It’s hard to believe that a month has passed since I had my first meeting with Steph, one of Telford & Wrekin Council’s Healthy Lifestyles advisors, to discuss getting healthier and being more active.
On Wednesday 26th April Steph returned to Madeley Community Library for her monthly Healthy Lifestyles pop-up, so I was ready for my next meeting.
After my first session, Steph and I set three goals for me. The first was to join the local gym, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Unfortunately, as always happens, daily life took over and I haven’t yet joined. In all honesty, could I have set half an hour aside to join the gym? Absolutely! While I have been busy, I have used this and other excuses as a reason that it wasn’t the right day to join the gym. In discussing these excuses with Steph, she assures me that I don’t have to be putting hours in at the gym and if I can only get there for 20 minutes, it’s 20 minutes that I wasn’t doing before, so it all counts.
With this in mind, I am renewing my motivation to join the gym and want to make the commitment that I don’t want to embarrass myself in my next post trying to explain to you why I still haven’t joined.
My second goal was to dig out my fit bit and start wearing it again. This goal has been a little more successful and I have found both the fit bit and the charger, result! I have started to wear it again, though my next job is to re-sync the fit bit as it currently doesn’t know the date or the time, so come midmorning while I’m busy building my steps, my fitbit thinks midnight has arrived and resets my steps, not brilliant when you look down and realise you’re back to zero, but I’m on it!
My third goal, which I was almost completely successful with was to complete a food diary for a week. Now, I didn’t think it through when I was deciding when to complete it, I chose to begin on 17th April, a week after Easter when I still had chocolate and also my Birthday which we all know means nice food and receiving more chocolate as gifts, so I certainly wasn’t showing my best week food wise.
Before setting to work on reviewing my food diary, Steph got me on the scales, again by choice, you won’t ever be made to feel pressured into measuring your weight. I was actually exactly the same weight, which I was ok with given the recent snacking on all things chocolate.
This gave Steph a good indicator that with my current levels of eating and activity I am burning the same calories as I am putting in. My food diary wasn’t too bad, I enjoy cooking and we don’t eat out regularly or have lots of takeaways, but Steph and I discussed some tweaks I could make that would save a few calories here and there and ultimately, even with the same activity levels I would start using more calories than I’m putting in. Simple things like weighing my cereal in a morning, switching from semi-skimmed to skimmed milk in my tea at work and upping the amount and number of vegetables with my evening meal will be easy to implement but make a change over the longer term.
So, after my second meeting, my goals remain similar but with a few tweaks:-
- Join the gym, but with a view to short sessions to make it manageable and achievable
- Get the fitbit synced and start properly monitoring my steps daily
- Make the agreed small changes to my eating and complete another food diary.
Despite not being as successful as I wanted to be during the first month, I am finding myself thinking about my goals more regularly and knowing that I’m meeting with a Healthy Lifestyles Advisor is making me feel more accountable for what I’m doing.
While I knew it would be the case, you do sometimes worry about being judged when you haven’t achieved as much as planned, but Steph is absolutely there to support me and the second meeting was just as positive and motivating as the first.
If you’re struggling with motivation and commitment to achieve your goals I really recommend giving Healthy Lifestyles a go. Having your own personal cheerleader cannot be underestimated.
The next drop-in session at Madeley Community Library will be from 9.30am to 12noon on Wednesday 24th May or to find out more beforehand check out Introduction – Healthy Lifestyles Service – Telford & Wrekin Council
