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In today’s podcast, Your Ideal Veganish Day Starts The Night Before, we’ll lay the foundation to sculpt a fit, healthy, plant strong (!) body simply and sustainably. 

When I ran my 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz a month ago I powered on in without a huge amount of preparation… although I had all the content I hadn’t really spread the word that the challenge was due to start. It meant I was sort of chasing my tail a little and if you joined me on the challenge perhaps you were too!

Baring that in mind and taking on board some valued feedback from a dear listener I want to give you a little more time to prepare for the next challenge. Even if you’re not vegan curious and not looking to test the Veganish waters via my 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz, the 3 principles I’ll share today relate to any health or lifestyle change you want to succeed in.

I’m going to cover both the actions to take and also the attitude to nurture. It’s as simple (not easy!) as A, B, C.

A.lign your goal with your Values and Beliefs.

This is the often missed step that in my opinion can either guarantee long term success or the reverse. The thing is when you first embark on any new (or revisited!) goal just thinking of achieving that goal can be pretty motivating. Thinking of the result may well be enough incentive for those first few days or weeks when your new habits are still fresh and exciting. 

Then a week or two in, getting up an hour early to exercise or prepping food for a couple hours on a Sunday or being the odd one out not demolishing greasy burgers and fries can get a little tiresome. Especially if those results you’ve been focused on are not coming as fast as you’d expected. 

This is the time when having your goal aligned with your core values and beliefs is vital. It’s the force that will pull you through when you get sick and tired of pushing. Taking actions aligned with your core values and beliefs is a non-negotiable. The decision making process is eliminated. As such, the need for discipline is drastically reduced. You simply do the do because that gets you the result.

The catch though is that goal alignment needs to happen before you need it! If you want to maintain that momentum you’ve already built that is. The toughest thing is to inflict a Start:Stop approach to NON-goal achievement on yourself. That’s why I super-hugely-recommend that Your Ideal Veganish Day Starts The Night (or Day!) Before, when you take the time to get aligned.

I dig in deep with how to elicit your Values + Beliefs and align then with your goal in show #250 (Align Your Goal).

The Attitude to nurture here is zero judgment. It’s not about giving yourself grief for where you’re starting from today. Or how your past attempts at achieving a similar goal may have panned out. It’s certainly not about judging anyone else for their choices. It’s about getting 100% clear on what is congruent and compelling for the fit, strong, healthy and happy YOU you want to be tomorrow and in 12 months and for the rest of your life.

B.lock time for food shopping and preparation. 

It’s been my experience that I (we!) always expect we’ll have more time, energy, decision making capacity, will power and even readily available healthy food options at our disposal than what actually eventuates.

Blocking time is about admitting that and dedicating a couple of non-negotiable blocks of time to sort your food shopping and prepping so that you get to start each day with the best possible chance of fuelling your body the food it’ll respond well to. Regardless of what the day happens to throw at you. It’s essentially out-planning your lack of discipline. Saving yourself from having to make the better food choice at the end of a long, frustrating, exhausting, will power eroding day. That better food choice has already been made – and ideally prepared – so it’s all ready to go. Again, Your Ideal Veganish Day Starts The Night (or Day!) Before, when you take the time to shop and food prep.

Now what works for you may well differ to my personal approach of 3 hours on a Sunday and another couple of hours mid week. The key is you need to put thought into what will work for you. Importantly, consider the non-ideal week. Not the perfect scenario. What’s manageable in the week when you have to work late unexpectedly? Or you’re unwell? Or you have extra social events?

The Attitude to nurture here is to focus first on what you’ve GIVING your body and also that you and your body are a team. That means thoughts of restriction and what “you can’t eat” are… restricted! I want you to focus on ALL the glorious, nutritious, delicious food you’ll be giving your body. Equally, time blocked for shopping and food prep is not wasted or “at the cost of more fun stuff” it’s essential time prioritized to allow you to achieve your goal.

C.ommit to stick with it even when it gets a little struggle street as it surely will. 

I’m just being honest with you here. Please don’t be just a good time friend to your body or your goal! It’s easy to stay the course when all is going smoothly. By acknowledging – in advance – that some days will be super tough and committing to stick with it regardless I’m not asking you to expect perfection of yourself. More so I’m asking you to jump back on track immediately – the next meal or the next workout after a slight slip up.

Failure so far as sculpting a fit, healthy, plant strong (!) body never happens in instant or with one decision. It happens when you let a slight slip up spiral out of control and give up on dragging yourself back on track.  

One of the most effective ways to help yourself stick with a new habit is to seek support and accountability. Again with this step Your Ideal Veganish Day Starts The Night (or Day!) Before when you set up your support systems before you need them. I can help you with that. Either via the 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz or via my Facebook live videos several times a week.

I’ve absolutely been there so far as putting in the effort for minimal results and feeling self doubt, frustration and fear so far as “will this ever work for me?” Although perhaps the most important lesson I’ve ever learnt is to back yourself 100%, equally sometimes you also need the support of someone else backing you. Someone else who has been in the same position and knows the steps necessary to get unstuck.

The Attitude to nurture here is constant, gradual improvement… and also that everything counts. The good eating and exercising approach you can stick with and build on is always going to beat the perfect approach you give up on. It’s not just about the daily results you’re striving for. More importantly it’s about daily reference points for success you’re building. Proof to yourself that you can do it. You can stick with it.

So to recap, those 3 steps that will lay the foundation to sculpt a fit, healthy, plant strong (!) body simply and sustainably are:

One: Align your goal with your Values and Beliefs.

Two: Block time for food shopping and preparation. 

Three: Commit to stick with it even when it gets a little struggle street. 

To get actionable today I’d love to connect with you via either the Free 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz or via my Facebook live videos which will dig in with each of these steps over the next week. In addition you can grab a shopping list for all the meals in the 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz here:

Get Shopping List for the 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz!

That’s it for this week in Healthification. Thanks so very much for hanging with me today. If you’ve found this show of value I’d super appreciate you sharing it with someone you think might also find it valuable. That’d rock. Cheers!

If you liked Your Ideal Veganish Day Starts The Night Before, you’ll also like: 7 Day Veganish Flat Belly Blitz

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.