Make it Simple

Part of the Healthy Habits series

Let’s talk about making it simple…

If a health goal seems too complicated or difficult to put into practice try simplifying. Ask yourself “how can I make this as easy for myself to accomplish as possible?” Try to make your health goals intuitive and part of your normal routine because they are easily accessible. Make it simple!

Set up Your Environment for Success

In the Blue Zones, they don’t “try to be healthy.” Health is simply easy to attain because things are already in place to make this intuitive. For example, they don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Today I’m going to walk for my health.” They walk because their towns and villages are set up for walking, and it’s a part of their normal routine. Keep this in mind when looking at your goals and considering how to achieve them. Try to find ways to set up your environment for success- make it simple to achieve your goals. For example, if you want to consume fewer processed foods, don’t bring them into your home (one environment you have more control over) and plan to have healthy, delicious options available to you.

Make It Simple Example

Let’s take the large global goal of “Eating Healthier.” Now, we break this down to an attainable, measurable goal of eating a balanced healthy homemade meal 5 out of 7 days per week. How do you “Make it Simple” so that it is as easy as possible for you to attain your goal? My suggestion is to make a mix and match meal list. Basically, you take 1 item from each category to build a healthy meal. When my oldest son asked for help with this particular goal, I came up with a Meal Builder where he chooses from each category to build a balanced meal. This is just one example of how to simplify a health goal, but all big health goals can be simplified into easy-to-manage steps.

Looking for a recipe that uses the Make It Simple Meal Builder?