"LEARN THE SUPER SECRETS OF...." Blah, Blah, Blah

I’ve been harping on CONSISTENCY for the last few days when it comes to changing your health and wellness and meeting your goals.

But. I would like to address another aspect of creating healthy habits, reaching goals, and changing your health.

And that is Starting Small.

What??

Yep, that’s right. Starting Small.

I’m going to hop up on my soap box for a minute and give a little rant, so just bear with me. It gets a lot more attention when you have a headline like, “Learn the Super Secrets of Changing Your Life, Losing the Weight for Good, and Becoming a Vixen Your Husband Can’t Resist.” You want to read that article or watch that video. 

Even I want to read that!

And then it tells you to workout for 75 minutes, 3 times per day at high intensity, while drinking aloe juice mixed with exotic spices from the highest mountain tops of the Andes 5 times per day. Eat only organic seaweed, sea bass, and a special blend of crushed herbs from the jungles of Burma, and bathe in raw goat’s milk from the island of Crete.

Seriously?! I live in Oklahoma. I’m a mom. I have a husband. I have a job. We have household chores, activities, bills. None of that other stuff is happening.

And then you get discouraged. You think that because you can’t get your hands on Burmese herbs or raw goat’s milk from Crete, you’ll never be able to lose weight, improve your health, or be comfortable with your body.

But that’s not true! 

It seems mundane and anti-climactic to tell people to start small, but it’s actually the BEST step you can take towards changing your life, losing the weight, and yes, even becoming that vixen.

Starting Small means you need to evaluate where you are. YOUR small might not be MY small. I can comfortably walk at a moderate pace for 45 minutes to an hour. Throw in a bunch of hills and that time decreases - a LOT. 

Maybe you can only comfortably walk for 15-20 minutes before your ankles or knees start to hurt, or you’re out of breath.

That’s OKAY!!!

There’s nothing wrong with that!

Starting Small can be anything you want it to be. Drinking more water. Eating more vegetables. Cutting back on sugar. It’s great to have an outcome goal in mind – a vision of who you want to be and what your daily health and wellness look like.

But it’s important to Start Small and figure out where you actually are (how much soda AM I drinking each day, how many servings of protein AM I getting per day, how many minutes of activity, how many strengthening exercises, etc.).

And if the answers are too much soda, not enough protein, not enough activity or strengthening, then you now have an idea of where to start.

You can pick ONE AREA that you would like to work on – drinking more water, eating fruits and veggies, being more active, toning, meditation, WHATEVER – and start there by setting a goal but MAKE IT SMALL!

There’s nothing wrong with Starting Small. I have a weak core – mostly because I HATE doing core work. But I decided that was an area I needed to focus on. So, one morning before I got out of bed, I decided to see where I was at with doing crunches. I did about 15 before it hurt and I stopped.

The next morning, I did another 15. The next morning, I did 20. And so on, and so on. Some days I would slip back down to a smaller number (from 40 back down to 30). But then I would work my way back up again. This has been going on for about a month. Now I’m up to 50 crunches every morning before I get out of bed. My goal is to get to 100 per day.

But I’m okay with Starting Small and working my way up.

Consistency sounds boring, but it’s the only thing that will get you to your goals and last for the long run. Starting Small may not be eye-catching or glamorous, but it will get you going and help you build up to where you actually want to be.

Small is how you start. Consistency is how you finish.

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