How to Restart Your Lifestyle

Sometimes life catches up with you and you need to make an effort to restart your lifestyle. The last few weeks have been pretty hectic for me, and I haven’t made time for my exercise or running, and I slowly started to slack on my daily diet. I haven’t been pigging out on candy, but it was time for me to restart my workout, restart my diet and restart my healthy lifestyle.

I’ve gone through this cycle many times, in different parts of my life. Sometimes my social life starts to drag and I need to make an effort to restart and spend time with my friends. Sometimes my relationship starts to drag and we need to restart the fire. No matter where your life is at this moment, I bet there is one area that could use a healthy restart.

Today was the day that I restarted my healthy lifestyle. After several weeks of moving to a new apartment, fussing over work, having family visits, and generally slacking off, I knew I had strayed too far from my daily workout schedule and my healthy eating habits.

I’ve found that the best way to restart a part of your life, is to pick a date in the near future as your restart date and to enroll someone in your action. Last week I enrolled my girlfriend by declaring to her “I am restarting my exercise and diet next Monday.” - she was excited and wanted to do it with me. Between then and now, I started to get back to my diet, but I knew in the back of my mind that Monday (today) was my restart day, so I didn’t have to be hard on myself for any exceptions that I made over the weekend.

The few days before my restart gave my mind time to prepare and gave me a chance to get any last “bad habits” out of my system - so I was able to enjoy two different Greek restaurants this weekend, rather than feeling guilty about it. This morning we woke up at 6am and did our workout. Then I made breakfast and smoothies, and I’ve been chugging along my healthy eating as normal today.

I think giving yourself a few days before your restart is a good way to take on a new or revised challenge. If you’re sitting at your desk and suddenly have the idea “I’ll start eating healthy today…” - how likely are you to carry that out through the rest of the month? How likely are you to carry that out through the rest of your life?
It’s important to enroll others in your action and give yourself time to prepare. If it’s a new undertaking such as a diet or exercise routine, you may need time to research the topic. Other areas of your life may need time to organize and align before you can really restart them. Whatever your goals, I feel that giving yourself time to mentally prepare will help your restart be more successful than ever.

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