Why and How to Put SMART Healthy Living Goals into Action

© 2018 Susan Barton, DIY Mom Blog

In the previous Healthy Living Series article, I talked briefly about using the SMART goals technique to begin your fitness journey. In this article, I’ll share what led to my personal fitness journey and the steps I took to achieve the necessary results.

It’s important to remember that everyone is different. We’re all at different places in our fitness journey, in terms of weight, dietary needs and activity levels. What might work for one person, might not work for another. The important thing is to simply BEGIN.

My story…

As mentioned in a previous post, throughout my life, I had always been active and fit. Like most people, as I aged, I found that it took a bit more effort to maintain my ideal weight, but my physically demanding job helped immensely. When I left that job to pursue writing full time I had no clue how that would impact my health.

Suddenly, I was no longer the active person I once was. I sat at the computer for hours at a time. My eating habits changed. Add to the fact that I was fast approaching the age where women really need to be extra careful in terms of health, fitness and nutrition – it was producing the perfect storm.

I’d been experiencing palpitations, rapid heartbeat and even occasional chest and arm pain for several weeks, but I ignored these warnings and hoped they would simply go away. I’d always been a migraine sufferer, but when I woke up one morning with the mother of all migraines I knew something was wrong. My husband took me to the ER, where they ran some tests. It seems they thought I was having a stroke. YIKES.

Fortunately, it was not a stroke, but I was in serious distress. My blood pressure was an alarming 189/110 and had most likely been that high for some time. I’d sustained some damage to my heart. I’d be on medication for the rest of my life. I could very well need heart surgery at some later point. This was my wakeup call.

I was referred to a cardiologist immediately. He was a lifesaver…literally. After some additional tests, he sat me down and explained that it was critical to my health that I make some very serious lifestyle changes. Radical changes were outlined. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could very well save my life.

Although you might not currently be at this crisis stage, and I sincerely hope that you aren’t, you could very well be getting close to it and not even realize it. My goal with this series is to prevent you from getting to that point.

Next time, I’ll begin laying out my plan of action, what I did to achieve my goals, what worked and what didn’t and some other tips and pointers for anyone else who may be finding themselves in a similar health crisis as mine.