Have you seen, heard or been involved in any healthy living challenges since the year began. Like “7-day juicing challenge”, “14-day running challenge” or “30-day smoothie challenge”? It seems like a Fad these days right? I know! They seem to have abounded, gaining great momentum. Makes me wonder though, after the challenge is over, what then? You stop walking, running or drinking your smoothies???
The other day I was reading an article from one of the bloggers I follow and he recounted how he had to wait 20-30 minutes to get on a treadmill at the gym in January and by the first week of February when he got to the gym, he just got a spot immediately at the gym. You wonder why? Well, as you might have guessed, the gym was half empty! Why? Because most people who had all these New Year goals and/or resolutions had begun to faint on them. #sighs #guiltyface
I am not against these kinds of challenges as it helps jumpstart you on a path but more importantly, how do you keep what you attained through this challenge. Yeah, life happens….people get busy, things get crazy and all that, but I am of the opinion that we always make time for whatever is REALLY important to us. There’s a “busy flu” going around. Urgh!! Hope you didn’t get it? You should not be too busy for your health. I’ll share more on this “busy flu” later.
What is a Fad? I found various attention-grabbing adjectives that describe it so well.
“A craze”; “Mania” ; “ Enthusiasm” ; “Passion” ; “Obsession”; “ In Vogue” ; “A trend”; “Fetish” ; “ Fancy”; “Fascination”. The best definition I liked is “Intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object’s qualities”! GBAM! See! The key word there is short-lived. I am sure we all want lasting changes for our bodies and health and not just a spurt or ripple of goodness.
Well, in order to achieve so, we need to embrace lifestyle changes and not just join a Fad or movement but consistently do good to our bodies to have lasting results. It can be challenging to do this on our own and there are tools for accountability we can capitalize on to do so. Stay tuned and I’ll share with you some of these tools that have been proven to help if you use them.
Dear friends, quit the fads on diet and exercise binging – you get no lasting change from it. Stop having flings and one-night stands with your health. A winter relationship isn’t good enough. Make a commitment, get married to lifestyle changes, and put a ring on it! I leave you with this insightful quote.
Article is by Tolu Oyewumi, a Primary Care Physician and Public Health professional.