I’d like to lose some weight and to get fit. I know what I should be doing and yet I continue to miss breakfast because I’m so tired on a morning (I don’t sleep very well) and I just don’t feel like eating. I have a strong coffee to wake myself up and sometimes another when I get into the office.
I’m always making resolutions about eating healthily, but after a few days I find myself eating one of the cakes that someone has brought in to work because it is their birthday and then I think, ‘What’s the point?’
I joined a gym at the beginning of the year and managed to go almost every day in the first week. Then I had a lot of commitments at work and so I only went twice in the next couple of weeks. Then I got another bad cold and couldn’t go and in the end I just gave up.
I stopped smoking a few years ago and I only have one glass of wine on an evening – more on a weekend. I buy organic meat and vegetables and I buy a sandwich or go to an Italian restaurant for pizza or pasta. My partner and I go out for a meal about twice a week: I can never resist the bread basket and I usually have a starter and a dessert.
Chei, aged 32, web designer
The trouble is that there is little point learning how to alter your thinking so that you become a positive person, if you don’t also give the same kind of attention to your body. In Chapter 1, we looked at how your thoughts affect the way that you feel physically – so that, when you are nervous, you might feel sick or, when you are worried, you may get a headache.
The reverse is also true: when you eat too much of the wrong food, it affects your thinking and it is difficult to concentrate. If you have a bad night’s sleep, you may be irritable and snappy with everyone you meet. If you don’t get sufficient fresh air and exercise, it is difficult to feel energised and motivated. In other words, it is a chicken-and-egg situation: it is almost impossible to have a positive outlook on life if you are not at the same time looking after yourself physically.
Most people, like Chei, know what they have to do to stay healthy. We know about the ‘five a day’ and that sugars and fat should be kept to a minimum. We know that cigarettes cause chest complaints and lung cancer and that drinking too much alcohol detrimentally affects our behaviour and our livers. We know that eating too much of the wrong kinds of food and taking too little exercise causes us to feel lethargic and to put on weight. We know that being indoors all day, perhaps in a centrally-heated office, and then relaxing every evening at home in front of the television means that we often find it difficult to sleep. We are bombarded everyday with messages about what we should and shouldn’t do to keep our bodies healthy and effective. We know it makes sense and yet, somehow, we never manage to maintain our good intentions.
Regular nutrition, fresh air, some cuddles and plenty of sleep are the basic necessities to keep babies happy – and really, as adults, we are not much different. Not only do we fail to give our bodies these simple necessities, but we also abuse them by inhaling noxious fumes, drinking diluted poisons and eating food that is unnecessary for sustenance, clogs our arteries, rots our teeth, and makes us fat.
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You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. C.S. Lewis |
What can you do?
Of course, it is possible to lead a healthy and happy lifestyle. Lots of people do it. The human body has a remarkable facility for regeneration and whatever damage you have already done to your own body – through neglect, ignorance or abuse – there are always ways to improve. It’s never too late to limit any harm you have already done to your body by making changes; you can also reverse the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle. You can become clear-skinned, full of energy and strong within a few months – if you start now. It might not be easy – worthwhile things usually take time – but it is possible. What have you got to lose?
Do
If you feel that you could improve the way that you treat your body try following these 10 positive steps for a healthier lifestyle:
Believe it is possible
Ironically, one of the main indicators for success in dieting, or leading a healthy lifestyle, is the belief that it is possible. If you think, ‘I’ll never be able to do this’, then you won’t. Often, when making New Year’s resolutions people say, ‘I know I won’t stick to them – I make the same ones every year’ or ‘I don’t know why I bother: I know I won’t do it, I never do.’ Try saying, ‘This time I know I can.’
Be realistic
One of the reasons that people give up without achieving what they wanted is because they were never realistic aims in the first place. If you are 40, then it is not realistic to want your body to be like it was when you were 16. It is possible, though, to have a well-toned, strong, 40-year-old body.
Sometimes, being realistic just means accepting that you have become older. Stop comparing yourself with a mythical golden age when you were younger, and instead focus on the limitless possibilities of being gorgeous whatever age you are, if you take care of yourself.
It may also mean scaling down your aim: if your previous resolution has been to stop eating chocolate every day – and you’ve failed every time – then try saying, ‘I’m going to enjoy one bar of my favourite chocolate every week.’ (Don’t try this if you have a serious addiction to drugs – including cigarettes – or alcohol!).
The other thing to remember is to attempt only one improvement at a time. Too many people say that they are going to start exercising, stop smoking, cut back on the alcohol and begin a diet all at once – and then wonder why they fail at them all. Choose one and put all your energies into establishing your new regime before introducing something else.
Make a positive decision
A lot of resolutions and plans for self-improvement are negative in their wording. Research has shown that negative goals such as ‘I’ll stop eating cake’ or ‘I don’t want to be fat’ don’t work because all your brain hears is ‘eat cake’. So make sure all your goals are positive: ‘I’m going to be slim’, ‘I’m going to try lots of delicious fruit’, ‘I’m going to get fit’ and so on.
Remember: the words you think and speak have a great power over what you do and achieve.
Don’t be a perfectionist
You may be a high-achiever who wants everything to be perfect. If you are continually striving for perfection, you are bound to be disappointed – because it’s not possible. You can only be the best you can be, but it won’t be perfect. Nothing ever is. Be determined to do the best that you can but remember you are only human.
Perfectionists are never happy because they are looking only for the end result. It’s good to set yourself goals, but remember that being healthy is an ongoing process – you never achieve it and say, ‘That’s it. I’m done.’ That’s why people put the weight back on after a diet. You have to learn strategies to look after yourself and to know what makes you feel good and healthy in the long term.
Learn from Odysseus
In Greek mythology, the sirens were seductive maidens who lured sailors to their deaths by their singing. Odysseus wanted to hear them for himself, so he asked his crew to lash him to the mast as they passed by so that he would not be tempted to abandon his ship and join them.
Similarly, you probably know your own weaknesses and the reasons that in the past you haven’t succeeded, despite your best intentions. You might know, for example, that when you tried to stop smoking you always started again when you were with certain people or in certain places. The way that you stopped was to avoid those people and places until the addiction had diminished.
Look at the successes that you have had and examine how you achieved them. You can transfer the lessons you have learned to other areas of your life. So, if you are trying to lose weight, or to establish healthy eating, it’s probably a good idea to cut out the takeaways and perhaps even eating out for a month or so. To begin a new eating regime might mean not having in the house anything that you want to avoid eating or drinking. Be like Odysseus and simply accommodate what you have learned about yourself by guarding against temptation.
Have role models
It’s always useful to have role models – whether they are people you know or people in the public eye. Be wary, though, of having actors, models or singers as your role models. Remember it is their business, their livelihood, to look good and to keep in shape. They can afford to spend their time and money on exercising and being fed good food, because if they don’t their career collapses.
Notice how often the people who lead a healthy lifestyle are also the people who have a positive attitude towards life. Being negative affects your belief in yourself and your tendency to be resilient when things aren’t going well. In order to persevere with the changes that you are making in your life, a positive attitude is vital.
Delayed gratification
Another reason that people don’t maintain their healthy lifestyle is because they are not prepared to put in the time and effort. If you usually just wander round the supermarket putting whatever you fancy into the trolley, then it’s a good idea to draw up a list and stick to it, if you want to change your eating habits. Remember that all decisions about what goes into your mouth are made ‘at the point of purchase’. In other words, if you buy it, you will eat it. Research some healthy recipes, buy the ingredients, and decide when you are going to make them. It all takes time and effort, but it is worth it.
Most worthwhile things take time and it is much easier to eat a snack when you are hungry than it is to wait and cook a decent meal. Immediate gratification is the reason that most plans fail; people can’t wait for the ultimate goal and want to be happy immediately. Freud called it ‘the power of now’ and compared it with the way that toddlers behave when they want something. (Take a look at the Kids’ Marshmallow Experiment on YouTube for an example of delayed gratification.)
Always remember how long it has taken you to become unfit or to put on weight. Allow yourself the same amount of time for improvement. You can see a difference in fitness after only a few weeks of beginning an exercise regime. But remember that the aim is to continue to feel this way.
Don’t overdo it or try to rush it. The same is true for healthy eating. The main reason people fail on diets is because they want immediate results. They starve themselves and lose weight, achieve their goal, and go back to their old way of eating. If you see looking after yourself as a lifetime commitment, then this won’t happen.
Make a plan
Most people don’t make a plan and don’t have a contingency plan for when things go wrong. It’s as if, despite all evidence to the contrary, people believe that their life ahead will be smooth with no illnesses or upsets to derail them. Part of your plan could be to decide that things will happen, but that you will get back on track as soon as possible. The only way that you fail at anything is by giving up. Chei’s problem was that he couldn’t keep to his resolution of going to the gym every day. So he stopped going altogether.
If you have decided to introduce regular exercise into your life, then it’s a good idea to examine your lifestyle and to decide when you are able to do it. If, for example, you enjoy going shopping on a Saturday, then you’ll be too tired for additional exercise. And even if that’s when you planned to go to the gym, you will probably end up not going after a few weeks. Try to exercise on your most sedentary days – even if it is just a walk round the block before you go to bed. Don’t be too ambitious at first. Just concentrate on establishing the principle that you will, say, do 30 minutes of exercise three or four times a week.
It’s a good idea to write down your plan – and put it where you can see it. If you write ‘gym’ or ‘walk’ or ‘swim’ on certain days on your calendar, don’t forget to tick them off as you do them.
Ask for help
When you look back on attempts in the past to live a healthier life, were you acting in isolation or did you enlist the help of friends?
Some ‘friends’ try and tempt you with ‘Just one more . . .’ drink or cigarette or slice of cake. These people are not helpful and you either have to ask them not to, or simply avoid them for a while.
A good friend on the other hand will be keen to support you, but you need to let them know you need their help. This might mean going for early-morning walks with you, sharing a punnet of strawberries rather than a cake, or just being there to give you a kick up the proverbial when your resolve starts to weaken.
Sometimes, strangers are the answer: joining a slimming organisation, a dance class, a walking group, or a sports team might be the motivation that you need to keep you going. If you’ve never done this before, why not give it a go? It might be what works for you – and, as the saying goes, you’ll never know until you try.
Monitor your progress and congratulate yourself
If you don’t have a plan or staged goals, then it is difficult to see how you are progressing. With each step of becoming healthier, you begin to take it for granted. If you are focused on an end result, such as weighing a certain amount, then you may never applaud yourself along the way.
If you are aiming for an ideal weight, have some smaller goals along the way and consider how much easier it is to breathe when you run or climb the stairs. Take your measurements at monthly intervals and write them down: notice how you feel when your clothes fit you well or when you go down a size.
If you run or swim, time how long it takes you to complete a certain distance and then again after a month. There is no end result: you are becoming a healthy, fit person and enjoying your progress. Goals are motivating, but you may need to set yourself another once you have achieved your ideal weight or run that marathon. Reward yourself with a treat – it doesn’t have to be something to eat or drink – or at least pat yourself on the back at regular intervals.
So what advice would you give to Chei? First of all, he doesn’t eat breakfast and relies on strong coffee to wake him up. If you don’t eat breakfast, it means that your body goes without fuel for probably 12 hours or more (and no, that mid-morning sugary or salty snack you have because you are hungry is not fuel). This makes you lacking in energy, but the answer is not to drink strong coffee. The answer is to eat. It is a good idea to eat protein for breakfast: eggs or cheese on toast with baked beans would be filling and nutritious. Porridge or muesli with fruit and milk will also give you energy and keep you feeling satisfied.
Chei feels obliged to eat the cakes that are brought into his office, but it is fine to say no if you have decided that you want to cut back on sweet things. No one really notices or cares, if you don’t make a fuss. To look after yourself and to stick to your plan, you have to be assertive and stop blaming other people. Of course, if Chei did eat breakfast, he wouldn’t need to eat a sugary snack mid-morning.
The next thing Chei does is to set himself unrealistic targets. He plans to go to the gym every day, but then gives up when he perceives that he has failed in his plan. Doing some exercise every day is a good idea, but to avoid boredom and setting yourself up for failure, it is best to think of different activities that you can do.
So, for example, Chei could go for a walk in his lunch hour one day; play squash after work one day; go for a run before work another day; go shopping with his partner on Saturday and still fit in a couple of trips to the gym on the days he does nothing. If you plan to do 20 to 30 minutes’ activity every day and only succeed half the time, you’ll still be doing sufficient exercise to keep your body working effectively.
Chei berates himself for not achieving his goals, but he doesn’t give himself credit for stopping smoking: this is a great achievement and the one that will make the most difference to improving his health. Anyone who has managed to give up cigarettes certainly has the will-power to do anything else they might decide on to improve their health. Chei could say to himself, ‘I was motivated and focused when I stopped smoking and I’m pleased with myself. I know that I can do anything if I set my mind to it.’
Chei could decide to make different choices at lunchtime. If he chose salads and protein at lunchtime instead of sandwiches, pizza or pasta, he would have saved calories for his evening meal. No one really needs a starter and a pudding; he could choose one or the other. If he is serious about losing weight, he could try missing out the wine altogether for a month.
Alcohol just provides empty calories (it has almost as many calories as pure fat) and if you continue to drink but cut back on your food, then you will be hungry and will inevitably break your diet. A pint of lager is about 200 calories – similar to a sugar-coated doughnut – so think of drinking all evening as eating one doughnut after another. Similarly, a bottle of wine is like eating the first layer of a box of chocolates (and two bottles is the equivalent of the whole box). You might enjoy it, but wouldn’t expect to lose weight. The charity Drinkaware surveyed 2,000 adults and found that although one in three intended to track their calorie intake over the following month only one in ten of those thought about limiting the alcohol they drink.
Chei finds it difficult to feel positive because he keeps repeating the same mistakes without analysing what works and what doesn’t work for him (the definition of madness according to Einstein: ‘Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result’). He catches ‘another’ cold, which suggests that he is often run down. We can’t help catching colds if we come into contact with people. But by looking after yourself physically and mentally, you will recover more quickly and so won’t be vulnerable to every germ going around. Frequent colds and headaches are a sign that you need to take stock of your lifestyle and make some changes.
- Aim for 20 to 30 minutes of exercise a day – but make it different most days
- Do things you enjoy and count the exercise you already do
- Cook meals from scratch when you are at home – using unprocessed ingredients
- Eat only one or two wheat-based foods daily: a slice of wholemeal bread, cereal, or pasta (and avoid the bread basket in restaurants)
- Replace sugary snacks with fruit (prepare a bowl of segmented orange, grapes, kiwifruit, strawberries in the fridge for evening snacking) or raw vegetables if you prefer them
- If you want to lose weight, cut out alcohol for a month
- Try replacing coffee with decaffeinated coffee or tea
Sleep
Chei also said that he didn’t sleep very well. Of course, eating, exercising and sleeping are all connected and if you eat healthily, don’t drink or smoke, and get outdoors most days, you are much more likely to sleep well. There are three pillars for health: diet, exercise and sleep. And you need all three to support your body in a fully-functioning way. Most people at least know about how to improve their diet and usually intend to take exercise, but very few of us know how to get a good night’s sleep. Some people seem to be predisposed to insomnia and it is difficult to motivate yourself to follow a healthy lifestyle if you are tired from lack of sleep.
Because of our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, it is usually mental tiredness that people feel rather than physical exhaustion. You go to bed after being on the computer or watching television and your mind is still racing. Or you fall asleep easily and then wake up in the small hours, going over what you should have said at work or anxiously going over the day ahead. There is nothing more frustrating than lying in bed just waiting for sleep to overtake you and being unable to do anything about it as you lie there wide awake.
What are the consequences of poor sleep?
There tends to be an attitude that it is admirable to require little sleep (politicians and workaholics frequently boast of how little sleep they need). However, there has been extensive research to show that not only can lack of sleep shorten your life, it can also affect your capacity to learn, and lead to a more negative outlook on life.
Research at Warwick University (based on 475,000 people, in eight countries, tracked between seven and 25 years) indicates that less than six hours of sleep a night can shorten your life. The researchers discovered that people who slept for less than six hours were almost 50 per cent more likely to develop heart disease and 15 per cent more at risk of strokes. Professor Francesco Cappuccio, who conducted the research, observed, ‘The work–life balance is causing too many of us to trade-in precious sleeping time to ensure we complete all the jobs we believe are expected of us.’
The Great British Sleep Survey, published in February 2011 by the sleep organisation Sleepio, revealed that – compared with people who sleep well – insomniacs are three times as likely to experience low moods, lack of concentration, and difficulty in getting things done. They were four times as likely to have relationship problems and more than twice as likely to suffer from lack of energy.
In their book NurtureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman discuss the devastating effects of lack of sleep on children’s capacity to learn. The effect of not getting enough sleep affects not only their memory, but also what they remember. They discovered that sleep deprivation means that negative memories are recalled more easily than positive ones. The authors cite an experiment by Dr Matthew Walker, of the University of California, where sleep-deprived college students were given a list of words to recall. They could remember 81 per cent of the words with a negative connotation, like ‘cancer’, but only 31 per cent of words with positive connotations, like ‘sunshine’.
In other words, not getting sufficient sleep may be a contributory reason for having a negative attitude towards life.
How much sleep do you need?
The average adult sleeps for about seven hours, but there is a wide variation; to sleep straight through for eight hours is quite unusual. The amount of sleep you need varies according to age and depends upon what you do during the day. Newborn babies sleep about 17 hours out of 24 and a 10-year-old will sleep about 10 to 12 hours. The older you get, the less sleep you need – and the more fragmented and lighter the sleep becomes.
Expecting to sleep for a straight eight hours every night is one of the reasons people get frustrated about their lack of sleep: aiming for the unattainable causes anxiety – which keeps you awake (and seven hours is all you need). The more you think, ‘I must get to sleep: I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow’, the less likely you are to fall into a deep untroubled sleep.
Sleeping pills
If you look round any health food shop or chemist’s shelves, next to the diet aids, you will see rows and rows of different kinds of herbal sleeping remedies. About 4,000 people a year call the insomnia helpline and an increasing number visit their GPs for help in getting a good night’s sleep. GPs get only a total of about five hours’ training on managing sleep disorders and so there seems to be a tendency to rely on medication. According to a survey conducted by Surrey University, published in February 2011, one in eight people don’t get six hours sleep a night and one in 10 people rely on medicine to get to sleep.
Medication gives you a drug-induced sleep rather than a natural one, and sleeping pills are addictive. They can be successful in treating insomnia in the short term, but the tolerance level declines very quickly. After a month, they lose their effectiveness – and within a year they could be doing you more harm than good. By this time, you will probably be dependent on them and stopping them causes withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, the main withdrawal symptom of sleeping pills is insomnia. It seems that the only way to establish good sleeping patterns is to examine your lifestyle and make some changes.
How to fall asleep
We’d all like to get into bed and fall into a deep, trouble-free sleep – waking refreshed and energised in the morning. Similarly, if you do wake up in the middle of the night, it would be a comfort to know that you just have to roll over and you’ll fall back to sleep in a few minutes. The problem is that once morning comes, you get up and get on with your day without giving the following night any serious thought. And so the pattern repeats itself night after night, with you becoming increasingly frustrated – but probably not devoting any daylight hours to solving the problem.
Some of the following ideas may help you to achieve restful and peaceful nights.
Getting comfortable
First of all, make sure that you have all the practicalities covered: a comfortable bed and mattress (if you’ve had your mattress for ten years, you will have slept on it for approximately 30,000 hours); a dark bedroom, if you prefer it (blackout blinds or thick curtains will do the trick or try an eye mask); the right temperature (about 18°C is ideal); and, of course, peace and quiet (ticking clocks and snoring can drive you mad at 2 am – you may need ear-plugs). Clean sheets and pillowcases also seem to make a difference.
Write it down
If you’ve got all this in place, the next obvious source of wakefulness is anxiety. We will be looking at techniques to deal with this in Chapter 6. Meanwhile, a useful trick is to keep a notepad and pen by your bed and simply write down what you are worrying about. Tell yourself that there’s nothing you can do about it now – you know what the problem is, you’ve recorded it, and you will deal with it in the morning. You can also download a sleep diary from the Mental Health Foundation’s sleep website:
Get rid of tension
Sometimes, when you are lying awake, you are not aware of the physical tension in your body. Some people grind their teeth, even when they are asleep; others clench their jaws, hunch their shoulders, or form their hands into a tight grip. The best way to discover if part of your body is tense, and to learn how to get rid of this tension, is deliberately to tense the whole of your body.
This takes a few minutes and it’s best to practise during the day – when you are not trying to get to sleep. In fact, it’s a useful exercise for any time that you are feeling particularly tense and need to relax. Start with your feet and clench and curl your toes, work your way up your legs, trying to tense the muscles in your calves and thighs and then your buttocks. Then clench your fingers, so that you form a fist, and tense the muscles in your arms and then your shoulders, and then your neck and your jaw. So for a few seconds the whole of your body is tense.
Then begin to relax each part in reverse order. Do it slowly and try to enjoy the feeling as you release the tension. Usually, you will have become aware of the parts of your body that you have been unconsciously holding rigid and it will be a relief to relax, say, your jaw or your shoulders. You can repeat the whole process as many times as you want but be careful not to rush the relaxing – don’t let it all go at once.
Yoga
Studies at Duke University, North Carolina and the University of Miami have shown that yoga can be effective in the relief of chronic muscle pain, fatigue, insomnia and hot flushes. The research showed that yoga was useful in reducing the discomfort of lower-back pain, as well as alleviating pain in the joints of those suffering from osteoarthritis.
Although some kinds of yoga can involve strenuous and demanding positions there are other kinds, such as Hatha yoga, which are more gentle. Hatha yoga teaches you to adopt positions that improve flexibility as well as concentrating on breathing exercises, relaxation and meditation. Because this type of yoga involves the motor and sensory nervous systems it helps induce deeply relaxed states and leads to a significant reduction in discomfort and the need for pain killers.
Achieving a quiet mind
If you already practise yoga or meditation, then you will already be using the following techniques and probably don’t have any trouble in getting to sleep. If, however, you find yourself lying in the dark with your mind teeming with chaotic thoughts, then you may still find it difficult to get to sleep by physically relaxing your body as described above. Again, this next step may take some time to achieve – but it seems to work for many people.
Once your body is relaxed, picture yourself somewhere safe and warm – preferably a place that you have actually experienced. So let’s imagine you are lying on a beach: the sun is warm on your back, you can hear the sea, and there is absolutely nothing for you to worry about. Now concentrate on your breathing. As you breathe in, think ‘in’ silently to yourself – and as you breathe out, think ‘out’. Persevere: other thoughts will try to come crowding in, but if you keep thinking ‘in’, ‘out’, in time with your breathing, then it is impossible to think anything else. It takes practice, but it does work if you give it a chance. There are more tips on simple breathing meditation in Chapter 6.
- Looking after yourself is important to positive thinking
- Most sleep problems are temporary and caused by anxiety – use relaxation techniques or try writing down your thoughts
- Video games, checking emails, texting, even watching television just before you go to bed can interfere with sleep
- Make sure you get some fresh air and exercise every day – but not just before you go to bed
- Eat nutritious food – a strict diet will mean you are hungry – carbohydrates help you to sleep (try a small bowl of porridge or rice pudding)
- Rich food also keeps you awake – have your evening meal at least three hours before you go to bed – and keep it simple
- Try not drinking alcohol at all for a month (it causes dehydration and you wake up because you are thirsty – or need the loo)
- If you are suffering from long-term insomnia then see your doctor – there might be something that you’ve overlooked