Christopher Craig, Registration Manager, Service Delivery:

For many people, an overhaul to a completely healthy lifestyle that increases your daily intake of fruits and vegetables and your level of daily physical activity can seem like a daunting endeavor. Does this sound familiar? Some questions you may be asking yourself:

• Where exactly do I start?
• How do I fit it into my already busy schedule?
• How quickly will my life change?
• Will the changes that I make be so unbearable that I’ll just stop in the first or second week?

These are all valid concerns for anyone starting anything new. But let’s take a look at long-distance runners. These athletes, when they first started their training, did so in stages and in gradual increases of distance – they didn’t just wake up one morning, go for a 26 miles run and then call that their day. Most likely, they started simply with buying running shoes. Then they probably ran just one mile each day for the first two weeks; maybe three miles a day for the next two weeks; took a break in-between to let their bodies adjust to the new activity and perhaps entered a 5k run – which is roughly 3 miles and change. This gave them an opportunity to look at what might be happening in their body, make adjustments, set a goal to complete something and get back on the trail both physically and mentally. A healthy lifestyle begins the same way.

Increasing Your Daily Intake of Fruits and Vegetables

You can start with little things like going to the grocery store or a farmers market one weekend and buying some fruit or vegetables to last the first week. For example, buy a bag of apples to start, and each day when you leave your house, take one apple to work or school with you. Now when you’re feeling that little craving you can pull out the apple and nosh on that to tide you over – you’ll find it’s quite easy to walk from one place to another eating an apple in a very short time.

Wow! You’ve just increased your fruit intake and introduced a new healthy behavior into your life with relative ease. And just like marathon runners in training, you’re introducing your body to something new gradually. If you’re feeling daring in the second week, take two apples a day, or perhaps an apple and a pear. You might even decide to make a smoothie in the morning and drink it throughout the day or on your way to work or school (as long as you don't add a lot of extra sugar!); celebrate every small success.

Increasing Your Level of Daily Physical Activity

Another gradual change you can make is simply walking from one place to another. Walk whenever you can – that’s the first step.  Then consider beginning a dedicated walking routine – just 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. When you commit yourself to a routine you will begin to cultivate a habit – and you’ll notice you actually begin to look forward to the exercise. Perhaps during your lunch hour, you can take a walk to the local grocery store and buy another piece of fruit to eat on the way back. Taking a friend or group of friends on the walk can be enjoyable as well. You can chat, share stories, challenge each other, or just get some different ideas of things to do and look at that – you’ve introduced yet another small, incremental change to your lifestyle that was seamless and not taxing at all.

Remember, it’s all about practicing the small changes on a daily basis. Trying to do too much at once can seem overwhelming or unmanageable. And those big changes can sometimes disrupt you current flow so much that it throws you off track, you’ll feel as though you failed and then it will take forever to get your confidence back to do the same thing again. Make the small changes and gradually build to bigger things as you find different things that work. Oddly enough, you’ll find that in deciding to make these small changes and do them daily, you’ll also be practicing some level of mindfulness as you’re engaged in these activities and choices.