Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!!
This is the time of year that most people take stock of their health habits and decide how they want to approach the new year. At Freeman Endocrinology, we are very aware of this because we are focused on our patients’ overall health and as we partner with them on their health journey, our patients share their insights and we gain experience in what works to make progress towards better health.
What we’ve learned is that most people know the steps they should take to make incremental improvements in their health, but that most of us are challenged when it comes to actually doing what it takes to incorporate these changes into a daily routine.
This challenge is something we see whether we are treating patients with thyroid disorders, helping patients manage diabetes, or working with patients to diagnose and manage lipid disorders.
What We’ve Learned from Our Patients
Some patients are able to suddenly change their lifestyle and switch their diet and exercise patterns all at once. Of course, if you are able to maintain this, you can make exceptional progress. However, other patients do well taking a different approach: taking changes and lifestyle modifications one step at a time.
Let’s focus on the second group because you might be thinking – ‘one step at a time means slow progress.’ However, if you make one change a week for 6 weeks you can be significantly further along than you would be if you made no changes at all. And there are people for whom a wholesale change might result in failure. So 6 weeks later for this group of people, there would be no progress at all.
Imagine what would happen if in week one you decide to incorporate more water into your diet. In week two you decide to take a walk for 20 minutes every day. In week three you choose to eliminate sugary drinks at lunch (without adding them elsewhere). So – in three weeks, you’ve started exercising, improved your hydration, and reduced your sugar intake. You could stop there and know that you’ve made progress.
Or you could continue your journey, and the next week you could decide to start going to bed 30 minutes earlier – getting you closer to having 8 hours of sleep a night. And the week after that you could decide to reduce the amount of saturated fat in your breakfast. And the week after that, you could manage your calendar and make sure that you have all of your follow up medical and dental appointment scheduled for the year.
So in six weeks you’ve made marked improvement: you are actively managing your health, getting more sleep, consuming less fat and sugar, and getting more exercise.
So you see how incremental changes can make a difference in your health?
At Freeman Endocrinology, Dr. Jeffrey Freeman and his team are there to help you achieve your health goals and to partner with patients to provide effective management for a broad range of conditions including thyroid disease, diabetes, and lipid abnormalities. For the convenience of our patients we have medical offices in Philadelphia, Norristown and Pottstown. If you would like to make an appointment with Dr. Jeffrey Freeman at any of these offices please call 215-871-1916.
