Fit Focus: Time to start building healthier habits is now

The biggest risk to your future is not your competition. It is the distractions you insist on keep in your life rather than doing the things you know you should be doing but are not.

We all know what we need to do to be healthy, we need to get regular exercise, we need good quality food and we need to get good sleep.

It is not new and it has not changed for millennia but we live in a world full of distractions.

We often do not have the discipline to cut out the distractions and focus on what we need to do.

I hear it all the time, I am too busy to get in a training session or I am too busy to cook a proper healthy meal. This is not true you are just prioritising the wrong things and you are looking at it the wrong way.

Everything is about perspective and once we change the way we look at something then it can open up a completely different opportunity that we didn’t see before.

Getting into a daily or weekly exercise routine doesn’t have to be hugely time consuming. 10 minutes every day is better than zero minutes a day, we just have this perception that if I can’t do it perfectly and get to the gym or train for an hour 2-3 times a week then there is no point.

You are not looking for perfection at the beginning; you are just looking to build a habit and investing in your future. Training now is going to have profound impacts on your health and longevity when you reach old age and there is no such thing as it being too late to start.

As the saying goes; when is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When is the second best time to plant a tree? Now.

It is the same when it comes to your health, now is the second best time to start building healthy exercise habits into your life so if you are currently not in an exercise routine start building one now. It doesn’t have to be perfect but you have to start so add a 10-minute walk into your daily routine and be consistent, get out every day no matter the weather and build it from there.

The same principle applies to your nutrition. There are many tools available now to help you make better food choices with apps rating food on a scale of healthy to unhealthy, to food delivery companies who deliver everything you need to your door. There are even companies that will cook your meals for you and deliver them to you.

You just need to flick that switch in your head and tell yourself that you are worth this investment in yourself because you are looking after your health for now and for the future and without your health you have nothing.

No amount of money can buy back your life. You only get one body so it is your responsibility to look after it as best you can.

People delay doing the things they don’t like longer than it takes to do them and people have their own reasons for delaying but fear is the main reason they don’t start. However not being able to have control of your health as we age should be a far greater fear.

If you are confused as to where to start ask yourself: Who do I want to be? Who do I not want to be? What are three-five things I can do today to get me closer to the person I want to be?

Start small and build consistency and confidence, celebrate the victories and within six months you will look back and see a completely different person. Someone you hardly recognise. You owe it to yourself so start now.