Become a Gold Medal Olympian in Healthy Eating

The Olympics have started and after years of training the Olympians have their chance to put all of their training and discipline into the one thing that they have been working towards – Winning a Gold Medal for their country.

The Athletes know exactly what they want – they are focussed and clear. They know they can’t get their Gold on their own and they understand that just having a desire won’t get them their medal.

To support them they have to prepare, they have training schedules in place, nutritionists, coaches and physios to support them and they never lose focus on what they are working towards, even when they feel they can’t be bothered.

I want you to have a Gold Medal in Healthy Eating; I want you to become your own Olympian.

So what can the Olympic events teach you about Healthy Eating:

100 metre sprint: You need to starting ability and acceleration

Starting ability: Any change can be difficult and changing your eating habits can be amongst the most difficult. So when starting a new way of eating you need to be able to clear the initial resistance that you may face from both yourself and those around you.

Maintaining speed: After the initial momentum has got you started it’s important that you keep going and don’t slow down and slip back into your old habits.

Gymnastics: You require flexibility, co-ordination and bounciness.

Flexibility: To try new things and be prepared to make choices that may be different from your friends and family.

Co-Ordination: Being prepared, to ensure you have the right foods in your cupboards to meet your own taste preferences and lifestyle. To plan ahead and co-ordinate your day so that you know you will have food available to you that you want to eat.

Bounciness: To know that even if you binge, or eat foods that you didn’t want to that it doesn’t matter. You can just bounce back and re-set your eating habits.

Wrestling: You need a perfect stance and be skilled at being able to “take down” your opponent

Stance: Knowing yourself and what you need is one of the crucial skills required if you are going to succeed at anything, especially life changes. This is important so that if at any time you lose your way – you know just how to get back on track again.

“Take Down”: Your opponent may come internally in the form of self-doubt or cravings or from pressure from friends and family. It’s important to be prepared for these challenges and have plans in place to deal with the issues that you think may arise.

High Board Diving: You require absolute confidence in your own ability

Confidence: To trust your own inner voice and tune into the needs of your own body and not feel you have to follow some-one else’s idea or ‘right’ eating.

On Your Marks, Get Set and GO!

To start you on your way towards your own Gold Medal in Healthy eating you need to start to add more greens into your diet, not only are they incredibly good for you, they also help to banish unhelpful cravings. An easy way to increase the greens in your diets is to have a green smoothie and this is my favourite one:

Apricot and Blueberry Dream

Ingredients
2 bananas
4 apricots
A handful of blueberries
Peas shoots