New Year, New You!
A New Year’s guide to making 2007 your best year in Nova Scotia ever
Traditionally, the start of a new calendar marks the beginning of a fresh outlook for the year ahead. You can finally focus on what you want out of the next 12 months of your life. Lifestyle changes are never easy, but this year they don’t have to be hard either! Nine Canadian experts offer their most sought-after advice on how you can make 2007 your best year in Nova Scotia ever!
Be more organized
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The best thing to do is decide where to start and stay focused. “Break down the projects into smaller manageable tasks”, suggests Robicheau. “It’s better to create chunks of work that are doable and not as daunting. Pick just one drawer in your kitchen or desk and stay with it until you are finished.”
Apparently, just looking at your designated dumping ground doesn’t help the tidying process. “Procrastination is often the biggest issue I face as an organizer,” says Robicheau. “People have trouble getting started. They are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.” She recommends putting on some comfortable clothes, upbeat music and inviting someone over to help you tackle that hostile pile of junk.
“Make it more enjoyable. Ask a friend or family member to lend a hand. You can then return the favour by helping them. This arrangement will be a win/win situation for both.”
Robicheau believes that the New Year is a great time to re-evaluate what you really need in your home and office. “You have lots of things to pack away so it’s a good time to look at your storage and see if you are using it as efficiently as possible. Donate the old to make room for the new and take the time to arrange, pack and label items for easy retrieval next year.”
Update your computers
Keeping up to date on the latest computer technology is tough. There are a few things you can take advantage of to simplify your setup. If you have multiple computers in your home or office, Ian Bhatt-Standley of FoxNet Computer Consultancy suggests connecting them by setting up a Local Area Network (LAN).
“Any machine connected to the LAN can use a single connection to share Internet access,” he says. This will make sharing files and printing documents a lot easier.
If you want to avoid all those messy wires, a wireless router is a quick and easy solution. A wireless connection gives laptop users more freedom. Bhatt-Standley says, “Typically, for the average house, if the router is situated central to the dwelling, then most rooms and patio areas will be covered.” In Bhatt-Standley’s case, he enjoys surfing the net while he relaxes on his boat.
One responsibility to wireless networking is making sure your connection is secure. Bhatt-Standley insists on setting up a good password to prevent unauthorized access to your network. He says to mix upper and lowercase letters with non-alphabetic characters and don’t use real words or use obvious passwords (like the word “password”!).
Eliminate debt
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First of all you need to become conscious of your situation. Mary Ann Marriott, a financial counselor with Haley & Associates, says, “The fear of the unknown is usually people’s biggest fear. The simple act of sitting down, taking your bills, and making a list of everything you owe, can make things a lot better.”
Marriott says that anyone who is dealing with a lot of debt should do two things. (1) Determine your expenses. Ask “Is there anything I can cut back on or eliminate for a short period of time?” (2) Get in touch with who ever it is you owe your money to.
“The single most important mistake that people make is avoidance,” says Marriott. “Your best bet is to hold the cards and contact each of your creditors. Let them know that you have yourself a little over extended, and it’s going to take a little bit longer to pay it off. Ask them: ‘What can you do for me?’ Or: ‘This is what I can do, is that okay?’ And more often than not, they’ll work with you, especially if you are taking that first step.”
Marriott advises to sit down and figure out your annual expenses for the upcoming year. Once you start thinking about your finances in an organized way, you’ve won half the battle. Start working your finances into monthly spending plans. Figure out how your annual expenses, such as insurance, vacations and groceries, will fit into the plan. This way you know where all your money is going. If you stay organized, you will probably end up with some extra money at the end of the month. Put it toward your debts or into savings. It will help you out more down the road. If you casually spend big chunks of money, you will fall behind with your creditors and get back in a bad situation again.
Marriott promises that you will enjoy life a lot more once you deal with outstanding credit. “One thing I usually tell all my clients is ‘Right now you might be very stressed out by all this but one thing that I can guarantee you when you come out at the other end, you’re going to take the things that you learned and really benefit from this experience’.”
Exercise
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| Diana Hart |
Diana Hart has her own personal training company called Harts@Home Fitness. As a personal trainer, she knows just how important a good exercise program is. As a mom, she knows how much easier it is to do that program at home.
“Everyone says, ‘Well I don’t have time.’ But workouts don’t have to be long and complex. They can be as simplistic as 20 minutes,” Hart says. She has developed a workout program she calls The Busy Women’s Plan. “A lot of the time, I teach women to do basic exercises that they can include in their everyday life.”
She uses interval-style training to keep her client’s heart rate up and help them lose weight. For the best results, Hart suggests focusing on different upper body or lower body exercises every day. One day you might do push-ups one day and the next day you might do squats against the wall, followed by a walk after work.
Who needs a Stair Master? Start thinking about what is available to you at home. Grab some handheld weights and climb a flight of stairs. Hart says big equipment isn’t necessary—small equipment like tubing, stretch bands, and a stability ball is all you really need.
“Exercise really does just help your stress levels if you have a really stressful life. It really does just make you feel a lot better.”
No more pain
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“What we see most often in physiotherapy practice is known as mechanical pain, which is pain related to movement, position or activity. The solution to that is usually some type of movement to restore mobility,” says physiotherapist Nick Matheson of One to One.
What will typically aggravate that type of pain are sustained positions and any kind of repetitive movement. So actions like sitting for too long, prolonged running or heavy lifting can be harmful to your body.
“What Super Slow does is make exercise hard and safe at the same time,” says Matheson. “You’re only on a machine for a couple minutes at a time. It’s low in the number of repetitions, so you maximize the loading on the muscle but minimize the impact on the joint.”
The exercise program is very efficient. Trainers see their clients twice a week for 20-minute long sessions. And it changes lives.
Lose weight
This is the most popular goal of every new year, so we asked Nancy Murphy, General Manager of Weight Watchers, what works? “A flexible approach—rather than a rigid regimen—is linked to successful long-term weight loss,” says Murphy.
“Concentrate on getting started; don’t worry about every detail of a weight-loss program,” she counsels. Remain focused on the steps immediately before you. Don’t be overwhelmed by the weight you feel you must ultimately lose. Remember, just getting started is an important achievement.
“Make your first major goal to lose 10 per cent of your current body weight,” adds Murphy. Not only has a 10 per cent weight loss been proven to be medically significant, it’s also an achievable goal.
“Don’t go to extremes,” she warns. Cutting out food groups and crash dieting inevitably leads to feeling deprived, which in turn leads to overeating and then the weight snaps back. In other words, “deprivation is fattening.” The key to long-term weight control is to learn how to eat in moderation.
Healthy eating
A good nutritional diet is key. Finding the time to eat right can be hard but it does it have to be impossible? Not anymore.
Sandi Richard is a meal-planning expert. She has her own show, “Fixing Dinner”, on Food Network Canada and is the author of the best-selling cookbook series Cooking for the Rushed. She is a strong believer in starting the New Year with good food habits.
“I think the New Year is a good time to just be reasonable. My recommendation would be don’t go to extremes. Start but start reasonably, a little bit at a time and it will actually last.”
As a working mom with seven kids, she is well aware of how stressful it can be to find time to put healthy food on the dinner table night after night. “There was a point in my life when I just wasn’t doing well. I had two kids at the time and a busy life. I was the ultimate dinner-in-a-box person!” Richard knew something had to change so she started meal planning out of necessity.
“A big misconception about meal plans is that it is one more thing to do. In reality, you are saving time. Everyone is overworked, so taking the stress of dinner off your mind is just therapeutic.”
She calls her solution the reusable meal plan. It is an organized approach to grocery shopping and meal planning that will eliminate resorting to cheap takeout food. “A lot of people sort of meander around the house wondering what they will have for dinner tonight. You don’t have to do that when you have a meal plan because you know exactly what you are having. So will head right to the freezer, take out the chicken, take out the stuffing, and BOOM! You know exactly what you’re doing.”
Get together with the people whom you share your meals with and brainstorm what it is you want to have for dinner for five nights of the week. You write down the names of the recipes, all the ingredients, put it in a plastic sheet protector and voila! You have a reusable meal plan that will eliminate future anxiety.
“When you do a meal plan, the entire week is now freed up of you thinking about that chore. You don’t have to worry about it. You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to be absorbed in it. You’ve just done it! It’s over and you’ve saved so much time.”
Feel better about you
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Frank Fricker is a life coach who helps people seeking personal transformation. He says that in order for you to get different results you have to become different people.
“Whenever you are setting a goal, you want to ask yourself ‘who would absolutely be guaranteed success, what would they believe, and what would they value that would allow them to be so successful?’” says Fricker. If you value your goals, whatever they might be, think about the kind of person who would also value those goals and adopt their mindset. “An athlete might not go and drink that half-bottle of wine because they know how they’ll feel tomorrow.
They value feeling strong and healthy, and they can’t feel that way with a hangover,” says Fricker. “Work on becoming the person that will automatically do what you want...”
This year can be different. There is no need to put off sorting through your clothes, organizing your bills, working out at home or preparing healthy dinners. The tools of an organized, healthy and happy individual are right at your fingertips!
If you don’t succeed at your lifestyle changes right away, don’t give up! One of the principles of Fricker’s teachings is that there is no ‘failure’ only ‘feedback’.
“If you have a goal to lose 30 pounds and you eat that whole chocolate cake, you haven’t failed. You just have feedback not to sit in front of a whole chocolate cake next time!”
As long as you continue to work at achieving your goals, you haven’t failed. You just haven’t succeeded yet. •
For some extra help...
Contact any of our experts!
- Ian Bhatt-Standley / www.foxnet.cc
- Brian Callaghan / 902-404-1906
- Frank Fricker / www.zeteticsuccess.com
- Diana Hart / 902-868-1393
- Mary Ann Marriott / www.haleytrustee.ca
- Nick Matheson / www.121wellness.ca
- Sandi Richard / www.cookingfortherushed.com
- Colette Robicheau / www.professionalorganizing.ca
- Deborah Sherren / deborah.sherren@clarica.com
- Nancy Murphy / 1-800-651-6000 WeightWatchers.com
Originally published in the Winter 2007 issue of Lifestyle Nova Scotia Magazine.
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