Five easy steps to start getting healthy today

By Gregory Compton

If you’re like most people who are looking to get healthier, you probably have questions on where to begin.

It does not matter if you want to lower your blood pressure, get your diabetes under control, lose 25 pounds for your daughter’s wedding, lose 200 pounds, get you heart disease under control before you have another heart attack, or your first heart attack, or you are like me and you just want to recover from a stroke and not be so helpless and have a sense of dignity.

The entire idea of becoming healthy or changing your lifestyle can be such a daunting task and overwhelming process that it may have been stopping you for a long time.

And regardless of what got you here it really does not matter. You’re here. Now what?

You’re reading this because you want to do something about your condition, and you probably have known for a while that you should do something, but what should you do? What comes first?

Should you go to a nutritionist and get a meal plan? Buy new walking shoes? Talk to your doctor? Get a physical? Join a gym? Go to Weight Watchers? Read a book? Get an exercise app? Start walking the dog? Join Yoga or Pilates? Register for a 5k? What is the first step?

If you’re the type of person who can just jump in feet first without a care in the world, and you’re ready to get a fitness coach, good for you. Give me a call and we can start tomorrow.

But if you’re like me, a chronic over thinker, keep reading. And to quote Johnny Carson absolutely “do not lay down on the couch until the urge to do exercise goes away”. Keep reading and take your first step, after all the first step is the most important step in every journey.

My personal journey began after my stroke. And sadly enough it was five years before I did a single thing about getting my health back. I had to suffer for five years, and completely give up all hope after my stroke before I was ready. I had resigned myself to the idea that my condition at the time

was just going get worse and worse, and I was going to eventually die, and I did not care. I even took up smoking at the age of 54 after my stroke. Pretty stupid right? A few months before my stroke I had been an Ironman Triathlete in the best shape of my life. And then everything changed for me at the age of 54, I got sick. It took a few months, but once my condition sank in I mentally gave up for the next 5 years.

The notion of regaining my health was overwhelming. Especially after having done nothing for so long. What could I do now? The damage was done. Even if I wanted to where should I begin? Therapy, doctors, only take you so far, I really felt alone and lost.

I honestly do not recall where I got the idea from, it was probably my wife, or the thought of needing a New Years Resolution, but in December 2018 I decided I needed to shed a few pounds. And that’s how I started, and where you should start too. STEP ONE is simply deciding to do something about your health.

All you need to do today is make the decision to start to do something about your current condition. You do not need all the answers at this moment. Just make a decision to start. Regardless of if you want lower your BP, get your blood sugar in line, shed a few pounds, reverse your heart disease, whatever it is you want to do, simply decide to do something, and that’s STEP ONE.

Can you do that? Go ahead and say. “I want to _________”, and you fill in the blank. CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve completed STEP ONE. You’re on your way. The hardest part is over. It really is, because 99 percent of getting healthy is just showing up at the starting line.

By making the decision to start and get into the race you’re already a winner, because far too many of us never get to the starting line, or we spend five years feeling lost and helpless and afraid. Just make the decision, take STEP ONE.

So what’s the next step? You’re a winner already, and you have not even gotten off the couch. Now you to have to take some action which is STEP TWO, and commit to consuming something good for you.

In the beginning, keep it simple. Easy does it. You know you’re going to have to start eating healthier, change your diet, cut out salt, start exercising, join a gym, get a fitness coach, join an exercise group, etc.

Don’t worry we will deal with all that later. In the beginning do not turn getting healthy into a science project.

STEP TWO needs to be something you can easily fit into your existing way of life, that you know will be easy to do, and does not involve to many moving parts and you will consume daily for a month. My personal STEP TWO was eating five pieces of fresh fruit a day for a month. Nice and simple. Not the rest of my life, just one month. I did not completely change my diet or alter everything in my life. I just wanted to take an action that was easy, and did not involve giving anything up.

I figured if I ate five pieces of fruit I would fill myself up, and probably not even want the junk food (which for me was a huge block of Colby Cheese with peanut butter on it), but if I wanted the junk food I told myself I could eat it. As long as I ate my 5 pieces of fruit every day if I wanted the cheese the cheese was fine.

Maybe your STEP TWO is eating a salad every day, or drinking 3 glasses of Almond Milk a day, or drinking 32 oz. of water before each meal, or having oatmeal with bananas for breakfast, or eating a three servings of your favorite veggies everyday.

The criteria for STEP TWO are; it is easy, it will not alter your life in a huge way, it is an action that points you in the right direction, and does not require you to give something up. Granted, your STEP TWO may cause you to not eat a donut or drink soda or something else, but if you want to have the donut or soda you can, just make sure STEP TWO is consumed on a daily basis for a month.

All right, so far we have made the decision to do something, and added a new simple non-life altering healthy food or drink to our daily regiment. Pretty easy stuff right?

OK, on to STEP THREE, which is starting a simple exercise program. Keep it simple, easy, and not too strenuous. Remember, it is just the third step in this journey, and the goal is to add an exercise that fits into your schedule, is fun (or at least not miserable), and you can commit to it every day for a month. That’s right just one month.

My STEP THREE was walking each day on a treadmill for 20 minutes. The speed was slow and incline was zero and it did not matter. All I was doing was taking an action that involved moving, at a non-strenuous level, regardless of the weather, or somebody else’s schedule and that I would have the ability to do by myself no matter what.

Maybe your STEP THREE will be walking outside during your lunch break, personally I needed handrails in case I lost my balance so I chose a treadmill.

Maybe your STEP THREE is swimming one or two lengths of a pool, or riding a bike for a mile, or jogging around the block or going to the gym. Just make sure what you decide on meets the criteria for STEP THREE; make it doable regardless of what comes up in your life, make it fun and enjoyable, keep it simple and not too hard, also it cannot involve a major purchase, you have to start it today or tomorrow, it has be done every day for a month, and if your health permits do it by yourself.

STEP FOUR (my personal favorite) is reward yourself. Make a promise to yourself to buy a new dress, a new iPhone, a new riding lawn mower, or tell you spouse or favorite grandchild that if you complete all three steps you will go and do something special.

The criteria for STEP FOUR are it has to be a reward for you, and you have to tell someone about the three easy, easy, easy, steps you are already taking on your journey to become healthy.

So up to this point, you’ve made a decision to start your journey of becoming healthier. You’ve taken a step in changing your eating habits by adding a healthy alternative without denying yourself anything.

You’ve committed to an exercise program that is easy not strenuous and completely fits into your schedule You’ve made yourself accountable by telling someone important to you what you are doing and promised to reward yourself and possibly them after the first month of your starting healthy journey, and in doing so you have started to build your support group.

Where do you go from here? You know there are other things that need to be added or eliminated to get yourself back to being completely healthy or as healthy as you want to be, and all the other things will come and are necessary.

But all those things are just simply repeating the first four steps with subtle changes in time frames, quantities, effort and eating habits. Everything else you will do on your healthy journey will follow the building blocks of the 4 steps you’ve done. But the most important aspect of what you have done is you have created the foundation of becoming healthy, and you have the road map and building blocks to build a healthy you, and you did it by keeping it simple, easy, doable, and not overwhelming.

Regardless of where you go from here on your journey, it will involve making a decision to do something, changing a habit, getting active, and reaping the rewards and building or joining a support group

STEP FIVE will set you up for the rest of your healthy journey and involves doing some research. You can begin STEP FIVE as soon as you have started STEP THREE or the end of tomorrow and there is no hurry. The only time requirement is to complete it by the end of the first month.

My STEP FIVE was watching a documentary on Netflix called “What the Health” it’s a documentary about eating healthy and involves interviews of regular folks, and President Bill Clinton for that matter, that got healthy by eating more fruits, veggies, nuts and grains. Yours could be a different movie, or a book, or a seminar.

The criteria for STEP FIVE are it is something you will finish. I can always watch a movie, a book may take me more than a month to finish, and I might not even do that, but a movie/documentary is easy.

The idea behind STEP FIVE is to find a way of eating and living that will guide you through the longterm healthy journey and make your journey easy to follow. I chose a Whole Food Plant Based way of eating that allows me to eat as much as I want of the foods in the diet, veggies, fruits, nuts, and grains. It sounds Vegan, but it’s not. A Vegan can eat an Oreo, I couldn’t.

STEP FIVE should not involve you buying supplements or some hocus pocus dominocus gimmick. It should help you go to the grocery store, with some recipes in mind, and purchase food off the shelf that is just regular food. No gimmicks, pills, diet supplements, nobody should make money off of you except the farmers.

Some other documentaries are: “Forks Over Knives”, “Eating You Alive”, “Game Changers”. And if you are a book person try: Reversing Heart Disease by Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, How Not to Die, by Dr. Michael Gregor, UnDo It! by Dr Dean Ornish.

STEP FIVE is necessary now that you’ve started your healthy journey. Doing research will help you immerse yourself in becoming healthy. And I hope it becomes a passion for you as you begin to experience the healing powers of food, and makes you want to learn more and share your new knowledge with others like us.

Ultimately you cannot exercise yourself back to health, but you can eat yourself back to health, as Socrates said in 380 BC, “Let food be thy medicine”