‘You can’t grow or change by doing what you’ve already done. Maintenance doesn’t occur when you do nothing, maintenance is working to fight entropy. Still, most people won’t leave their comfort zones. Why? The answer is simple… It hurts. By definition, what’s it like outside the comfort zone? It’s UN-COMFORTABLE, right? Change is uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s physically painful, but it’s always mentally and emotionally painful, in the form of discipline, sacrifice, uncertainty and fear’
Tom Veneto, International Trainer, Success Coach, Fitness Guru.

Charles Darwin once said, ‘It is not the strongest, who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change’. The food cravings, addictions and preferences you have today for salt, sugar, fat and gluten, were all set yesterday. Just three weeks of eating a changed and improved diet will re-set your taste buds completely. Change can be really hard but to expect change, you first must make the change. Just because you have always done something a certain way, does not mean that you always must do it that way. People smoked for years – should they blindly continue? No. There was terrible racism written into the law – was that acceptable? No. Women were not allowed to vote – should that have remained? Of course not (NZ was the first country in the world that allowed women to vote by the way…).

Change with baby steps

Do not be daunted or put off by the scope of change required. Take baby steps. Use my guidelines and recipes to alter what you eat daily; one new habit at a time. First, get into the routine of a healthy breakfast. Once you have nailed this into a real habit then change to healthy dinners. Work on being well-rested and having a few early nights each week – bed and lights out by 9pm. Then aim at lunch and being prepared through the day. Then add other new habits and changes. You can be very healthy indeed on an intermediate transition diet. There is no rush. Small steps, done well, create life-long and powerful healthy changes in your body. The positive dietary changes are the key; what you leave out of your system and what you put into your system is what will ultimately heal you or kill you.

The hardest thing for most humans to do is change

I have got to the point where my health buds over-ride my taste buds. I do not crave or miss the junk-foods anymore. I feel too good, too sharp and too alive to care. It will take a year for most people to get well and you cannot sprint for a year but you can walk at a steady pace each day for a year. So, approach your health as a consistent daily walk. Do what you can do each day, push yourself and build good habits. What you do – DO WELL. Don’t beat yourself up if you fall over. Just get back up again and keep on walking!

Written by Jason Shon Bennett from jasonshonbennett.com