Healthy Working Lives - Health and Fitness
Happy New Year! As it is January many of you may have already made some New Year resolutions. High on the list might be “I need to have a healthier diet and do more exercise”; “I want to reduce my alcohol intake” or “quit smoking”
We may have experienced that these well intentioned changes to our lifestyle are not always easy to keep up and we can find ourselves back to “the old habits” sooner that we would like.
Over the year the Healthy Working Lives group will provide information and activities to offer some support on various aspects on health and wellbeing. The group is made up of colleagues from different services and meet a couple of times per year to plan and arrange information sharing, events and ideas to support with various aspects of health, for example smoking cessation, healthy eating, mental health issues.
To get you started here are some tips on how to make your New Year’s resolution a success, should you be setting yourself some goals:
1. Make only one resolution. Your chances of success are greater when you channel energy into changing just one aspect of your behaviour.
2. Avoid previous resolutions. Deciding to revisit a past resolution sets you up for frustration and disappointment.
3. Don't run with the crowd and go with the usual resolutions. Instead think about what you really want out of life.
4. Break your goal into a series of steps, focusing on creating sub-goals that are concrete, measurable and time-based.
5. Tell your friends and family about your goals. You're more likely to get support and want to avoid failure.
6. To stay motivated, make a checklist of how achieving your resolution will help you.
7. Give yourself a small reward whenever you achieve a sub-goal, which will help to motivate you and give you a sense of progress.
8. Make your plans and progress concrete by keeping a handwritten journal, completing a computer spreadsheet or covering a notice board with graphs or pictures.
9. Expect to revert to your old habits from time to time. Treat any failure as a temporary setback rather than a reason to give up altogether.
Below are some of the most common New Year health resolutions, with links to help you get started and achieve your goal (taken from NHS website)
- Lose weight: get practical tips to lose excess weight, including getting started, healthy food swaps, and our 12-week weight loss plan.
- Get active: boost your fitness with fun and practical ideas to help you get into shape, including Couch to 5K, Strength and Flex and the NHS Fitness Studio.
- Drink less alcohol: calculate your units, get tips on cutting down, track your drinking and find out where to get help and support.
- Eat more fruit and veg: whether you're cooking for a family or eating on the go, our tips and recipes can help you get your 5 A Day.