Change and consistency

People so often look to make changes to their lifestyles. It's easy to get out of the habit of exercise and healthy eating routines become out of sync from the norm. This time of year is a great opportunity to take a look at your current routines and see what changes you can make to see an improvement in your health and fitness over the following months.
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Consistency
One of the most important things in order to improve your health and fitness is to be consistent. It can be tempting to try something for a few days and then go on to try something new. But the key for success to be consistent with each thing that you do. So you may introduce something to your routine and a few days later add something else but it is vital that you maintain the first thing that you started too. To see if something is working will usually take a reasonable period of time, it is rarely the case that you will see changes overnight but stick with it and the changes can be massive. That is the general principle and I will now give you some examples of the sorts of changes that you can make.

• Increase your water intake. Drink 2-3 litres of water every single day and see the benefits. Try it for 30 days, I’m sure that you won’t go back at the end of it!
• Increase the amount of a current activity. If you do 10,000 steps a day increase it to 11,000 steps. If you swim 20 lengths see if you can do 25 instead. If you lift weights you can try and increase the weight and reduce the reps. Whatever you currently do try and improve and increase it by a measurable increment.
• Try something new. If you do what you’ve always done your body will adapt and get used to it. So if you do something completely different it will give the body a shock and it can also be a fun way to give other types of exercise a go. If you’ve never lifted weights but would like a stronger and more defined body, find out how to do a weights routine and put it into your weekly routine. You’d like to be able to run? You can join a local running group or download an app like couch to 5km. You would like to improve your flexibility? Try and introduce a weekly pilates, yoga or bodybalance class or get yourself a stretching routine that you can follow at home.
• Prepare your food. In order to stick to a healthy eating routine, as I’ve said before, preparation is key. Plan what you are going to eat for the week ahead and shop and cook appropriately. It will make your life so much easier and it makes it simpler to introduce change.

 
These are just a few ways in which you can make changes to your lifestyle, you may want to just make one change or several changes to each aspect for a healthy lifestyle, whatever you choose to do remember to be consistent, stick with it and ask for help if you need it.
 
Thanks for reading! 

Vicki x

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