Commitment to Better Health Starts With Admitting You Want a Better Body

The following is adapted from It’s Your Body by Vanessa Bogenholm.

If you want to change your lifestyle, eat healthy, and exercise, there is one thing you have to do before you do anything else: You need to admit to yourself that the decisions you’re making are stopping you from looking and feeling the way you want.

I know that can be hard to do, especially when so many of us don’t love ourselves the way we are. But it can help to remember that it’s about more than our looks; it’s about how we feel. It’s about feeling healthy.

This mental shift will take some serious change and a commitment on your part. It’s not easy to admit that there are parts of our bodies that we don’t like. It’s even harder to admit we are willingly putting food in our bodies that we know isn’t good for us. But if you don’t face the facts and start off with honesty, you’ll never achieve better health.

A Healthier New Life is Your Choice

Getting healthy doesn’t start with just a diet, an exercise class once a week, drinking more water, shaking around that shake weight, or blaming your parents for your fat genes and lack of exercise. And it doesn’t start with the probiotics your friend swears by, or whatever that doctor is selling on TV.

No, it starts with you admitting you have a problem, a serious one. Admit that you want to get fit and feel better. Admit that this isn’t how you imagined yourself to be when you were younger.

Of course, you don’t have to admit this to anyone but yourself. But being honest and open with yourself about how you feel is the first and most important step to changing. So, emotionally commit to this new lifestyle choice, because that is what “this” really is: a new lifestyle choice.

It’s About Making Your Own Luck

I am not saying losing 100 pounds, not eating cheeseburgers, passing on the office donuts, or running your first 5K will be easy. It’ll be even harder if you’re dealing with arthritis in those knee joints or pain in your lower back.

So how do you get past those problems? You start by making the mental and emotional decision to put in the work. Do that, and — poof! — all these great things start to happen. It seems like luck, but it’s not. It’s really hard work.

It is not easy. I won’t pretend that it is. In fact, this will be the hardest thing you will ever do in your life. But in the end, you will get a body you love and appreciate. You will finally have the body you deserve, and you will feel beyond proud of yourself for seeing it through!

Getting Frustrated Comes With The Process

These lifestyle changes will be tough, physically, mentally, and emotionally. You will cry and scream and get mad and disappointed, and you’ll want to give up numerous times. Sometimes you will give up many times in a single day, or a single hour. And that’s ok! We all feel that way.

What’s important is that you remember that you want a better body, you chose better health, and you chose it for a reason, a reason that is significant to you. Remembering these things will help you to break through that frustration and keep you focused on getting the better body you are capable of getting.

Happiness Is Within Your Reach

When you finally admit you want a better body and realize you have control over the way your body looks and feels, you will be happier than you ever dreamed! Anything will seem possible to you because you will feel like you’ve done the impossible.

You will feel content and motivated, and be able to maintain the new, fitter lifestyle that’ll bring you happiness. And it won’t just be physical happiness. You’ll find the emotional happiness you’ve always wanted too.

For more advice on how you can get a better body, you can find It’s Your Body on Amazon.

Vanessa Bogenholm lives and works her truth every day, both in her own life and with each and every client. Some days she would still rather be the unmotivated, overweight ten-year-old sitting on the couch eating candy, but she can’t be. She can’t because she wants better for herself and because she wants to show her clients — and you — that with a little belief and a shift in attitude, you don’t have to be stuck in a body that makes you uncomfortable.