196: Building a Wellness Routine ⋆ Andrea Claassen

I recently sent a survey out to those on my email list to see what they wanted to see more of and one of the responses that came back quite a few times was building a wellness routine that sticks. I want to share how I do it and tips for building your own that will fit into your lifestyle. I will also troubleshoot the most common excuses I hear on why it’s hard to make it happen.

My own routine

I used to have a pretty solid morning practice of getting up to meditate in the morning for 5-15 minutes, doing a little journaling and going off to train clients. Now my days start so early 4:30am and I have to leave the house by 5:10am most days I have eliminated that morning meditation and journaling practice for now. I don’t see that as a failure or am upset with myself I just know the season I’m in right now I don’t have the capacity to add in one more thing to my plate. Ayurvedically speaking we are in the pitta time of year which for me doesn’t require a ton of grounding. My dosha is primarily pitta so I do my self-care in other ways in the summer such as working out, playing outside as much as possible, taking my computer outside to work, or saving 30 minutes at the end of a crazy busy day to watch a tv show- current obsessions- Home Improvement, Charmed (the old one) and Murder She Wrote.

As far as my workouts, last year I experimented with not scheduling my workout routine. The result a flopping failure I gained 20 pounds, not joking and really lost the thing that makes me feel the most like me, working out. This year I’m back on my workout calendars, and sticking to my routine. I personally have a small window of when I have access to workout myself at the gym. If I procrastinate I miss my window which forces me to workout. I put my workout into my calendar just like an appointment with a client so I make sure I go.

Finally the nutrition aspect- I meal plan every Sunday for the upcoming week. My son, husband and I all eat differently. I plan out my meals and like variety so usually I don’t rotate through recipes but know in general what I like to eat. Light in the evening, large lunch, and breakfast is always on the go and minimal snacking. For my son he is 3 and sooo picky. He eats about 5 different things so pretty easy to meal prep for him. My husband is in charge of his own meals. He is also extremely picky so I ask him on Sundays what food he needs and I add it to my list when I go grocery shopping. It may be a little unconventional but that’s what works best for our family.

How you can build a wellness routine

Schedule your workouts. Get out your calendar and put them in as appointments. Don’t break them! As soon as you start breaking one or two you start training yourself that it’s okay not to be consistent and soon you lose respect for your own word.
Write your workouts or have a plan for the gym. Another common mistake is you don’t have a plan when you get to the gym or have 30 minutes at your house and then you spend 15 minutes figuring out what to do and only have 15 minutes left. If you don’t know what to do hire a trainer, purchase a fitness app, mark youtube workouts you enjoy, write down workouts from instagram from trainers you like, buy a product that includes workouts.
Morning & evening routines– Depending on your day you might have time for a morning routine or not. If you know you could be getting up 15 minutes earlier do so. Grab a journal and just write, grab a book and read, or use the insight timer to meditate. Have a plan though. Again when we have no plan nothing happens. You have to be intentional that’s how you succeed with a wellness routine. For your evening routine instead of unwinding with wine as that was responses I had choose differently. You have to have a plan. Once more I have the few things I like to do. Somedays I work, sometimes I have clients, other days I want to watch a tv show. Almost every night though I read. I have a book on my nightstand and read for 10-20 minutes to unwind.
Nutrition– have a plan. You need to map out meal plans if you want to succeed with nutrition. If this is an area you’re struggling with start charting it. Most of the time we think we are doing way better than we actually are. You need to bring awareness to the area you’re struggling with instead of doing the same thing over and over that’s not working it will keep giving you no results. Eat seasonally notice what foods are in season. The summer is a great time to eat lighter, fresh foods. If you’re not hungry at night you don’t need to eat.

Yes this might seem like a lot but honestly it’s those who make plans in all of these areas that have the most success with their health. If you don’t have time to make a plan it’s not a priority for you right now. That’s a little tough love as I used to work from 4:30am-10pm and I still made time to build my plan. Another note-the more you plan the easier it will get. Give yourself an hour to map out a plan for the rest of this month in all of those areas. The only plan I do weekly is nutrition. My workouts I do at the end of the month before and I just review my schedule for the upcoming week but my workouts are already planned and in my calendar. So this plan will save you time in the long run.

If you want a good place to start with a free plan. Check out my free July Holistic Fitness Almanac to build your plan for July! It includes workouts, self-care ideas, monthly challenges, and a nutrition focus for the month.