Introduction

Sometimes it’s necessary to pause, reflect, and get organised in order to start doing things a little better. Today, I want to help you begin a new routine that will guide you along the path to healthy habits (I call it the yellow brick road). We’ll do this in several steps, and I hope it helps you adopt better nutrition and healthier habits.

First Steps to Start Taking Care of Yourself

To begin with, even if it seems obvious, the most important thing is to get active and make the decision to change your habits. Whether your goal is to eat better, lose weight, or start exercising… whatever the objective, it needs to be clear, and you must be firm in your decision and what it entails. The road is always full of obstacles, many of which we place there ourselves, so the more determined we are, the better.

Prepare the Ground

If your aim is to eat better, how can you achieve that if your pantry is full of ultra-processed products, high in sugar, salt, or unhealthy fats?

Start by throwing away leftovers and any products that don’t align with your goal of healthy eating. This clear-out will help immensely, as with an empty pantry it’s easier to know which healthy items to stock it with again.

Organisation and Planning

Once your kitchen and pantry are free of unsuitable foods, plan your meals and organise a weekly menu so you can shop from scratch for a good selection of healthy foods. This planning is key to avoid improvising, as everything in the supermarket can be a temptation.

And what’s the foundation of good planning? Setting up a menu at home. Has it ever happened that you ask, “What do you want to eat?” and the answers are: “I don’t mind, whatever you like, I’m not fussed…” and then come the complaints about the food? From now on, gather your family, partner, friends—whoever you live with, it doesn’t matter—and plan the weekly menu together. Include both meals and dinners, as well as what you want for breakfast, snacks, or mid-morning. You’ll see how much easier it is to stick to the plan and even the shopping, because if you know what you want to eat during the week, it’s easier to buy only what you need and avoid unnecessary or superfluous items. You’ll save money and waste less food.

As I’ve mentioned before, the ideal shopping list is full of vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, fish, eggs, and meats—but always basic, unprocessed products.

Once the menu, shopping, and pantry are sorted, it’s time to get to work.

Monitor Your Data and Results

Depending on your goal(s), it’s really helpful to monitor your data and track the results you’re achieving. From body measurements to weight, how often you eat fruit per week, how many kilometres you walk, the physical activity you do weekly, or even how many new recipes you’ve tried in a month—any of these can help you see your progress. If you didn’t use to eat fruit and after a month you’re eating one a day, that’s a big step, and maybe in two more months you’ll have doubled your intake. Or if you didn’t exercise and now you’re consistently doing three hours a week, it’s clear that your habits are improving.

It’s important to monitor not only the physical data (waist size lost, kilos shed) but also the advances in your healthy habits (doing more sport, chewing more slowly, feeling happier…).

Break Down Your Goals

Often the goals we set are quite ambitious and might not be achieved in the short term, which is why it’s useful to break them down. For example, if I know I need to lose 20kg, I might get overwhelmed if I don’t achieve it quickly, so it’s better to aim for losing 3 to 6 kilos in 3 months. Or if I want to drop two dress sizes, I might aim to do it by Christmas, calmly and gradually.

Short-term goals can be really helpful because they are often more easily attainable.

And as I mentioned before, these goals don’t always have to be about losing weight or sizes. They can—and should—also be about healthy habits. For example, cutting out sugar from breakfasts over the next two weeks, swapping sweet desserts for fruit this month, or even giving up alcohol at meals and replacing it with water.

The important thing to remember is that all changes take time, so don’t pressure yourself too much. As the saying goes, “slow and steady wins the race.”

Try to ensure your goal isn’t a burden. If you planned to do sport but your job leaves you with less free time than expected, and instead of 4 hours a week you only manage 2, appreciate how good those two hours are for your health—there’ll be other times when you can do more. Or if you hoped to lose 5kg in two months but lost 3, celebrate those 3kg—it’s better than nothing. Stay positive—any improvement is always welcome.

And as I’ve said before, noticing that your lifestyle habits are healthier is a great achievement. When you realise you eat more fruit at home, go out with family or friends to be active, watch less TV, and feel happier and more energetic—you’ll see what a fantastic reward it is.

Another thing that can help is sharing your goal with those around you—this pressure can be very supportive, as telling your family or friends means they can help when your motivation dips. Something that works well is creating a mobile group with people who have similar goals, so you can encourage and support each other when needed.

Above all, I recommend being consistent—it’s far better to stick to your plan for 6 months than just 3, because the longer you follow your own healthy guidelines, the more likely they are to become a permanent part of your identity. And in time, you’ll see many of these healthy habits become second nature and help you feel much better.

So I encourage you to start loving and taking care of yourself more—there’s no greater act of love and respect for yourself than that.

You can do it!