I have noticed that during the winter months, my eating habits are not as healthy as they are in summer which is a common experience for most people. The want or need to eat warm comfort food is very compelling! Increased carbohydrates coupled with less movement equals a larger waistline & subsequently lowered mood! There were other contributing factors that impacted on my lowered mood. As a mother & Counsellor, I was putting others’ needs first which led to me feeling tired, exhausted, lethargic & ‘burnt-out’ as I had focused a lot on my work & ferrying my kids to & from school & each of their extra-curricular activities! I was depleted of ENERGY!
In my role as a Counsellor I am often encouraging & promoting self-care activities with clients but I was not engaging in anything myself. My one class of Pilates per week was not nearly enough to get my body into shape & lift my mood. I needed to do more.
I now moved into the Preparation & Decision-making phase. Things needed to change, ‘I’ needed to CHANGE, starting with improving my eating habits & increasing my movement!
Exercise is a positive healthy habit, highly correlated to improving positive mental health similar to the effects of taking anti-depressants. With all my knowledge & experience, I associate the success of my goal of improving my physical & mental health with the goal being achievable & sustainable as I did not want to go back to how I was feeling previously.
I started researching different approaches of how I could work through to my goal & landed on participating in a 6-week fitness challenge called the Little Black Dress. This program involved a meal-plan with educational tips on food preparation, participating in a minimum of 3 semi-private fitness sessions per week & ongoing encouragement to help maintain motivation to stick with the program. It was run by a local Personal Trainer/mother, with participants all sharing similar parenting experiences & challenges with their physical health. This sounded very comforting to me & normalised my own worries & concerns.
I share my thoughts about the Preparation/Decision-making phase with you in my video.