Acceptance & Planning- Two Keys To Establishing A Healthy Routine

How solid are your habits?  Do you feel balanced with work and play?  After four years of attempting to get healthy and many failed attempts to do so- I learned that good health that sticks is about acceptance and planning. First, you need to accept that change doesn’t happen overnight, and to be successful, you must accept your starting point and what will motivate you to power through the lulls in commitment when you’d rather stick to habits that aren’t healthy.  

Over time, I’ve accepted that there are some workouts I do NOT like doing. Swimming. I hate swimming.  HATE. Don’t ask me why. I should love swimming, but I don’t.  Additionally, I never seemed to be able to make yoga classes a habit, and had several community passes that lapsed without usage.  It wasn’t until I took a break from triathlon training (which meant no more waiting at crowded pools for lanes, yay!), and realized that I preferred to do yoga at home with a DVD instead of fighting the night owl in me to do 6:30am classes, that I started to make workouts a regular thing in my weekday.  

I have learned you have to accept where you’re starting. Number one, healthy changes won’t be easy.  Number two, you can’t try to change things all at once.  Trying to do 6:30am yoga classes was silly for me- I don’t like getting up at 5:30am, trekking it out on a bus to get to classes and I really, really, truly, am not motivated to leave the house at that hour when it’s 0 degrees outside. Some people can, I cannot.  I started making yoga a habit when I got some good at home DVD’s, and now that yoga is habitual and the weather is better- I may try and find new classes that are at a later hour and go when the weather is nice.  I’m going to be healthy, but I can’t change everything about myself, including my desire to stay up late and sleep in when I can!

The second aspect of getting healthy that I’ve come to embrace is planning.  I am a type A personality who plans everything out, I love to have my calendar color coded, and full of activity…except when it came to planning for food and exercise.  I’d usually work myself into exhaustion, grabbing whatever was in the fridge (Oh cheese and leftover crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, eh?) and never plan for the inevitability that I’d be hungry.

Additionally, I always thought I’d “squeeze in” time to be healthy.  Well lovies, if you’re like me- working out can sometimes be fun, but sometimes it can feel like work.  You have to put time down on the calendar, in pen no less, to make sure it gets done.  When exercise is an afterthought, don’t be surprised when you never think about it.  

Now, I bust out my calendar every week and plan my meals and workouts while I eat breakfast and have my morning coffee.  I have committed to doing 3 days of workouts a week, for only around 30 minutes a round.  That’s a baseline of 1.5 hours a week..it’s not a lot, but it’s a habitual and it’s the bar I promise myself I will reach for every single week.  When I’ve overcommitted, I usually get frustrated that I fail.  If I can commit to a basic routine that makes me feel good and still fit into a busy day- it’s a win-win.

I plan for breakfast too- I know that if I don’t start my day off right, by skipping breakfast, I’m usually hangry by lunch.  A little Chobani Simply 100 Greek Yogurt fits in my gym bag, but also- can be stockpiled when they’re on sale for a week or more at a time, so I know when I’m hankering for a sweet bite and don’t want to undo my progress, I’ll always have some on hand.  My fridge door is full of yogurts!

I have been a fan of Chobani Simply 100 because it helps me balance a healthy choice with my predictable sweet tooth.    It’s lower in sugar than many yogurts, and is sweetened with stevia, monk fruit and evaporated cane juice, nothing chemical that will mess with your system later! Plus, it’s a great source of both protein and fiber with some yummy flavors that make you feel satisfied, not deprived.  

I almost gave up on yogurts previously, since many of them were loaded with 20g of sugar or more, but at just 100 calories, 7g of sugar and 12g of protein, it’s yummy and doesn’t sabotage your workout…balance.

How do you achieve balance in your life and make healthy routines a habit with acceptance and planning?

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Chobani Simply 100 Greek Yogurt through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about Simply 100, all opinions are my own.