Which one lifestyle change you've made has had the most positive impact?

[iloveblue]

Hi
Just that really.
I am 37, a mum of two, work full-time plus running a small craft business in the evenings and am feeling old and weary.
I'm overweight and have neglected myself and my health for far too long, so it is time to make changes.

I would love to hear what changes were the most beneficial to you.

Losing 7 stone (42kg) and joining the gym.

Now I need to declutter my house and practise mindfullness, these are my 2 goals for 2015

Taking up running (via a couch to 5K thread here).

Working a 9 day fortnight, so I get a midweek day to myself once a fortnight.

Accepting that good enough was good enough instead of setting myself impossibly high standards (and getting stressed out when I "failed")

50ShadesofGreyMatter - I just need to lose close to 40 kg and this time next year we both would be in similar place
Shifting stuff out of your house is easier than shifting weight so you will definitely succeed!

Yes, a give up the sugar thread would be great. I,m going to need all the support I can get!

There's an 8 week mindfulness course book with a cd of guided meditations by mark williams and danny penman - it's basically the techniques and exercises you would cover on an accredited course or an NHS course. I actually did a course and bought the book as a top up. I use a minfulness app called 'Mindfulness' - the icon is a white silhouette of someone in Lotus position against a blue background. I like it because you can personalise your meditation, eg 5 minute guided followed by a silent meditation with/without bells at intervals you specify. I know other people who've got on well with the Buddhify app.

Mindfulness meditation: I got started with the Headspace app which is awesome (it is subscription after 10 days though). I've heard good things about the Mark Williams book, too.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction is a well respected 8 week course (completely secular) that might be running near you. I've been on two MBSR retreats which have been wonderful experiences.

I ended up at a local Buddhist group who do courses - I have been under no pressure at all to accept any part of the Buddhist philosophy (although I have ended up being interested in it -plenty of people go without any interest other than the meditation part). Audio Dharma is a buddhist podcast which has a huge amount of free audio content including introductory meditation classes.

Insight Meditation Timer is a great app for setting time aside for meditation and timing them, and has some good guided meditations included too.

Going to a class of whatever type has the added benefit of support from other people trying to keep up the meditation habit.

Doing the mindfulness course was helpful because initially most of us were struggling with calming our internal chatter. The post meditation group reflections allowed me to see I wasn't alone. We all improved with practice.

Going vegan. It may sound a little 'hard core' but give it a go. Myself and partner both look and feel so much better. Wish we'd done it years ago. Decided to go vegan due to ethical reasons, but the health 'bonus' has been fantastic.

I have the mindfulness app, however, I practise my mindfulness on an ongoing basis if that makes sense, during the day, whatever I'm doing I try to be really present when i'm doing it.

I am also really interested in going vegan. I feel shit most of the time, single mother, crappy ex, blah blah, moan moan, but I'm sick of feeling exhausted.i drink too much, have too much sugar and prop my self up with carbs . Having said that I eat oodles of veg I'm not overweight and I exercise regularly. Thing is I don't know how to start and it all seems so overwhelming. Anyone got any tips?

For me it's starting to lose weight and eating healthy food. The last week I've been lax and eaten what I wanted and in truth I've felt crap because of it. I'm not sleeping properly or drinking enough water. Can't wait to get back on my slimming world diet asap.

if there's going to be a Low Sugar thread I'm going to have to eat a heck of a lot of xmas chocolate before New Year's Day!

Therapy.

Through that I began to like myself enough to eat better, exercise more, be happier.

Clean eating. I started at the end of June and have lost 3.5 stone so far.

Tell us more about clean eating Josephine.

I'm not much of an expert really I've just muddled through. I started off with some recipes given to me by a juice plus rep at work I just didn't use the milk shakes or the capsules as I think they are unnecessary and a total rip off. I did a 2 week detox plan where i lost 9 pounds and then just googled clean eating and got recipes on the Internet, there's loads out there.

I cook everything from scratch now and meal plan in advance. I eat lots of lean protein and veg and not many carbs. I don't limit portion sizes I just eat as much as I want but good healthy food and snack on nuts and seeds and fruit.

I also started a boot camp type exercise class 6 weeks ago which is helping me stay on track and I'm really enjoying (I think it would have killed me if I'd done it before I lost the weight)

Another one trying cut out sugar and limit carbs.Just three weeks into it but something radical had to be done.I was kidding myself that because I cook nearly all our meals from scratch ,and walk dogs for a living and am relatively slim that I was healthy but over the last few years I have been plagued with fungal toe nails,ridiculously heavy periods,anaemia and periods of extreme fatigue.I have ditched alchohol ,allowing the odd vodka and soda on special days like today.Stopped my evening chocolate fix and afternoon cake habit - albeit home made.Its nuts,seeds and limited low sugar fruit and healthier snacks if I need to keep my blood sugar stable.Lots and lists of green veg with protein for main meals.
Already I feel tons more energetic,clear headed and have lost 6 lbs without even trying or feeling hungry.DH has said he is joining me after Xmas.I have been shocked reading labels more carefully just how much sugar is in so many foods.Oh and only one coffee a day - my morning one and a real treat but trying to kick the caffeine crutch habit too.

Asking for help when I need it rather than keeping up appearances and trying to be superwoman. Running. Keep my sock drawer tidy. Working as a team with DH more effectively.

2015 - lots of inspiration on this thread :)

Watching with interest.

Planning on starting to walk to school twice a week

Thank you iloveblu for starting this thread. I’m really looking forward to implementing some of the ideas.
• lavenderhoney – I need to watch telly when there’s something I really want to watch rather than sitting in front of it watching inane programmes that I then spend time moaning about. Need to apply this to my computer time too.
I also like the idea of wearing favourite or special pants, my underwear drawer is shocking & I really wouldn’t want to end up in A&E. My special undies are kept for those occasions which just don’t seem to come around enough!
• antimatter & rubberduck – I like the sound of mindfulness & I’m currently looking through some resources online & like 50shadesof grey would like to make this a goal for 2015.

I also want to reduce my sugar intake. A couple of weeks ago I decided that one of my New Year's Resolutions would be to stop taking sugar in tea, and I've been decreasing the amount since then, to try and soften the blow a little. I only had one tsp anyway but have dropped it down to half already. I will say that I have tried this before, and stuck at it for about three months, hating every single cup of tea, and finally caved. Time to be a grown up about it, I think. Maybe if I don't enjoy tea it'll encourage me to drink water instead, that's another thing I'm working on at the moment.

I also need to reduce my daytime internet use. I'm a SAHM and it's just too easy to hop online and lose two hours. I know I could have a much tidier house if I didn't do that.

I'm planning a selfish January. It's all going to be me, me me,:)

Apart from the dc. Otherwise I plan to be mindful, exercise, go to bed early, do the Low carb thing on here and put me first. It's a challenge:)

Cycling to work. I am slimmer and happier, and always enjoy it

I gave up sugar in September & have lost 24lbs. I weigh less than I did before I fell pregnant for the first time over 4 years ago & have a whole load of clothes I can wear again. I feel great & look so much better than I have for those almost 5 years.

I only eat the sugars that occur naturally in veg & a couple of pieces of fruit per day. I eat a mountain of veg, cook too much at dinnertime so that I have extra to fry up with coconut oil at lunchtime. I don't eat bread because it flares up my IBS & I cut out potatoes, rice & pasta. I was hugely kidding myself about the amount of chocolate I was getting thru & I no longer crave it. I have had some Christmas cake, a slice of Christmas pudding & a couple of chocolates today & yesterday but I found it too sweet & am happy to go back to no sugar.

Cutting it out has meant no energy slumps & a more level mood as well as the benefits of weight loss. What I have lost has brought me back to the healthy weight range & I am astonished at how easy I have found it after trying previously with a more healthy diet & hardcore exercise.

Sashiko: regarding dropping sugar in tea, I've had the exact same experience of hating tea, but I managed it this year and enjoy tea again and find sugar in tea vile now (and at one point I used to have 3 spoons of sugar in each cup so this was a big deal!)

What I found helped was to switch brand of tea and went up in quality so that my brain had some other flavours to focus on. I started off with trying some posh loose leaf tea that had some very subtle flavours and I've eventually settled on Lady Grey teabags. Also, if you can try and make tea time a bit special (like give yourself 5 mins uninterrupted to drink it rather than while doing other things - a proper break) then it makes the tea break special (AND you have time to actually taste the tea). Mindfulness practice helps here too, I guess

Anyway, it took me a while, but I do enjoy tea again so it's worth persevering. I never thought I'd be able to do it.