Five Top Tips for Maintaining a Balanced Life

1. Stop seeking solace in unsustainable solutions as we all know diets do NOT work, and unattended gym memberships become a drain on finances. Try an 80/20 approach to nutrition – spend 80% of your time in the green zone eating healthy whole food, and 20% in the red zone. Yes, you can indulge, as total abstinence simply leads to self-sabotage.
2. Learn how to harness the power of your mind. The mind is a powerful servant but a very dangerous master – what the mind believes, the body will achieve. You are in control, learn how to drive – those that say they can, and those that say they can’t are both right. Take back the control and you will blow yourself away with what you can achieve.
3. Movement is critical to good health, and this is something that doesn’t require the latest gym gear. Try a standing desk, never take a lift or escalator if you can take a stairwell, move your drink bottle away from your desk and get up every 15 minutes to have drink. At airports carry your hand luggage, you do not need wheels on 7kgs. Always look for the option to move – don’t create new additions to your time poor life that require time and money that you don’t have (gym memberships etc) just maximise your day in a movement way.
4. Fall in love with the body you have as it is the only one you will ever have. Imagine your life with the loss of a limb or your eyesight, your body does an amazing job each and every day with very little thanks or self-love. It’s not about the shape you are or your physical beauty, it’s about your functionality – and every time your body gets you through a busy day it is to be nurtured, loved and congratulated. There is nothing – nothing at all to hate about your body.
5. If you want balance, and want to live a great life, look back one to two generations (depending on your age.) Remembering my mother as a 9 year old child, she didn’t go on fad diets or attend the latest movement class or angst over small inconsequential moments – she had five kids to raise.  She fed us from her garden, all the excess being preserved, and her daily exercise routine was her life – she was busy and motivated in bringing up five capable new humans. And she certainly didn’t have time to over-analyse or sweat the small stuff – she was never sick.  She had a natural balance which we are all trying to put back into our lives through fads and classes driven via our internet platforms when she was instinctively wired this way, so we really don’t have to look too far to find the solutions we are all desperately trying to seek.