With the world speeding up we increasingly need to be organized to get all the things done that we want to do. Yet all this “busyness” can lead to us not paying enough attention to our health.
So perhaps it is time to be organized about your wellbeing. This will be easier than you might think.
To achieve this, we need to have realistic expectations of what we are trying to achieve, have useful information to support us and be able to track our progress. The two biggest parts to wellbeing are what we eat and how active we are.
The first step is to make a plan. Wanting to lose weight or get fit without a plan is like trying to build a house without a plan. The bricks won’t put themselves together and in the pattern you want. Neither will your new eating plan or exercise regimes just create itself. Write your plan down and consult it regularly. You can adjust it as you go too.
Make a list of the foods you need to have at home and go shopping after eating. You will be less likely to buy foods you don’t need.
You need to do simple mathematics. Count and measure what you eat. With any change in eating patterns you need to measure calories and portion sizes till you start to intuitively “get” how many calories are in different foods. With exercise you need to count the minutes and do your exercise at set times so it becomes ingrained in your schedule and not something on the “to do” list. Find out how many minutes of exercise are needed to burn off that muffin – you may be surprised and it will help you resist the temptation.
With any new exercise regime, diarize when you are going to do it. See exercise as part of your schedule rather than something to do if there is a spare half hour. We all have 24 hours in the day available to us. Being organized means you can be fit and still have plenty of hours for everything else.
Having set goals; you want to be able to track how you are going. It can be hard to remember figures from last week so you need to record them.
Your plans and organized health can now be supported by an app.
iHealth Coach has 9 ways to help you make better choices –
1. BMR calculator (basal metabolic rate) – To lose weight you must have an energy deficit so knowing your bodies energy needs makes this simpler to achieve.
2. Calorie Burner – Now with over 40 different activities and over 85 subcategories to choose from, it calculates how many calories you burn up, whether at home, out and about or in the gym.
3. Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator with a 3D image estimate of how you could look at different BMI’s.
4. Waist/Hip Ratio calculator, which is a useful indicator of metabolic health.
5. Hydration calculator so you can see whether you are drinking enough water each day for your individual basic requirements. It has the option of setting a reminder every 2 hours from 9am – 9pm. It also comes with 6 different reminder sounds for you to choose from.
6. BMI/weight tracker to let you monitor your progress.
7. Goal setter, which enables you to set and track your personal goal. Combined with the tracker you can see how you are moving towards your chosen goal.
8. Health tips from me, which can help you and your family to make better health and wellbeing choices and help keep you on track.
9. Finally motivational tips to encourage you to towards your final goal.
ihealth Coach is available from the app store for only $1.29
Medical Doctor, author, speaker, media presenter and health industry consultant, Dr Joe Kosterich wants you to be healthy and get the most out of life.
Joe writes for numerous medical and mainstream publications, is clinical editor at Medical Forum Magazine, and is also a regular on radio and television.
Joe is Medical Advisor to Medicinal Cannabis Company Little Green Pharma, Chairman of Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association and sits on the board of Arthritis and Osteoporosis WA. He is often called to give opinions in medico legal cases.
He has self-published two books: Dr Joe’s DIY Health and 60 Minutes To Better Health.
In 2024 due to public demand he commenced a podcast, Dr Joe Unplugged, which can be accessed via Spotify, Apple or YouTube.
Through all this he continues to see patients as a GP each week.
