A permanent healthy lifestyle is an everyday way of life. It is the choices we make when we shop, cook, move, react and look for when we know what our body (and mind) respond well to. It takes a while to get there. After a diet cycle, people often wonder what to do. Get your best tips on how to move towards a permanent healthy lifestyle, rather than get tempted back into bad habits.
From Diet to a Permanent Healthy Lifestyle
You have reached your weight loss goal, and feel great. Your clothes fit again but more importantly, you have more energy than before. The angel and devil moment is hanging over you. Family and friends hand you beers, crisps, cakes and creamy pasta dishes with the words: “You deserve this!”
Do you need it, deserve it or is it just the step you should avoid? How can you take the opportunity to go to the next level and find a way towards a permanent healthy lifestyle?
Why Diet?
Weight loss has little to do with appearance, but everything to do with health. Yes, when you drop in weight you lose body mass, but more important than fitting into clothes is the energy you gain.
The heart pumps easier and your mind responds to how your human body systems feel. You now have a window of opportunity to make a real change which is relatively short.
Permanent Healthy Lifestyle: Everyday Choices
When you reach your weight loss goal you have a choice to make.
What Are Your Wellness Goals?
A diet is great when you want to trigger a change, but is only as good as you make it. You will fit into favorite jeans again, but how about changing inside and really make a difference for yourself for good?
A healthy lifestyle is about finding balance in all areas of life and work – and while a diet helps you control certain aspects of what you eat, it will not assist you with your stressful job nor tackle the need to move every day.
The easiest way to move forward is to start where you are. You have stuck to a diet to lose weight, and now you can move the goal post further. The goal can be as simple as wanting to feel good, and to have something to look forward to makes it a fun challenge.
My best tip is to a healthier way of life is to figure out your wellness goal, plan how to get there and be kind to No 1 (that’s you!). It is not a race nor a competition. It is a consistent approach to the small step by step choices that you make every day.
Permanent Healthy Lifestyle: Feel Good Goal
My AHA-moment came when I changed tactic after a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. Everything had been related to food. Too much, too soon, too stressful, too much regret and just too crazy. Somehow I realized that it was more than just the weight that needed to shift permanently.
The overhaul was more a mental approach and the method far simpler than any diet I had ever been on. What was the secret? I decided to feel, be and do good. 
Instead of being so hard on myself I decided to relax into what I felt suited me.
I set up a far reaching goal to change. It had to take the time it took and include mini goals along the way. My wellness plan set out small lifestyle changes that became habits with time. Rather than to aim for a marathon run, I settled for a daily walk. With food, I included vegetables and a protein or a carbohydrate – instead of going for mini-portions or frozen so called fat-free concoctions. Two small steps to begin with.
Permanent Healthy Lifestyle: Wellness
Finding wellness is a matter of becoming aware that one or more dimensions in your life are not in sync. It can be your job, your level of fitness, the stress, food, relationship or the state of your home. Tip: Read Wellness Defined: How Well Are You?
When body, mind, and spirit work together in an energy filled balance you feel great. You set your wellness goals to reach a sense of balance through a step by step process.
Listing what triggers happiness for you will enable you to form a lifestyle change SMART plan. Overall no-one can determine what wellness is for you unless you sit down and think through what makes you feel good.
The Change You Chose
After a diet, you feel like you have reached a goal but you ask yourself: Now what? You miss the challenge of seeing your goal approaching, and you feel guilty because you’re tempted again by “no-no” items. The elements of guilt, in itself, can lead to an unhealthy road of possible eating disorders or low self-esteem.
Looking for a change after diet means taking the opportunity to learn more about health, wellness, fitness, mindfulness and how it all fits together.
Understanding what wellness is unlocking the key to your own permanent healthy lifestyle change. Part of the fun is exploring and gaining knowledge in areas you want to tackle.
You can get inspired by the articles below or search our site for topics as we’ve covered a lot over the last 5 years.
Permanent Healthy Lifestyle: Consistency Over Time
They say habits change in 21 days to a year depending on an individual. This is true in one sense as you will be able to shift a behavior by doing – or not doing – something consistently. 
The real secret, however, is to be kinder to yourself. Not do it all in one go. Step by step you do move things around on the outside as well as the inside. Habits change when you do things different consistently over time is the take-home message.
Consider that the atoms inside the body – the smallest units of matter, which form the molecules that help comprise bodily cells – are replaced over time. Most new atoms are taken in through the air we breathe, the food we eat and the liquids we drink. Is this not a great motivation to help the atom rejuvenation process by making choices that help the human body systems to reform?
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Permanent Healthy Lifestyle: Change For Life
A permanent healthy lifestyle is about making choices every day that acts positively for your life and work. Whether it is to avoid processed foods, commit to regular exercise, change jobs or play more with your kids – these choices are yours and based on the needs you find when setting your wellness goals and plan.
I discovered how my initial two steps triggered a change process of all areas of life and work. My lifestyle changes became life altering. My body seems to know what it wants these days. I am mindfully aware how easy this sounds and am truly humbled by anyone who sets about to change. It is tough, but a fun challenge – I know!
Live Your Best Life – Carpe Diem
Chose to Change to have Choices
Change happens when you make choices that have been considered, weighed and measured. It does not happen over night, nor is it something you must do.
Change is a choice that becomes part of you when you stick to your plan. The trick, however, is to be kind, take it a bit easier, and really get into what makes you feel good – for you.
The amazing result of a deliberate choice to change is that it opens up possibilities for new opportunities. The energy, happiness, and sense of daily achievement give you real choices in life and at work.
The GOODista team aspire to inspire you to feel, be and do good – in all the areas of life and work. If you want inspiration, motivation and how-to articles in your inbox join our mailing list.
Related and Recommended:
- Mid-Life Change: How to Action and Do it – thegoodista.com
- Making Lifestyle Changes That Last – APA
- Wellness and/or Career Coaching – The GOODista
- 10 Lifestyle Changes For Permanent Weight Loss – Go Fit Life
- 7 Essential Oils For Health – thegoodista.com
- Recipe: Stuffed Tomatoes – thegoodista.com
- 5 Healthy Changes To Make Now – Jillian Michaels
- Self Help Books Recommended by Experts – selfdevelopmentsecrets.com
Wow! This homepage is so very inspiring and so well researched. Congratulations!You provide advice that we all can rely on, and go back to, again and again!
Thank you so much for this positive comment! It inspires us here at thegoodista.com to write more!