Resolve to be Healthy!

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A Guest Post by Richele at Under The Golden Apple Tree

It is that time of year again.  The time when resolutions are made in regards to health and well being.  Most of these resolutions center on weight loss.  Any diet started in 2011 was abandoned by the beginning of the holiday season.  It takes will power of steel to last through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, without breaking your diet.  The season is filled with temptations and we are willingly low on willpower.  Instead of our diets waiting until Monday they now are on hold until the New Year.  Well, the New Year is here and before it becomes the old year you will need to be purposeful with change to see results.  In a world where resolutions are meant to be broken how do we stay true to our resolutions about health in 2012?  

Resolve to Determine Your Goals

When I first embarked on losing weight my husband told me that losing weight for a dress was not a real goal.  He told me if that was my goal it would surely fail.  I thought he was wrong and I set out to prove it.  I proved I was wrong.  Your goal should be concrete but not for a trivial purpose.  A dress is not enough to make a life change.  Even if you succeed and fit into your dress again, you need a bigger goal to maintain your success.  For instance, my goal is not to need cholesterol medication since high cholesterol runs in my family. My husband suggests picking a sport or an activity where you can rest your goals and weight loss will become the by product not the object.  

Resolve to be Purposeful to Your Health

Your primary concern should be your overall health.  Make your health your focus not your waistline.  Look at your family history and see which diseases or ailments you need to guard against.  Your health is important to your family.  Your children need a healthy active mom with enough energy to keep moving.  Your husband needs a healthy wife who he can rely on.  Your health is connected to those who love you and the best gift you can give them is the best you that you can give.  

Resolve to Reward Yourself

If you have decided to lose weight then you are embarking on a difficult journey.  Weight loss is not easy task.  It takes a change of mindset, willpower, and work.  Instead of concentrating on the big picture make your goal to get through the week.  Long term goals are best supported by short term goals and rewards.  If you make it through one week of eating properly and working out then reward yourself.  Reward yourself with a new pair of earrings, new jeans, or time to yourself for a hot relaxing bath.  Do not reward yourself with food.  

Resolve to Make a Healthy Choice (and then make another one)

Every day make a healthy choice.  Decide to walk after dinner, drink water instead of juice or diet soda, eat an extra serving of veggies and leave the starch off your plate, or say no to a cookie.  Each healthy choice will encourage you to make another one.  Be mindful of making those choices and challenge yourself to see how many you can make in one day.  

Resolve to Not Make a Resolution  

Begin again.  Renew.  Do not resolve.  A resolution sadly implies failing.  Most resolutions are made in haste or without planning or real thought.  This year put your health and your family’s health first because you love them not because you want to fit into a little black dress or you made a resolution in haste.  Your children look to you for strength and example.  Let them see a woman who lives by conviction and relies on prayer and wise counsel to make the best decisions for her and her family.  

©2011 Richele McFarlin

Richele is a homeschooling mom to four beautiful children and wife to the best man this side of Heaven. You can find her blogging Under the Golden Apple Tree where you can read about days filled with laundry, laughs and love.