The Tribune

Health coach Ethan Quant, of Elite Wellness Solutions, has succeeded in his weight loss journey and now wants to share his methods with the Bahamas in an effort to foster a culture of wellness and conquer the obesity epidemic.

Throughout my health wellness and fitness journey I was always of the view point that “now” was the best time to start. That you shouldn’t wait until tomorrow, or next week, or next year. That if you are serious about starting, now was and always will be the best time. While this does hold some truth in a lot of instances, starting your health wellness and fitness journey in the middle of the festive season may not be the best decision. In fact, it may do more harm than good.

See, we are so accustomed to eating, drinking and being merry during the holidays that if we suddenly decide to start a very aggressive fitness plan or new diet we may actually be setting ourselves up for failure.

While I do applaud one’s efforts to get focused and be committed, my biggest thing as a health and lifestyle coach, and as someone who has lived through a 110 pound body transformation, is that you have to set yourself up to succeed and not fail. We all know how hard it is to introduce new behaviours into our lives. We know how we struggle with finding the time to go walking or to get to the gym. We know how hard it is to look past the pastries at our morning meetings at work or to drive past our favourite fast food restaurant.

So what makes us think that we will be able to truly have the will power to say no to the Christmas dinners and New Year’s Eve parties? Sure, we can still go and torture ourselves by putting all of wonderful delicious food and drink in the front of us and just be miserable at the party. Speaking from experience, there is nothing worse than being on a diet at a Christmas party in the Bahamas. You will be miserable!

So instead of setting yourself up for either failure or torture, I would recommend not starting your health, wellness and fitness journey during the holidays. I know that may sound strange, but this is what I recommend instead:

Come up with your action plan for the new year now. This could include things like making sure you find the right fitness trainer, gym, or group fitness class for you. In most instances they will also accept payment for January registration.

Clear the junk food out of your house. This is a big one, but with everything that you will be eating and drinking you shouldn’t miss it too much. So get rid of all of the junk and stock your cupboards with healthier alternatives.

Revamp your schedule. You are the expert in your life, so you would want to look over your daily routine and start carving out time to introduce new healthy behaviours like meal prep or walking, or going to the gym.

The thing is that you want to put yourself in the position so that when January comes along all you have to do is execute the plan that you already have. Once you have this, you are about 70 percent of the way to starting your health wellness and fitness journey off right in 2019.

The other 30 percent comes from just navigating your way through the holidays. The main thing is to simply maintain where you are now so that there is no pressure from the health and fitness police, but also that there is increased awareness because of your plans. You don’t want to start the new year further away from your goals than you are now.

So enjoy the holidays responsibly and get a fresh start in the new year, and smash your 2019 health wellness and fitness goals!