The Balanced Life

The key to being happy and also being slim is a balanced life. It means that everything in your life is where you want it to be and at an appropriate level. When leading a normal, busy life it is common for parts of your life to get out of balance with each other. For example, if you spend too much time at work to earn money then your relationships with your friends may suffer, or if you decide to go on a lot of holidays to relax and unwind then your credit card is suddenly in trouble.

The problems with actually dieting and diets is that they can take over your life, and because you become obsessive about them and getting them right then other parts of your life can start to suffer. So, for example, if you spend a lot of time on your diet and sticking to that then maybe your relationship with your partner starts to suffer as he/she wants to go out with you or for you not to be talking calories and scales all the time. The problem is that this causes pressure in the relationship and hence, when you try and change the relationship then the diet suffers and you get the yo-yo effect.

So if you look at your life, it can usually broken down into the following areas:

Family
Friends
Significant Other
Health
Job
Home
Money / Finance
Spiritual

When working with people 1-2-1 I get them to write down the keys to getting these parts of their life balanced. For example, for spiritual fulfillment they may need to go to church on a Sunday to fulfill that need and get a balance. Maybe for their finance they need to earn 1200 pounds a month to pay all their bills; again that is a key. When they have all the keys to each area of their life then do the parts of the jigsaw fit together? If their family requires 40 hours a week, their friends want to see them 3 nights a week, their job is a stressful 60 hours a week and they spend 10 hours a week looking after the family home then ultimately that is impossible! Therefore you need to revisit it and balance it better. That may be something as simple as agreeing that you work a few less hours but the balance being you have less money to go out with your friends.

If you don't balance things and try and live any parts of your life in isolation then you will always effect everything else however hard you try not to. So turning this to you, when you plan your next diet then how does it fit into your whole life? You can look at all areas and look for what might happen and be ready for it,

1. How does your diet fit in with your family? Are they supportive? Will they have a problem with it? What can you do to help them support you? How can you make sure that you still spend a lot of quality time with them that doesn't involve food?

2. How does your diet fit in with your friends? What can you do instead of drinking and eating too much? Will they be supportive? Are you prepared for possible sabotage from them?

3. How does your diet fit in with your significant other? Are they going to be supportive? What issues might you being slim show up? How will you deal with them possibly sabotaging you, either through "caring too much" or that they don't want you to be slim in case you run off?

4. How does your diet fit in with your health? Being slim and being fit are not the same thing so what can you do to improve your overall health? Health also means mental health so how can you improve your mental health? What long term plans have you got for staying slim?

5. How does your diet fit in with your job? Is your job stressful? Do you eat at work or after work to calm down? How will your work colleagues react to you being slim?

etc etc etc

When you start planning something you can then go and make it happen. As I say to many people, unless you decide what you want and actually go and do it then it is just a dream! Therefore, if you can find a balance in your life that allows you to trim down and be slim then you will find it much much easier to do.