By Cathy Wilson
Guest Columnist

Affirmations are exactly that — affirming your action. Many people use daily affirmations to keep on track each day like a nudge, a reminder, a bit of encouragement. Spending just a few minutes at the start of your day can set the pace. The idea being that when temptation to quit arises that you will remember one of your affirmations and realize that this is a fleeting moment that you should not give in to. Every time we try to eat healthily, along comes Christmas, Easter, Summer, Friday, or Tuesday and ruins it for us. Perhaps this would be a good affirmation as we enter into 2023:

Reset…Restart…Refocus… As many times as you need to. Just don’t quit.

Losing weight is the most common resolution set each New Years Eve. Ideally the resolution should be to get healthy, which means a whole lot of little steps to ensure that you are eating nutritiously each day which will lead to be healthier.

If you don’t like where you are, move. You’re not a tree.

Decide what it is you want, write it down and work on it. Every single day.

“Don’t fear failure. Fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today.” — Kevin David.

Think ahead to what’s coming up in 2023; maybe it’s a reunion, or wedding. Being healthier when that event rolls around is a goal – write it down, post it on the refrigerator where you will see it everyday. Put it right next to your list of GBOMBS from Dr. Fuhrman: Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries & Seeds which you should strive to eat each day.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” — Steve Prefontaine.

Keep track to see your progress and to keep yourself accountable to yourself. I use a 100-day calendar, but you can use whatever works for you. I weigh in every Monday, but for the other days I check if I eat completely clean & if I got at least 5,000 steps. As we know, 10,000 steps is the goal, but that doesn’t always happen, at least for me. What I’m looking for is to see if I am actually complying with the way that will lead to a healthier me and taking away the cop-out of ‘this just doesn’t work for me’. It does work, if you work it. Don’t give yourself that out – be addicted to bettering yourself.

Don’t let others derail you. Whether they mean to or not, when people see you making all the good clean food choices, they will tempt you with ‘oh, come one, just one’, or ‘reward yourself with a treat’. What kind of sense does it make to reward clean eating with a bad food choice. Right, none.

You become what you surround yourself with. Energies are contagious. Choose carefully. Your environment will become you.

Guess what? January 2nd is a Monday, so all the people that start programs on Monday’s can start January 2nd, 2023. What a year it will be.

Cat Wilson lives in South Bend and transitioned from a vegetarian diet to eating a plant-based diet over two years ago. She may be contacted at [email protected].