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Challenges to Improve my Health and Incorporate Healthy Habits into my Life

Improving my habits one 30 day challenge at a time.

Like myself, I would assume that you have a good habit or two you’d like to incorporate into your daily life that can positively impact your health.

There are lots I want to change, but I find that I need to work at changing one thing at a time and even then I often lose interest before I get anywhere.

In January I was inspired by Dr Mercola who created a 30 day resolution guide series to help his readers take control of their health.

Personally I am not big into New Year’s resolutions, because it is too artificial and I have never really achieved success with them. Once the hype dies down, it is kind of hard to maintain the momentum.

However:

I have made some serious health changes. So, I know I can!

Maybe, I just need a different process.

My Biggest Success – Adopting a KETO Lifestyle

Keto - Change your fuel

I have adopted a keto lifestyle and the benefits and results have been phenomenal.

If you are reading my blog, I assume you are a ketoer and you absolutely get it.

Or

You are investigating or starting out on this journey. If you are just starting out, you’ll probably like our keto checklists to get you going.

If you are a regular here, I trust that you read most of my articles. But if you’ve missed anything, check out our Essential Keto Blog Page for our most recent article or our Review Page for the products that I like or have assessed.

Whichever it is, I am grateful to have you share this journey with me. Thank you!

So back to integrating good habits into my daily life.

In my mind the very first change we have to make is what we put into our bodies. Once that is done, we can build on this base and see incremental change with the next improvements we make.

My Next Step

The next step for me would be to get moving more.

I do really believe it is important. You can’t out exercise bad eating, but you completely healthy without exercise and we need exercise for many reasons.

Going Forward

Coming back to Dr Mercola’s resolution guide. One tip in his series really interested me and that was about incorporating the nitric oxide dump into your life.

I started doing the exercise. I felt amazing when I was doing it, but then I stopped. 🙁

I do this sometimes, I find something really good. I can really see how this will improve my life, but maybe I am just not ready, or whatever.

I really need to find a way to incorporate new healthy habits into my life.

Improve health through healthier habits

So…

I have decided to choose a few habits I’d like to change. With each – I am going to set myself a 30 day challenge.

It may not be very original, but it is a plan. How do you change or improve habits? Please let us know in the comments below.

Here we go…

My 30 Day Challenge Plan

During this challenge, I will:

  • Research the habit.
  • Decide why it is important to me and what others are doing to get it to stick in their lives.
  • Decide exactly what I want to achieve.
  • What is the best way to do it.
  • Most importantly though, I will create a schedule and incorporate the habit into my daily life.
  • Lastly I will share it all here. (Both for accountability and to focus my mind.)

Hopefully after 30 days, I will see such great results that I will carry on.

Or if I don’t –

At least I’ll know that I didn’t just read something, tried it twice, thought it was great, but then did nothing about it.

I know some of the stuff I try will resonate with me, but some probably won’t. I will commit 30 days to each potential change though.

Which Habits do I Want to Change

At this time, I don’t know exactly which habits I will be changing, but the very first is to introduce the nitric oxide dump into my daily routine.

So…

Challenge 1 – Nitric Oxide Dump

Nitric Oxide Dump 30 Day Challenge

I’ll write more about it as my research progress.

Challenges to Follow

Regular Exercise

My second challenge may be to incorporate a fully-fledged exercise regimen into my weekly routine.

I will focus on walking, some weight bearing exercises and the interval training program I described here.

There are two more challenges, that I will prioritize other the next few months. The first is to drink way less coffee.

Less Coffee

Ideally I’d like to get to the point where I drink one to two cups of coffee in the morning. I can’t completely give up my butter and MCT oil coffee.

I have given up coffee before and it was really tough. The withdrawal symptoms were horrendous.

But once I can manage my coffee consumption down, it will play into the next change I want to achieve.

Sleeping better

I am an insomniac. I want to take a month to change my bedroom as much as I can, to change the behaviors that impact on my sleep and to create everyday routines that support good sleep.

I want to figure out what is working for me now and what I need to change.

You may have seen the article about how to sleep better when in ketosis that Layla Paker from AsleepyWolf shared with us last week. I’ll use these tips as my starting point.

Existing Practices and other Habits

I have some good habits right now that I may want to hone more like my gratitude journal, my morning routine, managing stress, etc.

So, I’ll start with the Oxide Dump for this month of June and then decide where to from there. Between now and the end of the year, I can at least try out four of these ideas and maybe even more.

Off course these are my plans right now, but they may change and the habits I want to work on may also change. I may jut decide to tackle procrastination next. 🙂

I will however record my experiences and updates here.

The End Goal

When I changed my energy source from sugar to fat, I made a paradigm shift in my thinking.

I suppose my objective with changing negative habits is to realize an even bigger paradigm shift in my life.

For more on the paradigms that define us and how habits create our live experiences, watch this short explanation by Bob Proctor…

What about You

What habits do you want to change? What is that one thing, you have been thinking about, but just haven’t done yet?

If you have any ideas or resources you think may be useful please leave a comment below.

Noline
 

Noline is a therapeutic reflexologist who converted to the keto lifestyle after losing 55 pounds without counting calories or starving herself. She is a Professor Tim Noakes and the Nutrition Network student and feels compelled to share the low-carb lifestyle with as many people as possible. She does this at Essential Keto, where she shares resources, recipes, and experiences while working on losing that last 10 pounds.