Motivating myself to stick to healthy habits.

I love these comments it reminds we of my lovely Gran who used to go through the family and close friends until she got the right one, male or female but I don't recall her getting confused with a pet.

I've never met anybody doing it this way

I always used to think the name mixing was a female thing, but I'm glad I spotted your comment because I now realise it can obviously happen with males too.

I tend to mix names as well. If I can't recall the correct one I sometimes use a different one before I manage to stop myself

I find that hilarious... particularly the part about your mum calling you the cats' names.

When my dad was alive, my mother often call me his name when talking to me on the phone. Had she called me the name of one of her sisters, I wouldn't have minded. Another thing she used to do was to refer to my grandma (my dad's mum) as "your mother" when talking to me, resulting in me reminding her that it was her daughter she was talking to and not her husband. 

I remember the grandson of one of my dad's cousins telling me that she (his grandmother) would reel off a whole host of names until she got to the right one. 

My Mum would call me or my sister by the first half of the other one's name and then the actual name! Or any name handy, including her sister's dog, or the dog before the current one!

And I am also a fantastic planner, not so great on the action....

My Mum used to call me the name of whichever of her sisters she'd spoken to that day.  But sometimes one of my brothers' names, and occasionally one of the cats'.  I drew the line at wrong species...well actually no I didn't really mind.

Don't worry about Helen. As I believe my late Grandma used to say, "I don't mind what you call me, as long as it's nothing horrible". 

Oh sorry I mean Sparkly!!

I love that this forum is so happy to read the long posts! Not everyone, I know, and that is fine. But I enjoy reading a long detailed post on an interesting topic and am so happy to be in the place where that is kind of normal!

No tips but makes me feel a bit better due to solidarity Triker!

Definitely not too long for me Triker!  

I feel like you could be describing me Helen. If procrastination and lack of motivation were an Olympic sport, I'm fairly sure I would have a large collection of gold medals. 

Several months ago I had made my mind up that I was going to get into the habit of going for a daily walk around my local playing field. Has it happened? Nope!

As for my eating habits, they're horrendous. Give me a multi-pack of crisps and I'd probably devour the lot within a day or so. If there is something I enjoy that is deemed unhealthy, I have no self-control whatsoever.

So, in response to your question, you have probably already figured out that I have no tips to share. 

Burn what you eat, or better burn more than you eat normally, than you've got spare for naughty days

Btw in my opinion alcohol is the worst kind of drug, and the most damaging to body, don't drink a lot, everything in moderation is fine

Wow, I'm glad it was so helpful! I was concerned it was too long and rambling.

Oh this is a great reply too Homebird, thank you!  It's making me hungry actually, I'd better go and have breakfast.

This is such a great reply Triker, I want to print it off and keep it!

I love listening to music, so maybe I can find a way to work that in as a reward.  

And I am the kind of person who might respond to gold stars, LOL.  I'm in my early fifties but have school age kids so my excuse is that they keep me young.

Like others have suggested I find having a list helpful so I can cross things off. If I have something to do I am not keen on I set myself a goal like when it's done I can have a coffee break or aim to finish when there is something I want to watch on TV.

Trying to keep fit and healthy for me started in lockdown. I have a pint glass of water near most of the time and as it holds more I don't have to go and fill it up so often.

For a while I tried having orange juice with water instead of coffee, but in the end missed the coffee. I also tried to reduce the amount of dairy and meat I eat and experimented with having meals with variety of vegetables and chickpeas or beans. I found adding pepper (vegetable as well as black pepper), onion, vegetable stock etc improved the flavour. I would have this with pasta, small potatoes with skins left on or crunchy bread. I put a variety of vegetables with this. I now might have a meal like this once or twice a week. If I make shepherd's pie substituting some of the meat with lentils makes it healthier. If I am doing a roast I add water and plenty of seasoning, but not fat. I make gravy from stock cubes but don't add fat. I cook roast potatoes with skin and little or no fat.

I think it is important too to eat meals that make you feel full as this makes it less likely to be tempted to snack.

I now try to walk most days, either in my lunch break or early in the day. I often go early so I don't go off the idea later. I used to use a health app to collect heart points which motivated me to go further, but since having Covid I find this harder so just aim to walk for at least 20 minutes as often as possible. It depends on where you live, but as far as I can I try to walk in areas where there are gardens, green areas and as little traffic as possible. This makes the walking more enjoyable.

This is a good topic. I am OK at some of this but not so much other parts.

1. Water. My motivation is that I discovered I genuinely felt better when I was hydrated, both my arthritic joints and also tend to feel more tired and maybe get a headache if I get dehydrated. I did not find it easy to work it into my life though and it took a while. First I had to solve the problem of not liking the taste of tap water where I lived (some places have lovely tap water and others vile!) so I had bottled water but the plastic offends me so I filter my water. I have to keep water by where I sit and I have a set amount I drink.

I measure it in gulps because glasses can be different sizes and that makes it hard to know if I had the right amount when out. My Dad complicated it for me by saying it is not ideal to have too much at once, little and often is best! So what I do is in my morning hour or so in bed before getting up I have 4 gulps of water, then coffee, then half an hour after the first 4 gulps 4 more. Then 4 more after another half hour. Then after breakfast through the morning I have another 3 sets of 4 at least half an hour apart (though I sometimes cut it to 20 mins and probably 15 would be fine) Then again in the afternoon 3 sets of 4 and then in the evening just 2 sets of 3 or I will need to pee in the night! Oh, and a coffee at lunch and one after dinner. And that is all my drinks usually.

Writing that out it sounds quite obsessive and annoying, haha! But it works for me. I keep hydrated through the whole day. If I go out exercising or get hot and sweaty I have more, or if I have a blood test as being super hydrated makes it easier for them to find a vein.

2. Eating healthy. I changed my breakfast to oats, dried fruit, spices and skim milk. The dried fruit helps with 5 a day veg (or 7 or whatever) although some would say it is too sugary to count, but it still has vits! Husband does the cooking. I make sure we order plenty of veg and healthy food and he cooks it! I do not order bad foods like cake, biccies, chocolate etc except very rarely as a treat, as if it is in the house he will eat it. I can resist, but my sense of fairness is offended if he has treats that I don't! Also he doesn't exercise as much as me and he doesn't want to get fat so although he grumbles he accepts it.

3. Exercise. This is harder as I am disabled. Once I found exercise I can do, cycling on my trike, I am very motivated to do it both because it is fun and because I am happy to now be able to do something I could not for so long. When I went to the gym that was also driven partly by novelty and partly by sheer joy of being able to get fit when I had been unable to. But in winter it is hard as I dislike to cycle in the rain and can't get going in the morning, and so many rainy afternoons! i still manage 2 or 3 times most weeks, but it is not really enough in winter, so it is a problem. I would have gone for the gym in winter but covid.

I try to do stretches and situps and suchlike but it is so hard to get a habit of them, I have not yet worked out how best to fit them into my day. I think if I made a habit of doing some before lunch and some before bed or something then that might help.

4. Avoiding bad calories. I don't have such a problem here as I can resist things so much easier than I can implement things! I would find not having them in the house effective. Or cut down, get some small glasses and only have one every other day. I read that the brain benefit of chocolate is two squares of dark chocolate and any more than that has no brain benefit, so that is my max. As there is no need for more I am not tempted unless people are handing them round more than twice! And then I will often put the extras in my pocket for another day...

Can you find another treat/reward/comfort for yourself other than chocolate and wine? Listening to some music you like or doing a hobby? I am a bit weird as I can manage to get a bit of a brain reward for resisting a thing, which makes it relatively easy to stop a bad habit, or to lose weight by diet alone which was so much harder than by exercising without increasing calories! But if you can't do that then find a non-calorie reward, even some people are motivated by a gold star sheet or something. And then have a glass of wine for every ten gold stars.

Again my motivation is that when i am too heavy my knees hurt climbing the stairs. And I started to get high blood pressure but did not want to be put on meds so I decided to sort my lifestyle out.

Find a motivation that works for you. For me it was fear as the stick and the carrot is that I find I do feel better, less tense and anxious, when I exercise. I hope something in this overly long essay is helpful!