Routine

"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. 

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine." ~ John C. Maxwell

What is your routine? What do you do every day without thinking about it? I brush my teeth every day. I was not born knowing how to brush my teeth and often didn't as a child. It became a habit when I was a teenager and I can't imagine going a day without brushing my teeth now.

I am working on making exercise just as routine in my life as brushing my teeth. I have heard health experts say to schedule exercise like an appointment, which may work for some people, especially when just starting an exercise routine, but I want exercise to be more than an appointment in my life. I want to make exercise part of my life. In order to accomplish that, I need to make sure I do it at the same time every day. I brush my teeth as soon as I can first thing every morning. When I go to the dentist, they are amazed that I don't have any cavities and ask me what I do to keep my teeth in such great shape. I shrug and say, I brush them every day (with an electric toothbrush that a dentist once told me is key to good dental hygiene). It's not even a thought I have to make.

When I exercise soon after brushing my teeth and follow exercise with a green smoothie, I feel good. It starts my day off right. I also make personal development and spiritual study part of my daily routine. I often listen to Joyce Meyer when I do my morning exercise. Her messages almost always speak to me. Today I listened to her message twice! There were a couple things in her message I really needed to hear. One was, "It's Time." I agree. It is time to recover from food addiction and move on to living the healthy and happy life God has laid out before me. I believe the key to moving on and getting healthy is by making eating clean and exercise a routine.

A routine is not established by doing something sometimes, when I feel like it. It happens when we repeat the same pattern every day. There are varying opinions on how long it takes to make a routine a habit, some experts say 21 days, others say 30-90 days. I believe it is different for everyone and depends on our level of commitment. Many times over the years, I would exercise for several months straight, then skip a few days for whatever reason. Before I knew it, days turned into weeks and I was right back at square one.

No way could I skip a few days of brushing my teeth. I remember being deathly ill in the hospital and still wanting to brush my teeth! It was all I could think about until I got it done. I want exercise to be like that. Not in an obsessive, unhealthy way, but in a daily routine way that helps me get my body in as great of shape as my teeth!

Kathy