Health Goals: One Small Step At a Time

Making any healthy lifestyle change can be hard. Not everyone has a routine of exercising every day and doing meal prep. I don’t believe that that kind of lifestyle fits everyone, but I do believe the making healthy lifestyles changes can be done. As you may have heard me say before “making small changes can lead to making life changes.”

Many times when when we try to change our diets or increase our exercise routine, we have lofty goals of what to do. We want to start jogging in order to be in a 5K tomorrow. It could happen, but the likelihood is really low. Goals such as this become another thing on our to-do list that over time wonder further and further to the bottom not ever to see the light of day again. This can be really discouraging. But I am here to give you hope. Making small changes can make your healthy goals more attainable. As time goes on, you can add on to the small goals and end up making it to your ultimate goal.

My goal over the last few months has been eating a healthier diet. I, like many other Americans, had the tendency of buying fast and quick food. During that time, I was a resident physician in family medicine residency. I believed that every second of my time outside the hospital and clinic was precious. So what did I do? I stopped at Wendy’s, Panera Bread, Chipotle, Boston Market…The list goes on and on. The point is that I was telling my patients to eat healthy and I wasn’t even taking my own advice.

About 9 months ago, something clicked and I began to make a promise to myself to eat a healthier diet. That would mean going to the grocery store and really focusing on getting healthy items. I started buying more fruits, vegetables, and less red meat. I started cooking and seeking out more opportunities to exercise. And guess what!?! I started to feel better. I began to reach my health goals.

Now almost a year later, I get excited about preparing meals. I cook almost every 2-3 days. I find it’s harder for me to eat at a restaurant or get take out because I have started to love how my home-cooked meals taste. Yesterday, I even ventured to make brussels sprouts that until recently I thought I would hate. They were actually quite delicious!

Here’s a picture of be cooking shrimp scampi and corn. You want to know my secret: I have found that cooking all vegetables relies on the same recipe: a sprinkle of olive oil, a spoon full of “I can’t believe it’s not butter”, onions, bell peppers, salt, pepper, and the vegetable you will be cooking. That’s it! Literally, that’s it! And it always turns out great!

So the moral of this story is, to make small changes to reach your big ultimate goals. You will be amazed at how much you accomplish by taking one baby step at a time. Remember baby steps lead to making big steps.