Motivating myself to stick to healthy habits.

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!

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.

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

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!

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!