Small Change, Big Results for Your New Year’s Resolution
Are you thinking about making a New Year’s Resolution but are unsure what to focus on? Record what you eat. Don’t track every day, just one day a week to start. You don’t have to calculate calories or carbs or do anything with the data, just write it down. Your goal is to record. Just focusing on recording your food intake gives you time to learn about yourself. Recording allows you to be more objective about how you eat and, in time, can help you decide what could be different about your diet.
This is what it could look like for you in 2017:
First, you just focus on recording what you eat, one day a week. You start eating better, especially on the days you record. Nothing drastic, but smaller changes. You become more attentive to what is on your plate, what you order from the restaurant, and what you get from the store. Sometimes you might record more than once a week.
After a few weeks, you start making more changes. You stop getting certain foods from the store so they aren’t in the house and start adding in others more often (fruits and veggies!). You start trying lighter options on the menu when dining out.
You get results. You start adding in more exercise to your life. Your energy and mood improves. Pains, aches and discomforts are less present. You win the Nobel Peace prize! And an Oscar, for the movie you finally wrote and starred in and directed, which was based on the best-selling book that you wrote! And all your other dreams come true!
Perhaps, 2017 won’t look exactly like that for you (maybe, though!). But the point is that it’s more important to focus on the work of learning about yourself and allowing for change to happen more naturally. There’s so much nutrition and fitness advice and it’s good to learn from a lot of sources, but it won’t do much good until you “Know Thyself.” I’m not saying that change will be easy or that you should always do everything on your own, but committing to something like recording your eating is a strong step towards owning your health, and that’s worth more than any health program.
