An Intention For Wellness In 2017

It’s the end of January and for many resolution-making Canadians the Near Year is the start of developing the New You.  However, with so many people making unattainable health-related goals, and so much conflicting information available, it can be difficult to know where to start.

What’s the best eating style or diet? What’s the most effective type of exercise? Should you be trying to spend more time on yourself or more time with your family? Do you need a gym membership or should you build a home gym? There are a million questions and just as many answers.

So where do you start? Well, the truth is that 1/3 (34 percent) of Canadians are unaware of how to tackle resolutions and half of Canadians find it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle even though 73% wish they were healthier. That means every January 1st the same thing happens. Approximately 62% of Canadians make New Year’s Resolutions, and the most common resolution, according to 80% of the country, is to live a healthier lifestyle.

Why are so many of us making the same resolutions year after year? Because the majority of Canadians (86%) don’t stick to their resolutions, and many don’t even attempt to make health-related resolutions because they believe it is too hard to stay on track.

I think part of the problem is that people think that once you make the decision to eat healthfully and to exercise, somehow some switch flips and you want to eat healthfully and exercise all of the time. Trust me, that is not the case. That’s a big part of why I created this blog, to show that we all have healthy cravings for unhealthy food, and exercising can be fun, but that doesn’t mean we always want to do it.

This year I decided not to make any resolutions. Instead, I set an intention for the year. And that intention was to create a year of wellness. 

Wellness: noun. the quality or state of being in good health.

The nice thing about an intention is that it isn’t finite. As long as I make some improvements to my overall wellness, then my intention will have been successful.

Once the intention was made, I created smaller, more specific goals to work.  Today, I’d like to share the goals I’m currently working on in hopes that one or more will inspire you to make a few changes to improve your wellness too!

Go to Bed Earlier

Both my husband and I are night owls, but we really need to be going to bed earlier to make sure we are getting enough REM sleep. Did you know as you get older you sleep more lightly and get less REM sleep even though your body needs just as much as it did when you were younger? Babies can spend as much as 50% of their sleep in REM while us poor adults typically spend only 20%. I guess now we know how the saying, “I slept like a baby,” came about!

Drink More Water

I am forever telling everyone to drink more water, bu rest assured, as I say the exact same thing to myself! I’m great about drinking enough water on the days I teach Zumba, but not so great on the other days of the week (especially the weekends). One thing that makes drinking water a bit easier is having a fun water bottle to tote around! I love S’Well water bottles because they are adorable, and keep your cold drinks cold, and hot drinks hot!

Have trouble keeping track of how much water you have drank versus how much you need to drink? My trick is to put a hair tie on my bottle to represent each bottle full of water I need to drink. As I empty the bottle I remove one hair tie and refill the bottle. When I take the last hair tie off, I know I’ve met my goal for the day!

Take Daily Vitamins

Ideally, we’d get all of our essential vitamins and minerals through our diet. But the truth is that even those of us who eat really healthfully can still have gaps in our nutrition without even realising it.

This year I’m really working hard to be better about taking my vitamins, and am taking the new Jamesion Essentials Line which consists of a Multivitamin, Omega-3, Probiotics and Vitamin D. I like to think of vitamins as an insurance policy to make sure I’m covering all my macronutrient basis.

Yoga, Yoga, and did I mention Yoga?

My body needs more yoga, and more specifically a daily yoga practice. This is something I’ve struggled with for years but this year I really hope to put that struggle in the past.

Even if I can only spend 5 minutes in a restorative pose, I need to make this a daily habit.

Try New Recipes

It doesn’t matter who you are, or what kind of eating habits you have, we all get stuck in an eating rut from time to time. I’m pretty good about doing a big meal prep on Sundays to set us up for most of our meals for the week. But I make pretty much the same things week after week after week. The problem with that is we are eating the same foods without much variety which once again can lead to some micronutrient imbalances. Finding new recipes, and trying new things helps to keep things interesting, and helps us avoid those micronutrient pitfalls. 

I love looking through cookbooks for new recipes to try and I’m really excited to try some recipes from the Oh She Glows cookbook!

Strength Training

I keep saying I’m going to start regular strength training outside of my classes, and then I never seem to follow through and then end up feeling bad about it.

But I think my problem is that I always feel I need to find room for three strength workouts each week, and that is difficult for me to fit into my schedule. But there is no reason why I can’t fit in at least one longer strength workout,  and one workout is a heck of a lot better than none.

I like to think of these six goals as the starting foundation of my improved wellness plan. Some may become a habit quickly, other will likely take a bit more time (I’m looking at you yoga!), but I’m feeling pretty good about them!

Over the next 21 days thanks to my partnership with Jamieson Vitamins I’m going to be taking you along with me on my journey. Be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter where I’ll be sharing my progress!

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? If so, how are they going?

Disclosure: This post has been sponsored by Jamieson Essentials, all opinions (and intentions 😉 ) expressed are entirely my own.