One Small Healthy Monitoring Moment At A Time


What is important to understand is that better health requires day to day preventive health practices. You age very slowly. Every day you look in the mirror and see the same person. Not much seems to change. But, I bet if someone could develop a computer visualization program that took your picture every morning in the mirror when you woke up. Then, once every couple of months projected your average look for the last week of that period with a comparison of your baseline picture, we would all be shocked to see the degree of changes our pictures would reveal. In many cases, seeing ourselves aging before our own eyes would motivate many of us to improve how we look. 

The same type of monitoring can be accomplishment by checking your weight once a week and recording it. Checking your blood measures regularly and recording it. Checking your blood sugar and recording it. That is why we are encouraged by the medical community to get a yearly check up. But, unfortunately, unlike looking at how our face ages over time in my example above, it is difficult for most people to realize that their health values are simply samples of the changes occurring in our body as a result of normal aging in combination with our daily habits - good and bad.

Once you know who you are and what your health profile looks like, you are now ready to take charge of your health. You can now take steps to successfully improve your health status and wellness. Small steps are the key because they are doable. Your successes are easily self observed and that helps to reinforce more change. That is why so many companies that promote better health or weight loss use real people showing their successes gradually over time. If they only showed you the end result of what a person looks like after following the given program, you would probably look at that person and say, “ That's impossible for me to ever accomplish. I am no world-class athlete. I have never looked like that in my life." You would probably say that even if you did look that way at one time in your life because you remember how much hard work went into looking that great when you were athletic and younger, you never would want to work that hard again!

So here's my challenge to you for this next month. Look at something you have wanted to change in your life that will improve your health. Take that one item, focus on it, and then set aside 30-60 minutes each day to plan, accomplish the goal, and monitor your success for that day. Set aside small time periods where that is what you work on guilt free.  If on a given day you are unsuccessful, record why you were unsuccessful and try to determine what you can do the next day that will allow you to succeed. Make this one small item important to you so that it happens early in the day. I can assure you, you will be pleasantly surprised how improving this one tiny little positive health step each day will change your life and well-being in very big way. You will never regret making the change. In fact, you will be surprised how much better you feel, how much more energy you will have, and consequently have a more productive day.

WELL it's time to move on to my first step of my to-do wellness list for the day. Exercise and meditation here I come!