstances.
- To someone who struggles to hit their fibre goals, snacking on fruit and veg would be a healthy choice.
- For someone who struggles to hit their protein target, snacking on protein would be the healthy choice.
- To someone with an eating disorder (ED) eating ice cream might be the pinnacle of a healthy choice because it represents moving towards a place where they feel more confident with flexibility in their food choices.
- To someone who experiences gastric distress when eating ice cream, this wouldn’t feel like a healthy choice because of the uncomfortable symptoms that they experience when they eat it.
- A healthy choice for someone who wants to run a marathon might look like setting time aside multiple times per week to run, whilst also making time for conditioning and recovery – this might come at a cost to other parts of their lifestyle, for example their social life and other hobbies.
- To someone who sits at a desk all day and has less than 10 minutes spare daily for exercise, doing 10 minutes of mobility exercises before bed is a huge win.
- To someone who has an extremely busy lifestyle with very limited time to prepare and cook meals at home, ordering a set of high protein, high fibre ready meals and/or having protein bars/protein shakes might be the healthy choice.
- To someone who has time, but struggles with nutritional quality, setting time aside to learn how to plan, prep and cook meals that support their health and well-being might be the healthy choice.
- To someone who struggles with their mental health but has found a safe space and community in a gym, the healthy choice might look like turning up 3-4 times a week and getting on with a good workout.
- To someone who works full time and has a few kids at home, the healthy choice might look like staying at home and doing a workout on the Nintendo Wii or a dance party in the kitchen with the kids.
We all have different commitments, different preferences and different needs. When we look at this for each individual, we can start to build a routine and a set of habits that suit them.
The biggest barrier to getting great results is consistency.
The biggest barrier to consistency is trying to follow a plan or a set of ‘rules’ that doesn’t suit you.
There is always a way to build an exercise routine and a good set of health supporting habits around the commitments that you already have, so that you don’t feel like you are being pulled apart by competing intentions.
If you have any questions about this, and/or want to know how to personalise things to suit your own needs, drop me a line on nicola@rossellfitness.co.uk and we can book you in for a chat about you, your goals and how to get you on your way to achieving them.
