Starting Your Health Journey Right!
So you’ve decided to get healthier, and like most people HAD no idea what to do first. Lucky for you, this short instructional will set you on the right track in no time! Conquering your previous health challenges is about to change your life in ways you never thought were possible…and these simple steps are how you are going to do it.
“Know Yourself” – Delphic Maxim #008
First things first, if you haven’t already taken our Heroic Health Identity Quiz, you’ll want to start there. The quiz will narrow down how you are motivated, how you’ve been most successful in the past, and model your path in relation to one of our 8 archetypal Greek heroes. Once you’ve found your Heroic Health Identity, the next step is to start collecting data. There are things you are doing every single day that have brought you to this point…so let’s quantify them.
Next, pop out your phone and download the “Calorie Counter – MyFitnessPal” application from Google Play or the Apple Store. This app is the largest and most used food tracker on the market, so it’s the most likely to have the foods you are eating already programmed. It will take you through prompts about your height, weight, goals, age, etc. to come up with a general caloric recommendation for you. However, your goal in using it is to simply input what you are ALREADY doing. Input your weight daily and track your meals every day for at least three days. Resist the temptation to change your eating habits or exercise for the first week. By tracking your current dietary intake, this app will be able to report your current caloric intake as well as the macronutrient breakdown you USUALLY consume. It has areas to track your water intake and exercise, but for now these metrics won’t be necessary. You’ll use this average weight and nutrition data to fill out the dietary component of your Health Assessment later.
Then, if you have a Garmin step tracker, FitBit, Apple Watch or other way of tracking your steps; it will come in handy now! Most new phones also have a tracker built into them, so don’t fret if you don’t have one of the previously mentioned devices. Knowing how many steps you take in a day is important to figure out how your body circulates nutrition to your tissues as well as how it pulls wastes out of circulation. Most of us don’t know how different levels of activity affect our overall health, so tracking this metric will prove invaluable in your Health Atlas.
Lastly, the journey you are about to embark on is a lifelong endeavor…so getting in the right mindset is paramount! To get where you want to get on this journey, you’ll want to identify your “why”. WHY is it that you are wanting to get healthier? What is it that you look forward to doing once you feel better? Knowing why you are putting in the work to experience what it is like to feel healthier will serve as motivation to get you to your desired result. Write down your why and put it somewhere you’ll see it frequently (like the refrigerator or your desk), so that you’ll always be reminded why this time you are going to stick to it.
