Health & Fitness Tips from a Girl Who Hates the Gym & Loves Ice-Cream

Health tips online are a dime a dozen. But if you’re looking for road-tested tips and tricks, keep reading for a Brauer sales rep’s experience maintaining a healthy lifestyle amid a busy schedule.

My role as a sales rep with Brauer, like many jobs, comes with its challenges – from meeting weekly, monthly, and quarterly targets to being self-sufficient and self-managed. For me, these are the easier parts of my day.

The hardest part? Having to drive past fast food restaurants, not through, and dealing with the constant aroma of freshly ground coffee and bakery food, which I can never seem to escape from. Yes, this is the challenge!

As the heading suggests, the only part I like about going to the gym is being able to justify my Lorna Jane purchases and the best part of a healthy dinner is the ice-cream that follows.

I’m sure there are many other people out there like me, so I hope you can benefit from some basic tips that keep me healthy and in shape all year round – especially during the holiday season.

To start this sometimes you need more than a coffee to get you ready for the day. I used to get up and rush to get ready in the mornings and, more often than not, skip breakfast.

This always increased my stress levels for the day. But now I always start my day with a fruit smoothie, avocado toast, and a glass of water. Let’s just say getting into this rhythm has given me a better relationship with my alarm clock.

My second health tip is make-or-break. This is when it is the easiest to pretend I didn’t pack a healthy lunch and instead answer with a “yes please” to the person asking if I “want fries with that.”

I used to think that healthy food was the usual broccoli, spinach and other vegetables that taste like dirt. However, after experimenting with a variety of different fruits and vegetables that I wouldn’t usually try, I found that substituting some of the usuals with assorted berries, mangos and strawberries is a healthy alternative that also satisfies my sweet tooth. A feat I never thought possible!

The key point here is experimenting with healthy snacks that don’t always come to mind when you think of health.

Go to the fruit and vegetable section of your supermarket, buy a variety of colours and try something new – I guarantee those last-minute lunch trips to McDonald’s will become a thing of the past.

I used to be the girl that gyms and health clubs loved. At the start of the New Year, I would buy a twelve-month membership, train hard for two months and then just before I would start to see any real results, my attendance would become more and more scarce, to the point where any excuse was good enough to not go, and the last ten months of my membership were a complete waste of money.

For me personally, I have found better results in using my surroundings to achieve my goals. I don’t have weight racks or anything like this, instead, I add some light to moderate exercise in my everyday schedule to make it a part of my day.

Along the way, we will use light poles as interval markers or other joggers as competition to increase our pace (my husband’s idea). Once we are in the paddock we just sit for a while and enjoy the sights and sounds. If I’m lucky enough, one of the horses might come over for a pat. It is so peaceful and quiet there for an afternoon you often forget you’re exercising at all. It’s a great place to think and to clear my mind which is just as important as the physical aspect of our health.

For someone like myself who struggles with motivation, finding ways to enjoy exercise and healthy eating have been an adventure on its own. Sometimes changing the smallest things can have the biggest effect, and remember, exercise doesn’t always have to be a difficult task like boxing or a marathon, it can be a walk to one of your favourite quiet spots.

If you use some of these health tips, you may not make it into the next Olympics. However, your personal health and fitness goals can be a lot closer than you think.

Have you found these health tips helpful? If so, you might enjoy the following:

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