Do you have trouble sticking to a healthy lifestyle? You know what you need to do and have a plan but you can’t seem to stick to it? It’s a rather common problem. In this make cooking more enjoyable video, I’m going to talk about five things that you could do to set yourself up for success, so you can finally live that healthy lifestyle that you envision. If you’re interested keep watching. Hello, hello! Welcome back to The Whole Happy Life. I wanted to say a quick thank you to all the new subscribers! I have 500 subscribers now! Thank you for supporting the channel – for all your likes and for all your comments. It really means a lot to me and I really, really mean it. Anyway let’s get started and talk about today’s video. So as a holistic nutritionist I see a lot of clients and some of them struggle with sticking to the plan and some do really well.

And over the years I’ve realized that there are some things that people can do to set themselves up for success and in this video I want to share those things so that when you start your healthy living plan or your healthy lifestyle you can actually stick to it. So, let’s begin! Okay the first thing and I think this is the most important. If you don’t do any of the other tips in this video just do this one. I think will make a huge difference! That is to find out what truly motivates you because if you don’t have a strong motivating factor, you’re not going to stick to your healthy plan for very long. Now let me explain. So by motivating factor I’m not talking about something that’s going to motivate you short term.

For example, weight loss is a motivator for sure, but it’s a short-term motivator. So people are motivated until they lose the weight and then they go back to their old ways and then they regain the weight in some cases. So what I’m talking about is figuring out things that will motivate you long term so that you can make those lifestyle changes and really stick to them for the long haul and not just for a couple months. I can illustrate this better with an example so I had a client who did everything to at T and it was amazing because most people can’t follow plans to T and I don’t expect them to either but she was really really motivated, so I asked her what’s motivating you what’s keeping you going because you’re doing an amazing job. So she had a really interesting thing to say – her main motivating factor was not to lose weight it was something she was trying to do she was trying to lose weight but that was on her main motivation. Her main motivation was to set a good example for her daughter.

She wanted to become a role model for her daughter. So her daughter could learn healthy habits as well and I think that was amazing because it’s such a strong motivating factor and something that’s going to motivate her every single day. So, even if she falls off the wagon for a couple days she’ll get back on it because she has that strong motivating factor. Now obviously that motivating factor may not work for you. What works for you may not work for me – we’re all different. But I wanted to give you that as an example. Now an example of what motivates me is my mother passed away when I was 28. She was only 51 – she had a heart attack and it was a result of diabetes and diabetes is a lifestyle disease. Obviously it has a genetic component, but it’s mainly lifestyle – you can prevent diabetes if you take care of yourself.

So for me – my main motivating factor for becoming a holistic nutritionist and taking care of myself is to prevent diabetes. Now what I suggest you do is sit down, get a piece of paper and get a pen – brainstorm! Figure out what it is and motivate you to write everything down. Whatever pops up in your head- there’s no wrong motivating factor. Once you’ve written down a couple factors, figure out which one really means the most to you and which one is a long term motivating factor. And you know what to write that down on a post-it note stick it up on your fridge or a mirror that you look at every day. It’s a constant reminder as to why you’re actually on this healthy plan and why you’re trying to live a healthier lifestyle. So number two is time management. So a lot of people who come to me as clients they know that they need to eat healthy it’s going to require some cooking, but they can’t seem to find the time. Now I know we live very busy lives today it’s not like it used to be but we all have 24 hours in the day and some people can manage to do a lot more than others and I think it comes down to time management, efficiency and you know asking for help when you need it.

My suggestion is to figure out where you spend your time. So for three days write down a time journal – every single hour of your account it. This is going to be a little bit tedious but it’s going to give you a really good picture. When I did this I figured out how much time I was spending on social media and on my phone just aimlessly scrolling and you know what that is time that you could use for other things for cooking for meal prep for exercise for meditation for all the things that you think you don’t have time for.

Number three – make cooking more enjoyable. So when it comes to healthy eating, cooking is usually part of the process because I believe that it’s much better to have home-cooked meals. Because no matter how well you try to eat when you’re out you really don’t know the ingredients that they’re using and you don’t have control over what they’ve put in their food but when you’re cooking at home you have a lot more control.

But I do understand that not everybody likes cooking. Well make cooking more enjoyable I didn’t like cooking when I first started, but you have to realize when it comes to long-term health enjoying cooking and making it less of a chore goes a really long way. So I have a video on how to make cooking more enjoyable. I’m going to link it in the description box below to watch the video but the one tip I wanted to share here is to embrace experimentation because the more you experiment in the kitchen the more you figure out what you enjoy the more you’re going to enjoy cooking Number four – let go of perfection! So I can’t count how many times I’ve had clients come to me and they start the plan really well and two weeks in something happens in life happens or they’ve got something going on or they’re busy they’ve gone on vacation and they fall off the wagon completely and never get back on it because in their mind they need to do the plan perfectly.

But I don’t agree with that way of looking at health. Health is not about being perfect all the time. It’s about doing what you can and doing the best. So let’s say you know it’s Friday and you feel like you really need a piece of cake enjoy it don’t beat yourself up for it don’t feel like you need to punish yourself with an extra workout the next day. You don’t need to do that and don’t use that cake on Friday as an excuse to eat poorly on Saturday and Sunday so you can start on Monday. Don’t do that. That’s not the way to go because that is the perfectionist attitude – oh I didn’t have a perfect weekend so you know what I’m just going to be bad all weekend and then I’m going to do well on Monday.

It doesn’t need to be like that. Do your best every day and when you want to indulge don’t beat yourself up for it because you are in this for the long haul. Not for the short term -for the long haul. So strive for progress not perfection! Number five – find a buddy now this person is someone who’s going to help you stay accountable. It doesn’t need to be someone who’s doing the healthy eating and living plan with you, it just needs to be someone who you’re comfortable with and someone who can push you. Talk to your buddy once a week or once in two weeks, whatever works for you and tell them what your progress is and what your setbacks are and see if they can give you some sort of advice or you know their opinions on the matter and they can help push you in the right direction. I find that when we have someone to talk to and someone who will keep us accountable we are more likely to stick to a plan as opposed to doing it on our own.

So to make cooking more enjoyable those are the five things! I hope you enjoyed the video and learned something new. If you did, give it the thumbs up and don’t forget to subscribe. I create videos like this every week and before you go and let me know in the comment box below what are some of your main struggles when it comes to eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle? I’d love to hear from you and you know maybe some of your ideas could become topics for videos. Anyway I will see you in the next video. Bye!.

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