By Michele Tenney
Here’s To Your Health
Michele Tenney
As Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote in his famous speech, I have a dream.
However, my dream is more similar to the song My Grown-Up Christmas List by David Foster. For those of you who know that song, there are many hopeful and encouraging lyrics, such as “But for a world in need, no more lives torn apart, that wars would never start and time would heal all hearts. Every man would have a friend and that right would always win and love would never end.”
These words resonated with me at the end of 2021 when I was contemplating my new goals for 2022. I thought about how much I love my career, the people I work with and about how I would like to take what I do to another level in teaching people about wellness. Spirit, soul and body. I do not like New Year’s resolutions, as they are a setup for failure. I always tell my clients to throw them in the trash. We live in a just-give-me-a-pill, hurry-up, do-more-with-less-time world. It’s not realistic for anyone to think they’ll lose 20 pounds in a month, yet the latest and greatest gimmicks, diets and media keep inundating us with false hopes. Eventually when we don’t see the results we want, yesterday, we give up.
I’d like to elaborate on what does work and my hopes for you in 2022. First, put 2021 and maybe even the year before completely behind you. Whether you put on 20 pounds or 40 pounds, drank more than you should have, suffered depression and anxiety or all of the above, just leave it behind. You can’t go back and change something you did 10 minutes ago. The good news is that mercy has a brand-new day and each morning when the sun rises, we have another opportunity to begin again.
Your battlefield is mostly in your mind, so changing your mindset is the first thing you need to do. How you think about yourself matters. Your self-esteem and attitude about who you are needs to be assessed. If you’ve got what I call “stinking thinking” about yourself, perhaps some daily affirmations are in order. You’ll need to flip the switch from “no, I can’t” to “yes, I can” one day, hour or second at a time.
Secondly, please don’t fall for the latest fad diet. It’s a $97 billion-a-year industry that doesn’t make lasting changes for your life to be truly enhanced. Choose healthier options that are small baby steps, such as omitting soda and chips from your shelves, and begin there. In a couple of weeks, add something like a healthy serving of green leafy vegetables to your dinner plate, replacing a starch.
Last, I’d like to review the lyrics that every man would have a friend, right would always win and love would never end. Seems to me so many of us are on edge with very little patience for one another. Let’s make a concerted effort to be intentional about peace. Let’s remember that love is the most powerful gift we have been given. Happy New Year.
Michele Tenney is a Certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist & Wellness Coach. She can be reached at 203-668-
2969 or email at Hmgbrd3@gmail.com.