Happy New Year!

Happy new year to you! This is a great time for reflection and renewal, especially around health and wellness. Many are motivated to finally change their life for the better.  The air is full of hope and inspiration. It’s a great time!

But how good is the effort if the changes don’t last long-term? Short-term change does nothing to help you from developing a chronic illness, which accounts for 80% of deaths in our society. Short-term change does nothing to help our quality of life 5, 10, 20, 40 years from now.

Don’t we want to be 90 years old and feel like we’re 40? We definitely can.

We are committed to helping you develop good habits for a lifetime. It’s the only way to true well-being.

So, here are some tips to get started right.

• Take 5 minutes and identify 3 healthy behaviors you’d like to add to your life. Write it down, so you can see it plain and clear. Then, describe how your life would change if you adopted these behaviors for the rest of your life. How would you feel, emotionally and physically? Be as specific as possible. It only takes a few minutes and is amazingly powerful. It helps you to articulate what is important to you, and to help you focus!
• Look for healthy choices that are easy for you.  “No pain, no gain” does not ring true in health. If starting off the day with a big glass of water seems easy to you, do it! Do it, and do it every day. Is it easy for you to wear a pedometer and keep an eye on how much you walk each day? Then do it! Just do it. How about walking every day to the mailbox? How about eating a fresh fruit or vegetable with every snack or meal, even if it’s just one apple slice or carrot? If you think that’s sustainable, do it. Do it, because once it becomes second nature to you, you will add more healthy choices. The walk to the mailbox will, over time, become a 30 minute walk. The one carrot with dinner will become a salad. It may not happen right away, but it will. We’ve seen it happen with our participants! However, if you try to do something that feels like it will be hard and painful, it will cause stress, and more importantly, you will likely not be able to sustain it for the long-term.
• Get the facts. You may be shocked to learn that chronic illness rates are skyrocketing, regardless of the amount of medications and medical interventions we are prescribing. It may inspire you to learn that eating an additional serving of produce a day, or walking 30 minutes has a huge impact on your health – that studies show the benefits outperform medications. You may be left in awe when you learn how perfect our bodies are designed, and just giving it the right ingredients can result in miracles. We have provided some of this type of evidence-based information on this website, but we also encourage you to contact us to schedule a free wellness assessment, where you will get such info in addition to your customized 9-page report.
• Eat well, move well, think well – all are important. You can’t achieve true health without all three. When looking for healthy choices that are easy for you, remember to think in all three areas. Thinking well can often be neglected, and yet many of us believe it’s the most impactful of the three.

Remember, we will be scheduling wellness assessments this month, as well as launching a new “pod” for our Lifestyle Program. Contact us for details.

We wish you a happy and healthy 2012!