Time to Get Healthy

1.Sweating it out

One of the most cost-effective ways of helping your health is to be a member of a gym. Carefully compare a few gyms to see what you get for your membership fee – many gyms have a free, no-obligation trial period. Take advantage of this to try out the equipment, talk to the staff and take a class, to determine if this is an environment in which you are comfortable.

The staff can find you a personal trainer to prescribe a programme to meet your goals. You will likely find that after just a few sessions, you will know what to do without assistance.

Find out if membership includes a quarterly assessment of your fitness by a qualified professional, including a blood pressure check and analysis of your respiratory function, heart-lung function, body weight and body composition (the measurement of your lean muscle and body fat percentage).

This kind of assessment should be included – for many people such measurements are crucial for gauging progress and keeping motivation up. Even if you are not training for a particular event but exercising purely for health reasons, it is galvanising to see evidence of body fat decreasing and strength increasing.

Gyms give good value for money, and are the cheapest way of getting the three exercise elements your body needs all under one roof: aerobic exercise (five days a week for 45 minutes a time); resistance training (swimming or weights at least once a week); and stretching (yoga or pilates classes). Check out the classes on offer, and see if the choice of aerobic machines suits you.

If you don’t feel a gym would suit you, you could buy a yoga DVD and go for walks instead – a super-cheap way of doing the best for your body. If you need ideas, check out the Push Play website (www.pushplay.sparc.org.nz), where you can find everything from walking groups in your area to advice on goal setting.

2. Nutritional notes

For guidance on eating well, it’s certainly possible to get the bulk of what you need to know from three or four sessions with a good nutritionist. Ask them to recommend books; a few good examples are Sandra Cabot’s The Ultimate Detox and Can’t Lose Weight? You Could Have Syndrome X, along with The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain and The X-Factor Diet by Lesley Kenton.

The Kenton and Cabot books address, among other things, Syndrome X, which causes weight gain around the mid-section – where extra fat poses the greatest risk of stroke, diabetes and heart attack.

A nutritionist can help with everything from the straightforward – advising on healthy eating and setting up a dietary plan that suits your tastes and lifestyle – to the more complex, such as diagnosing food-related health problems.

3. Mind matters

If you need coaching or guidance on how to view the world, deal with difficulties or manage stress, a psychologist is a worthwhile resource – and again, you may need only a few sessions to learn the tools you need to continue under your own steam.

Psychological coaching and mentoring is tax-deductible if you have a business or are self-employed – it is considered professional development, because if a psychologist is helping to improve your thinking or attitude, you can run your business better.