How to change my lifestyle

Many men in their Autumnal years feel the need to change their lifestyle, adapt to the aging process and try to lose some of the excess pounds they have accrued.

These pounds can appear for a variety of reasons:

- A sedentary lifestyle
- Office bound work
- A wife / partner who measures her homemaking skills by the girth of her man
- Medical causes
- Sheer laziness

I'm not going to pretend to be able to fix any of these with a magic potion, there are plenty of other sites out there that will promise to do that but what I can tell you is that unless you want to, nothing changes.

Actually, that's not true. Sometimes changes are forced upon us

The main areas of change in our lives are in health, wealth and relationships. It is of no surprise that these three themes are the most common in all internet marketing and site ideas.

But what does it mean to change change your lifestyle? Concretely.

Like most changes, we first have to know where we are, what sort of lifestyle we are living now. Generally speaking, Western Men of Autumnal Age lead either dangerously sedentary lifestyles or physically demanding.

It is important to note that sedentary is not limited to office work, long-haul truck driving is pretty sedentary when you think about it. Yes, the concentration required is higher and for longer periods. Yes, the effects of a lapse in concentration are more serious. But in terms of physical health, driving is sedentary, sitting for far too long at a time to be healthy.

How can you change a sedentary lifestyle?

The easiest way, in my experience, is to incorporate walking into your day at every opportunity. Simple things like getting off the bus one stop early, or two, or three. Then walking to the same stop before returning home.

If you need to walk to the shops, take the long way round the block.

If you need to go and have a beer, walk to the pub.

Walking fixes posture and, as we get older, it is posture that will break us.

Posture and mobility / flexibility.

So, stretching too.

It's not hopelessly complicated and you don't need a gym membership. But if you do, walk to the gym

The other element to changing your lifestyle is diet.

Most men have food cooked for them, sometimes it suits their morphology.

Curiously, cooking for oneself can be a conscious move to changing one's lifestyle. You get to choose the ingredients but, more importantly, taking the time to cook from raw ingredients forces you to stop for a period each day. It is convenience of processed food that is the problem, not sugar or fat (though they are related).

As a thought exercise, consider the change in lifestyle if you were to walk to the shop to buy your fresh ingredients then spend an hour or so washing, cutting and cooking them before sitting and eating your meal accompanied by a favourite wine / beer / spirit.

A simple change that carves out a couple of hours of your day to move, indulge your senses (colours and aromas but hopefully not pain) and then relax.

It has been well researched that our best thoughts come when we are walking and our second best when we are otherwise occupied. A change in lifestyle could be as simple as allowing space for what happens naturally to happen.

Wealth creation / retention is also a significant element in the choice of a lifestyle. Being financially independent is often considered the hallmark of a successful lifestyle but, contrary to popular online philosophy, many, many men enjoy working.

They may not necessarily enjoy their current work (that is then a question about changing your career) but not working is not necessarily everyone's end-goal.

The key to a healthy lifestyle is, in this man's view, moderation. Moderation in wealth, moderation in the pursuit of health (note, the pursuit, not health itself), moderation in relationships.

Which brings us to the third and final element of changing a lifestyle, changing your relationship to relationships.

To get at this topic, you will need to address just what it is that you want from a relationship. Every answer will be different, every answer will be correct. No-one can answer the question for you and no-one can tell you that you are wrong.

So take a seat, a paper and a pencil and just scribble down all the things you want from a relationship, all the things you want to give to one and where in all of that you are sitting now.

Take it real easy.

And be prepared for some answers that may not necessarily please you or fit with your pre-conceived ideas of what a relationship is. Above all, do not be shocked.

It is not necessary to act on the findings right now. Your life may mean that you never act on them but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do the little exercise and repeat it at regular intervals.

The key to all of this is to bring these things: health, wealth and relationships to the surface. To make them conscious and concrete. Because it is only then that you can apply your reason and your rationality to the issues. And it is only then that you can make decisions.