10 Questions That Can Change Your Life!

Wow!!! Can you believe another year is finished? Are you where you want to be in your healthy lifestyle? Well if you want to make changes this is a great time to start. With the start of a new year many make New Year’s resolutions. Do you want to make this your year of change? Or make a change for your family? I was going over my personal goals for the new year and wanted to reach out to you about reaching goals.

One of the biggest parts of making goals that most people don’t cover, which often results in them failing is that they don’t have a real reason for their goal. I have had many people come to me and say “I always failed when I tried to make changes.” When I ask them why they tried to make a change, I often hear the answer, “I just should, it would be good for me.” That is not a solid reason. Let me share an example of what I am trying to relate. “I want to loose some weight to help lower my blood pressure? That is a solid goal and one that you can track.

Here are some questions that can help you get started. When answering these questions think about what your diet and health has been like for the last 12 months. Before you can make any changes you need to find out where you are and answer some tough questions.

The Original Veggie Fermenter (starter kit).
Just add the food and a jar

10 Questions to Help You with Your Health Goals

1. Do you feel healthy? Rate your overall healthy level on a scale from 1-10. How is your energy level, are you tired most of the time?

2. Do you like the way you look in your clothes? Want to lose some weight?

3. Is your skin an even tone or blotchy? Do you have breakouts often?

4. Do you take more drugs than you’d like, (prescription or over the counter)?

5. Where do you or your family eat most meals? Home or Out. Are your meals whole, fresh foods or fast food, boxed instant?

6. Do you understand food and make wise food choices? Do you wish healthy eating was easier to understand?

7. When you eat do you feel that you don’t get full, even though you have eaten enough?

8. Do you crave sweets often? Do you feel meals would not be good without bread?

9. How active are you? Would you like to accomplish more in your day?

10. Do you have a goal you want to achieve, but your health has kept you from reaching it?

I know some of these questions maybe hard to answer, but do the best you can. Decide what you really want to achieve for your health over the next month. Notice I just said over the next month and not year. We have to keep things small. Let’s start with a single month at a time and let it grow into a year. But we do have to name a goal. Goals can’t be reached if you don’t have them recorded.

Make Fermented Food At Home – Easily

Pick one of the questions above. Let’s take question 5 as an example. Where do you eat most of your meals, (home or out)? Are your meals whole, fresh foods or fast food, boxed instant?

A great goal would be to resolve to make 2 main meals from scratch each week as a start. Don’t fall into that trap of trying to make all your meals at home tomorrow. As Americans we like to do everything at once and make all our changes at one time. If this worked no one would have a New Year’s resolution the coming next year. Remember, you did not start eating the way you are yesterday, so it is not going to get all straightened out overnight. But if you make one change today and keep with it, you are closer to your goal than you were.

Okay, to continue with the example above let me give you some hands on planing to succeed. I would make a list to walk through to my goal of making two meals a week from scratch at home.

1. Pick 2 days a week that are not over busy.
2. Find some healthy recipes, hint: look at the top left of the page – Healthy Recipes.
3. Pick two recipes, make a list of need items.
4. Get the needed items from the store.
5. Set aside time to prepare the recipe without stress.
6. Enjoy the new meal, with family or friends.
7. Plan for the next week.
8. After making 2 or 3 weeks of 2 homemade meals, add another to the week for a total of 3 a week.
9. Repeat 1 to 7 for a couple of weeks and add another meal.
10. You are not in a race. Slowly adding another meal over a couple of weeks or so will help you to reach the goal of making most of your meals at home.

If you need pickup a good cookbook to help you out. Did you know that chefs often own many different cookbooks and if they need them we sure do too.

For the month of January we have a lot planned that we hope will help you to reach your goals. By offering common sense sound advice and some unique help that comes from counseling hundreds of scores of others we hope that you can reach your goals. Keep up with the articles over the next few weeks and send a link to a friend that you know wants to make a change. Don’t forget to sign up with the email list to stay current on what is published on Cooking God’s Way. (Sign-up is at the top of the column to the right.)