new year

New Year Healthfit Centre Opening Hours
Closed from 4pm 23rd December 2019
Open for reduced hours 8.30 – 12.30am  Thu 2nd and Fri 3rd January 2020
Open for reduced hours 8.30 – 4pm Mon 6th to Fri 10th January
Normal hours and Daybreak circuit class from Monday 13th January

Gift vouchers
Plan ahead or do a last-minute gift decision to get a gift voucher for any of Healthfit’s exercise physiology, personal training or centre use services. Your gift may be a life-changer for your loved one.  We suggest though that this not be a surprise gift to ensure it is a keeper.  
New Decade. New You!
When we talk of the 20’s now it won’t refer to the art deco days of the 1920’s but to another period of constant change to our world and our lives.  Humans are clever at adapting to change in general. The pace of change is increasing so we have to keep up and this means keeping healthy.

Improving or even maintaining health is mainly dependent on:

• Eating healthily
• Good sleep
• Adequate physical activity
• Socialising
• Mental stimulation

Can you honestly tick off all these aspects?  Maybe some of them for some of the time is manageable in this busy decade. Optimal health is a dynamic state of being. It is something that most of us strive for and rarely ever fully achieve and this is because of its dynamic nature, ie, we cannot just tick them off and move onto the next item. It is a juggle with the other aspects of life that seem to have more urgency or priority and factors such as adequate sleep, satisfying socialising and time for sufficient exercise often suffer a reduction in our attention.

So, what do we need to do now to ensure our balance of health is beneficial and sustainable?  I feel that the first step is deciding what in your current lifestyle needs to change and when you determine to make a clear start on some new goals.

The next step is time management as this might have been the main problem to date. Look at your average weekly ‘commitments’ and decide if they are as important as previously thought or if you can make slight changes to suit and to gain back some strategic time blocks.

Maybe use a paper or electronic calendar that you can expand enough to include all weekly events including work, shopping, cleaning, children/grandchildren’s needs, regular clubs and dates, medical appointments, gym or outdoor exercise days and timeslots.  

You could then be even more incisive and allocate times to plan holidays or concerts and social events well ahead so you don’t miss out on having some fun and time for regeneration. 

What about times to focus on mental stimulation, working out when you are at peak intellectual ability, morning or evening? 

Meal planning is essential already in some busy households yet advance preparation for food shopping and cooking could be a great way for retirees to start on cleaning up your health habits.  Put it on the calendar or diary.

Sleep is rarely a calendar item as it is considered a routine thing that happens to most people every 24-hour cycle.  Apparently, we cannot really make up for lost sleep and it is best to wake at the same time every day, even on weekends. Planning for adequate sleep might feature on someone’s 2020 calendar since the demands on our time are ever-increasing whether by necessity or accident.

Time management is vital ‘going forward’ and there are many good sources of information on how to manage time effectively and not just for working people either. Those who have less-structured weekly lifestyles are often the most in need of managing their time for improvements to their health. The reason for this is the lack of perceived urgency, a lack of routine to work around and an attitude that any distraction is to be pursued so that boredom doesn’t affect them.

To revise this article so far:

1. Recognize important factors of staying healthy or improving one’s health
2. Decide what you need to change if health is important to you
3. Set some clear goals
4. Manage your time per daily and/or weekly cycles

 
Then there are two further steps which are the most important in this cycle of change:

1. Implementation
2. Adherence or ‘sticking to the new habits’

I’d love to have space in this article and for your attention span to describe what you can do to implement a health behaviour and persistently keep it up to feel a state of great wellbeing. However, the strategies will not be the same for everyone anyway. Yet if the seed has been planted for you to make the next decade of your life a healthier, happier one then get started on steps 1-4 and if the last two stages are still a major barrier come and see us at Healthfit for some expert advice in health and fitness.
We love to help people help themselves!
Gregg Orphin AEP AES