How are you all?

There has been a lot going on this week! A change in lockdown guidelines (don’t worry I won’t do a quick-fire quiz on the topic as I don’t think anyone really knows the answers), an overnight change in temperature that went from us wearing shorts in the UK to getting out our woolly hats the next day, and a change in coffee beans for my machine. Yes, lockdown life is a rollercoaster!

With all that to deal with, I still found myself contemplating how the world around us has changed. How it is impacting our everyday lives. Markings on the floors in shops so we keep our distance and arrows to send us a certain way around shops. All these changes in our environment lead us to change our behaviours. Initially this might seem like a strange new world but the more we do it the more it becomes an unconscious act, a habit.

The environment we live in has a huge impact on health. I’m not just thinking about the environment in purest terms such as air quality, noise, and the availability of clean water I’m thinking about the environments we build around us or choose to enter.

 

For example, supermarkets are masters at manipulating their environment to influence what we buy when we enter them. Cheaper goods are put down at low level, whereas more expensive brands are stacked in your face at eye level. If you add children to the shopping experience this increases the “Selling tricks”, sugary treats, character branded goods and eye-catching packaged junk food will all conveniently be placed a child eye level.

 

The store environment is planned to make it easy to choose things that stores want us to buy at that given time. Ever gone to buy your regular brand of washing powder from its usual spot to find its been moved? To find it you may have to go down a number of different aisles stacked with “Special offers” or new brands of powder. I wonder why?

Don’t get me started on internet selling, search for one thing and you will be bombarded with “related” products, all to make it easy for you to hit the buy button.

 

Learn these tricks of the trades when it comes to environment and behaviour, they can be so useful to improve your health instead of helping you stock up on “BUY ONE GET ONE FREE” on chocolate digestives.

Want to shop and make healthier food choices? Be a rebel and don’t follow the well warn path up and down the aisle. Go the long way around the outside, fill your basket first with the fresh fruit, veg, meat and fish first so you have less time or money for add-on’s. Follow the “3 L’s” which are

 

• List- Write a list of what you need and stick to it
• Look up – Take a look up at the aisle guides to find the aisle of where the goods you want are, so you don’t deviate
• Low- If you want to save money look at the cheaper equivalents on the low shelves

 

I’m a great believer that no food is bad food, there are some foods that you maybe just don’t want to eat everyday three times a day. If you find you are reaching for those foods all the time you have two choices. Don’t buy them but this could end up with you just going all out splurge at some point. You could just make it a less obvious choice by placing out of eye level, at the back of the cupboard so its not an obvious first choice. Basically, you change your kitchen cupboard environment, so it helps you make the choices you want to make.

 

If you goal is to exercise more, create the environment that makes it easy.

Place your workout gear by your bed in the morning.

Have a resistance band by your desk so you can do a mini workout every day

Turn your phone off so you get to sleep

If you have a downstairs and upstairs toilet only use the upstairs one (want to make this unnegotiable? Don’t put loo roll in the downstairs toilet!)

 

Put a sticky note on your fridge telling you to do 5 squats when you open it. Put another by the kettle saying five workout top push-ups every time you make a tea or coffee.

Make sure you manipulate your environment to get the results you want. You may be surprised how many ideas you can come up with to make small changes that have big impacts.

 

Stay safe, stay well

Laura

 

You can find me on Facebook at laurawoodley.com

Have you changed your home environment and now have a home workout space?

I provide online programs and video coaching. Drop me a line if you would like to chat over options.

 

 

 

 

 

How are you all?

Where you are reading this will determine whether, you are still in full lockdown or slowly emerging from restrictions. All of us have made changes to our routines for the last few months and I don’t know about you, but some have been better than others.

 

For me it has made me think about how my priorities have changed when it comes to my exercise and nutrition. A few years back I was still clinging on to the ‘Athlete’ attitude, training comes first often at the expense of family, friends and deep health.

 

What do I mean by ‘Deep Health’? Deep Health involves not only being physically fit, but also having good mental, emotional, social and relationship health. Also feeling safe, having access to medical care and feeling that you have purpose all helps us feel energised and happy.

 

Having too much focus on just one aspect of health can often have a negative impact on others. You may not have thought much about the importance of being able to have contact with family and friends a few weeks ago, perhaps you were too busy chasing your work deadlines or an athletic goal. After 5+ weeks of no face to face contact with those outside your household do you feel differently? The clapping and banging of pots and pans at 8pm every Thursday give me hope that we will come out of this with an increased awareness and value of access to medical care.

Often, we don’t we don’t have time for health (or we think we don’t have time for health), and I’m certainly not saying that you we all have more time at the moment just because we are at home more. I work with people who find they are spending more time at their computers at the moment add to that homeschooling and organising meals etc. it’s busy.

When the time is right to make changes how do you find time to exercise and cook? As you all know (Because you have read all my blogs J) It starts with finding your ‘Why’. That personal reason why you want to do/change something. Once you know that you need to decide those things you want to devote most of your time to, your priorities.

Imagine a jar and a pile of different sized rocks.

The large rocks represent those things that need to be in place for you to survive (to give you deep health). Things like time with the people you love, health, sleep and earning a living.

 

The pebbles represent- Hobbies, excelling at work, excelling at sport. Yes, the latter is a is pebble. It is very easy to put something you are passionate about above everything else but ask yourself “Am I getting paid to do this? Can it provide enough security for me to ignore other areas of my life?” The answer is likely to be a no but admitting that can be tough.

 

You then fill the rest of your Jar with sand. These are a bit like the things at the checkout when you are unloading your shopping. You throw them on the belt not because you need or really want them, but just because they are there! Stuff like watching TV, Social media (of course this blog is an exception!), playing video games etc.

Try it, what does your jar look like? No doubt it will be different to everyone else, it might be different to the jar you would have done pre-lockdown. What it gives you is an indication of what matters to you, how you want to spend your time.  As I said now might not be the time to make changes, with so much going on. It could however be an opportunity to plan how you are going to use your extra time when it comes to stay healthy in all areas that are important to you.

 

Laura