We live in a world where we can get what we want with the click of a button. It’s all about next-day delivery, super fast broadband and filters that give you your dream look. Patience is not necessary in our world. Our ancestors had to hunt and gather their food before they could eat it whereas many of us work from home and use UberEats! No wonder we are getting more and more unhealthy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we are lazy. We work long hours, leaving us too tired to cook and too exhausted to hit the gym. I’ve been there and done that. When I took on extra work to support my relocation back from Singapore, I gained a stone and a half in 5 months.
Since moving back to the UK, I have slimmed down to smaller than I have ever been and this time it feels different. More permanent.
I did this through a series of healthy swaps and I’d like to share them with you.
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1. Swap overdoing it for walking
When you’re stuck in a health rut and you feel like exercise is overwhelming, the last thing you should be doing is running on a treadmill or trying to do something way out of your comfort zone. It’s better to start with something achievable – like walking. I got myself a cheap pedometer from Amazon and started counting my steps. I aimed for 10K steps a day. I went out for one long walk a day to top up my usual daily steps and did Grow with Jo workouts at home if I still needed to reach my goal. I made it fun by listening to audiobooks or podcasts on my walks. It’s important that you only listen to those things on your walks so it gives you the extra motivation to step outside. The weight really melted off in the first 40 days. Walking then began to feel easy and as I had less weight on me it was easier and I graduated to hiking then to the gym and eventually to running. The fact that I hadn’t completely put myself off exercise by throwing myself in the deep end massively paid off. Nurture your love for exercise 10,000 baby steps at a time.
2. Swap delivery Apps for Gousto
I personally believe that food delivery apps are the devil. Even if you think you’re ordering healthy food, you can’t really know how they are preparing it. It’s a calorific lottery. I used to live in a big city where I was chronically ordering lunch and dinner from food delivery apps. The food would get there in less than 30 minutes. Grocery store apps that would deliver alcohol, chocolate, family-sized bags of crisps and tubs of ice cream to my door within just 20 minutes. It’s all fun and games until you no longer remember how hungry feels. I could have picked up these things myself but I was paying for delicious convenience. When I moved to a tiny seaside town in North Wales, I searched for delivery apps in my area. Shocker, there aren’t any. Surely the local takeaways will deliver? Double shocker, they don’t. I was faced with a harsh new reality – cooking for myself. My sympathetic friend suggested the Gousto app. where you choose meals and they deliver the ingredients to your door. What I loved about it was that I could select the meals based on calorie count and it reignited a love for cooking. Not to mention how it cut prep time and food waste an extraordinary amount. Gousto helped me reduce the mental load of calorie counting. It’s convenient but not too convenient. I’m not saying I never eat snacks now but it has created a much needed distance between us.
3. Swap booze for alcohol free alternatives
This one might be a toughie for some people but you have to sit yourself down and ask yourself the question: “How much do I want this?”. I had been yo-yo dieting for over 20 years and it felt like as soon as my dream body came just within reach, I’d trip and fall back into bad habits with food or exercise. What was the catalyst? Without a doubt it was alcohol. Being drunk or hungover gave me massive cravings for unhealthy food. I remember coming home drunk from a club when I lived in a city and waiting up with my friend until 7 am so we could order a curry straight to the door. Not ideal when you’re supposed to be in a calorie deficit. I’d join the gym, get a personal trainer, and be doing so well… then a night of boozing would rock my mental health so much that I wouldn’t want to get out of bed. Hangovers were chaining me to my sofa when I should have been outside moving my body. When I gave up alcohol and started to drink alcohol-free alternatives, I realised that I could have a social life and still stick to a healthy routine. I can trust myself to show up for myself. Nowadays, you can get alcohol-free alternatives for almost all of your favourite tipples and they taste pretty much the same. The hardest part is changing your own mindset. The alcohol industry would love you to believe you’re boring without booze but trust me you’re not.
4. Swap rooftop bars for mountain tops
I used to live for the weekend. I would desperately claw around for someone to go to a glitzy rooftop bar with. I’d get serious FOMO if I saw someone out drinking without me. After a lot of practise, I found that although you can have some epic nights out, many don’t live up to expectations. It’s like the build up is more exciting than the event itself. When I decided to step towards a healthy lifestyle, I was mortified that I ever considered drinking a hobby. I needed a new hobby, stat. From there I found hiking. The early mornings got rid of the night before FOMO as I knew I needed to be up for my epic adventure. The dopamine I got from hiking always delivered no matter what the weather was like. I always got a big kick out of being out in nature compared to the hit and miss nightlife jungle. Sunset photos of cocktails against a glitzy backdrop were slowly being replaced by cups of sunrise coffee at the summit of mountains. It doesn’t take a genius to guess which one slimmed me down.
5. Swap sesh heads for role models
We all know the expression ‘you are what you eat’. Well, I believe ‘you are who you hang around with’. If you want to become a better version of yourself, then you need to start aligning yourself with those who represent that reality. If you’re constantly being pulled back towards unhealthy eating, binge drinking and excuses to miss being active then it’s only a matter of time before you give in. I’m not saying dump all your mates, but consider expanding your circle. Start with following more health focussed influencers on social media. Download the Strava app and follow people who work out in your local area. Reach out and connect with the people you know who love being active. Grab coffee with someone from your workout class and become accountability buddies. You could even Join a Parkrun near you. It’s free and people of all abilities sign up. Sooner than you think, you’ll have an inspirational support network cheering you on as you transform into someone who others can also look up to.
6. Swap silly snacking for ‘smart snacking’
I’m telling you right now, no one is coming between me and my snacks. Kate Moss once said that “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” but that was before Aldi started selling Biscoff spread in a tub. Trying to lose weight can feel utterly miserable if you remove all the things that make day-to-day life bearable. However, if you’re snarfing a family sized bar of Galaxy chocolate every night, you’re more than likely undoing the work you’ve already put into your health journey. If I’m being honest, removing all traces of snackage from my home fills me with anxiety so I decided to swap out the usual suspects for less offensive alternatives. Instead of going for full fat crisps, I buy multi-pack bags of Quaver’s, French Fries or Pom Bears which range from 65-86 calories per packet. Instead of buying a full chocolate bar, I’ll get in a box of Celebrations and have 3 after my dinner. They are about 50 calories each. My favourite treat is a cup of coffee and a few ginger nut biscuits. At 49 calories a pop you can’t go far wrong. An obvious one is full fat soda for diet versions. I found that over time, my urge to snack reduced. My dinner started to fill me up more and I didn’t get the rabid sugar cravings of the past. Be patient as sugar cravings can take months to reduce. My main point is not to restrict yourself too much as it’s detrimental to mental side of your weight loss journey. Snack smarter, not harder!
7. Swap scales for goal clothes
If you Google ‘weight loss’, you get a bunch of generic pictures of someone stepping onto a set of bathroom scales and grimacing at the number between their feet. If you ask me, the scale is a false friend. On the one hand, it can help you to keep track of your progress and identify any habits causing you setbacks. On the other hand, that number can drastically fluctuate from day to day. You see the number go up and you automatically imagine yourself fatter. In reality it’s more nuanced than that. Many things can cause the number to go up such as water retention, too much salt, your time of the month or muscle gain. I found myself obsessing over the devil’s step. I was weighing myself once or twice a day and letting the result either pump me full of dopamine or completely derail my day. Enough became enough and I decided to use a pair of jeans as an indicator of my progress. Once a week I’d try on the jeans and see how they fit me. Progress photos are also a wonderful way to see how things are changing. I started to measure myself but even this can become obsessive. I now only weigh myself once a month (if i remember!) as seeing the overall trend is much more useful. Investing in a smart scale is wise as you can see how much muscle mass you have gained. These things are now so smart they can even tell you if you need to drink more water!
8. Swap doom scrolling for self- improvement
You might be rolling your eyes at this one but hear me out! I know social media can be an essential tool when it comes to educating yourself about a healthy lifestyle, however we are also just one sneaky scroll away from our ex’s Instagram/a quiz that tells us what kind of cheese we are/a conspiracy theory about lizard people. I found it easier to stay on track in my health journey once I introduced self-improvement literature into my routine. Atomic Habits by James Clear is a great book to get started with. If you’re sober curious then I’d highly recommend Stop Drinking Now by Allen Car and The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Grey. Choosing self-improvement over the black hole of the internet sends you to bed feeling smug. I like that feeling! Anyway, I’m off to google lizard people until my new book arrives in the post!
9. Swap doing it for weight loss and start doing it for your health!
The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to build healthy habits that have the side effect of weight loss. If you’re only striving to lose weight then it’s easy to give up if/when you don’t see drastic results after a few weeks. I have done so many diets such as the 5:2 diet, Slimming World and Weight Watchers. The problem was that once I had achieved some weight loss results and I was feeling good about myself, my old unhealthy habits would creep back in. Nothing was stopping it as I hadn’t really changed, I was just following a diet plan created by companies that didn’t really want me to understand how to do it without them. I ended up gaining all the weight back which worked wonderfully for companies like Slimming World. It keeps you chained to their membership plan. Once I had the revelation that my health was the main priority not my looks, the pressure and urgency lessened and losing weight seemed to just happen. I moved my body for my health. I ate better for my health. I ditched alcohol for my health. In time, these changes led to noticeable weight loss. My new healthy habits are now such a part of my life I can rest assured I’m not going to fall back to my old ways. The relief is the greatest gift to myself.
10. Swap negative self-talk for self-love
It’s only a cliche because it’s true, okay? If you look in the mirror and trash talk yourself then you’re going to feel like trash all day and that stuff shows on your face, your body and your spirit. Start to recognise that gremlin’s voice whispering mean things to you and tell it to shut up. If a negative Nancy comment slips through the net, flip it over and say the opposite, only louder! You hear “You look rough today.” you shout “I look hot today!” Perhaps not literally out loud if you’re in public though! Part of becoming a hotter more brilliant version of yourself is believing you are already that person. I don’t think “I want to be healthy” I think “I am healthy”. This mindset helps me make the choices a healthy person makes. I say “I am a runner” when I drag myself out of my flat to pound the pavement as it makes me feel more confident and therefore I perform better. We don’t hear enough about the mind games we have to play with ourselves in order to lose weight. It’s time to think yourself into your dream reality. Manifest it, baby!
Final thoughts…
The key to happiness is not caring about what other people think and you’ll find that being proud of yourself is hits far deeper than outside validation.
That being said, don’t feel bad for basking in your own glory when the compliments start pouring in.
Unfortunately, losing weight doesn’t always mean happiness as your problems will still be there even when your belly is not.
Another things is that after losing weight, you might notice that more people are nice to you but it also attracts jealousy. Don’t let this put you off making a change.
At the end of the day, you have to take the rough with the smooth.
Always remember that you are doing this for yourself.