Healthy Living Day 9: Identify Your Healthy Living Pitfalls

This is Day 9 of the 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge held in Jan 2015 where we work on improving our diet and fitness for 14 days. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.

Hi everyone!! :D It’s now Day 9 of our 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge. Let’s get started!

Challenge Tasks to Date

My Day 8 in Pictures

Okay, so my Day 8 is a perfect example of how my healthy eating plan can go potentially sideways when I get too busy. Because I was busy working the whole day, I only managed to get out at about 9+ pm to get food. And by then, most stores were closed!!! I was lucky to get a burrito which is marginally okay with its fresh vegetables, beans, and corn. But not so much for the wrap though (which is definitely not wholegrain) and how they grill it (the bottom part was completely charred today so I had to remove it manually):

First meal: Burrito with lettuce, cucumber, tomato, BBQ sauce, black beans, corn, and mash potato

Plus grapes! Can never forget fruit! :) (Read: Day 2: Eat 5 Servings of Fruits & Vegetables

Later in the day, the same grilled red pepper and tomato soup (leftover from yesterday) and ginger tea. Do you see the smiley face? ;) That’s for you guys!!

I got hungry in the early morning but there wasn’t food, so I ate 3/4 of an egg muffin (wholegrain) that Ken got for me. Not part of my ideal meal plan, to be honest, though it can be worse like eating fries or instant noodles (there is instant noodles in my house that Ken bought for himself, but I didn’t touch that). Normally I don’t eat eggs unless there’s nothing else to eat or it’s mixed into a dish or food that can’t be separated (e.g. birthday cake). Also drank some orange juice (no pictures). Now that I know the shops here close before 9:30 pm, I know to go out earlier next time.

My first exercise for week 2 of 2015! Morning jog of 2.73km at 8:06 min / km, burning 184 calories.

Last meal of the day: Healthy homemade salad by Ken with chickpeas, tofu, lettuce, homemade sauce, and bacon bits. Yay!! :D

Reviewing my 14HLC goals, they are

Exercise at least three times a week – Check! Did my first exercise for Week 2 today!
Cut out deep fried / oily food from my diet – None of that today, check!
Eat salads more regularly, ideally once a day if I can – One salad today, check!

Check out other participants’ amazing food logs and progress updates in Day 8’s comments section!

With that, let’s move to Day 9’s task, which is…

Day 9: Identify Your Healthy Living Pitfalls

If you have made it this far, I want you to congratulate yourself. Please, give yourself a HUGE pat on the back!!! :) After all, many people tend to start off the new year with resolutions and promises to eat healthily and exercise regularly. However, the same many people also slip off their plan and forget about their goals within a goal or two later. For you to still be with us in this challenge — I say, kudos to you!!! I’m proud of you, and I hope you’re proud of yourself too!

Now, I’m sure many of us have times when we fall offtrack in our healthy living plan. Many of you have openly shared about your obstacles sticking to your ideal eating/exercising plan in the challenge comments in the past week, and I applaud you for your honesty. Myself, I’m no exception. There have been so many times in the past when I diverted from my ideal eating/exercising regime for all kinds of reasons: from emotional eating issues, to other priorities in life demanding my immediate attention, to distractions, to lack of availability of my desired food (as can be seen from my Day 8 recap), to poor planning.

Look, like I’ve continuously iterated throughout the challenge, it’s normal to fall off the wagon. Rather than beat yourself up, the most important thing is that YOU understand what went wrong, address that, and then get right back on your healthy living goals after that.

Today’s task is to identify your healthy living pitfalls, understand them, and identify steps to address them, so they don’t recur. Let’s go! :D

Step 1: Identify past incidences when you went offtrack

Write down at at least three to five past incidences when you went offtrack in your healthy living plan. It could before the 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge — from as long as several years ago, to several weeks ago, to something that happened in the past 8 days when the challenge started.

If you can think of more than five incidences, that’s even better. Basically, the more incidences you can identify, the better! For example, when I did this exercise in the past, I could easily identify at least 20 incidences where I went off-track! This then made it easy for me to do step two.

Step 2: Pick your top two pitfalls to healthy living

Refer to the incidences you just wrote. Are there any commonalities among them? Try to see if there are any patterns causing these situations where you go off-track in your diet/exercise.

Based on these incidences, identify your top two pitfalls to healthy living. Write them down. If you can identify more pitfalls, go ahead and do so!

Here are common healthy living pitfalls people have:

Emotional eating
Poor planning
No time to exercise
Not able to exercise due to circumstances (i.e. bad weather, no nearby gyms)
Lack of healthy food options around you
Prioritizing work over health
Family buying unhealthy food
Friends and family are bad influences as they do not eat/live healthily

Step 3: Identify steps to address your healthy living pitfalls

Now, for your healthy living pitfalls, what actions can you take to tackle it?

For example, if your pitfall is your friends and family are unhealthy influences, your action plan may look like this:

Take ownership over your diet and health. Know that you don’t need to be influenced by them; if anything, they should be influenced by YOU!
Look for friends with similar interests in eating/exercising; Spend more time with them.
Join communities and meetup groups where you can be around like-minded people.
Make a commitment to engage in these communities often so as to get the best of what they can offer

Then, take action on these steps!

Next, Follow Your Plan for Day 9 (Take Pictures Too!)

What tasks have you set for Day 9 of your 14-Day Healthy Living Plan? Do them today!

Take pictures of your healthy meals — breakfast, lunch, dinner, and mid-day snacks if any — and share them in the comments section. :D After all, a picture tells a thousand words, and when you share photos of your healthy meals, it inspires others to eat healthily and gives them ideas on what healthy food they can have too!

Post your initial comment sharing your results for today’s challenge task, then add on throughout the day as you have your breakfast, lunch, dinner, and/or if you’re doing any workouts. Attach photos of your meals by clicking the image icon on the bottom left of every comment box. As you add on to your comment thread, be sure to click on the reply button directly below your original comment so that you reply to your own thread (as opposed to starting a new thread).

Share Your Results (and Photos!)

Share in the comments section!

Your top healthy living pitfalls and your plan to address them
Your progress with your healthy living plan today
Pictures of your meals
Pictures of your workout (if any)

Do check out the other participants’ comments too and share a word of encouragement or two. We’re all in this together, so let’s support each other as a group! :)

After you’re done, proceed to Day 10: Meditate!

(Image: Women running, Girl crying)