Guest Post from Janine Kavanagh from Hanging Out with Healthy

 My journey

Becoming immersed in all things healthy has so far taken me in some wonderful directions but my passion for conjuring up clean recipes, exercising with understanding & trying to live each day with purpose has caught the eye of more people than expected & I have been utterly overwhelmed at how I’ve inspired & motivated others. What started out as a personal journey is becoming a road trip with an ever-growing group of followers. True passion and desire, I’ve decided, is not something you can study for, it’s not something you can pretend to have either, it’s not something you can be coached in, it’s something that radiates from within & permeates others around you.

March 2013, bring on the 30-Day Eat Clean Challenge

My journey started with one of those ’30 day eat clean challenges’, that encourage you to strip back your sugars, dairy and wheat based products and shun all things refined and processed in favour of whole, real, nutrient dense foods. For those 30 days I read every label, I scoured websites and digested books and re-learnt how to love fat again (good fats of course). I devoured the challenge and continued it way beyond the 30 days and saw the difference, not only the changes in my body, but the changes to my skin, energy levels, mood, fitness performance and libido! I was part of a movement of 30 day’ers who were all collectively sharing their experiences on a group Facebook page. They were supportive, encouraging, sharing and understanding. All the things you need when you are making changes. It’s fair to say that those 30 days changed my life.

But… (yes, there is a but coming…)

I began to notice that some of the people I’d shared the last month with were getting lost in that post-30 day-period. It wasn’t just those in my community of eat-cleaners that were struggling either, it seemed lots of people I spoke to had enthusiastically gone through some kind of program with great results only to find they were unable to sustain the commitment or discipline afterwards. This is indeed a common story, I’m sure many of you reading this have also been completely focused at some stage and have achieved great results but have lost your way once the initial drive wears off.

This got me thinking, this is where my journey really started to go up a gear. Why do we get lost? Where does that initial focus and determination go? How do the bad habits creep back in, even though we know what they’ll do to us? Why do we undo all the hard work? How do we lose our self-control?

Falling off the wagon

Admittedly, when things get busy or stressful it’s hard to be ‘good’, to be consistent. It’s easy to fall off the wagon and slip up, to miss a couple of workouts or runs, to be unprepared in the kitchen and end up grabbing crap to eat. We get frustrated and almost embarrassed that we can’t stick to the ‘routine’, I mean we know what to do right! We look about for a fix, we reach out looking for something or someone to turn it all around and put the pieces back together. This is the point where I see people try a new exercise class or a crazy new diet, but this is not what’s missing, what’s missing is being accountable, having a purpose that you are answerable for.

Being accountable means you have to check in with someone, you are answerable for what you are, or are not, doing. Being checked up on keeps us in check, accountability is more important than being self-motivated. This is perfectly demonstrated by those that have Personal Trainers or belong to a diet club. Even on those days when these people don’t feel self-motivated or ‘up for it’ they are accountable to their trainer or their group leader to get their shit in order and hit the gym or step on those scales and be answerable to their cause.

Small Commitments = Big Results

But not all of us can afford a Personal Trainer to kick our butts and not all of us want to join a diet club, so what can you do to become accountable for your actions and in turn become consistent with your efforts?

You’ve probably heard that in order to achieve your main BIG goal you have to break that down into smaller more achievable goals. This is soooo true. Firstly, be careful how much you commit yourself to. Becoming accountable has to be achievable. We all try to overachieve, we kind of beat ourselves up before we’ve even started and in the process set ourselves unrealistic goals that quite honestly we will never be able to reach, let alone sustain. So instead of going into complete denial on the ‘goodie’ front, allow yourself one treat a day or make some safer/cleaner/less guilty treats to munch on now and again. Or perhaps, rather than saying you are going to hit the gym every night that week, just cut yourself some slack and set yourself the challenge of hitting the gym 3 times that week. Don’t commit to cooking healthy every night, agree with yourself that you’ll get creative in the kitchen maybe twice that week and the other times you’ll make sure there are healthy shop-bought dinners in the fridge to grab. There are huge benefits in under challenging yourself and actually meeting those challenges, the feeling of achievement is powerful and honestly fuels commitment.

Secondly, find people to become accountable to. Set up a regular morning to meet friends for a walk/run. Arrange a weekly cook-up with a couple of other like-minded people. Put a regular date in the diary to meet others at the gym or join a group exercise environment where there is a sense of camaraderie, like outdoor fitness/boot camps. Book yourself onto some small courses that will support and enhance your journey. Just find someone or something you can connect with where you will feel a sense of commitment and where someone else is checking in to see what you are up to, after all it’s much harder to duck out of a workout or a cook-up when you have to ring someone else to cancel!

So now what…

So what’s happened to those eat-cleaners that have found themselves lost after their 30 days? Well to begin with I’ve encouraged them NOT to beat themselves up. We all struggle with sticking to what we know works. It’s normal, it’s doesn’t mean you are useless in any way at all, just human. Just recognise that you are struggling, that you are lost and need to get help. This is pretty much how my Facebook page began, I felt a need to start something that connected people that were ‘trying’ to be good. Trying to eat well, exercise well and live well, with balance. Somewhere for people to come where they could find other normal people all trying to achieve the same things, but in different ways with different challenges. I have run Healthy Cooking Demo’s with these people at home in my kitchen to re-ignite their culinary sparkle, I have met up and offered one-off Personal Training to these people and offered new ways to exercise that they can go away and do together, I have created a Walk and Talk group where people come and offload and meet others who feel the same way. I have basically created a place where people can feel accountable, where they can check in and share their successes and failures. But most importantly, helping them on their journey has made me accountable to my own.

Do your best guys and try to hang out with other people who want to join you on your journey and together you’ll reach your destinations!

Janine Kavanagh

Hanging out with Healthy

Follow Janine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hangingoutwithhealthy