Healthy Endeavors

 It’s Wendy Battles, The Clean Eating Coach, checking in with you. So it’s the beginning of February, one month down in the new year.  Are you steadily on track for a healthy year or have you already veered off course with clean eating?

Here’s my simple solution to stay on track with clean eating during 2012: identify one simple goal and work toward it between now and the end of March. Let’s break things down and think one quarter at a time so as not to be overwhelmed.

I know, you’re probably saying, “I have a laundry list of goals I want to accomplish this year with my health, why only one?”

Simply put, I want you to focus on what’s most important and make small steps in that direction. When you have a long list of goals you diffuse your attention across too many activities and it’s easy to feel like you’re not making any forward progress.

Instead, why not adopt just one clean eating goal – your biggest, juiciest clean eating goal that you want to achieve no matter what! Something that will motivate you and get you into action. Here are a few examples:

• Drink at least 6 glasses of water per day to support clear, glowing, you-can’t-be-over-25-looking skin
• Juice fresh fruits and vegetables at least 3 times per week for super-charged energy, kissing the mid-afternoon I-just-have-to-take-a-nap slump a triumphant goodbye
• Prepare one clean eating meal per week where half can be frozen for later use to create a mini-stockpile of, healthy, delicious and easily accessible meals – no expensive, less than healthy takeout needed

I think you get the idea – it has to be something that’s important to you, with a specific, desired result that will keep you going when you want to give up.

When we focus on only one goal at a time, we can give it our full attention yet take small steps in the right direction. I can think of plenty of baby steps to move toward the goal of at least 6 glasses of water a day:

• Buy a beautiful, recyclable cup to keep in the car and hydrate while you’re driving as well as use at work
• Fill the bottle at night so it’s ready to roll in the morning without the least bit of effort
• Set an alarm twice a day for water alerts – say mid morning and mid-afternoon – to keep you on track and remind you to drink up
• Find a water drinking buddy at work to help hold you accountable, ask him or her to check in with you each day at a certain time
• Record how much water you drank at the end of the day – to increase your awareness and see how you can do better the next day

Then be sure to identify how you know you will be successful like:

• Not a trace of acne or dry skin
• You look in the mirror and feel perfectly content with what you see
• A steady stream of “your skin looks SO amazing” compliments

Once you master your first, most important clean eating goal for the first quarter of 2012 and you’re feeling victorious (and have solidly integrated it into your busy life), THEN move on to creating a new, equally juicy goal for the next quarter.

So…what’s your number one goal for 2012, clean eating wise? What are you committed to doing no matter what? What’s got you inspired to get and stay in action?

Let me know what you’ve got in mind and the first steps you plan to take. Need some help getting started? Just let me know and I’d be happy to provide some coaching.

Filed under: clean eating, Goal setting, Healthy lifestyle, Healthy Meals, Motivation