Towards the end of last year, I took a step back to reflect on where I was with my foundational health habits, as well as my overall health and fitness. I also started to think about where I want to put my energy and focus in 2025, so I can take things to the next level.
As usual, there’s never a shortage of things to focus on and improve – but I’ve narrowed it down to three main areas of focus for 2025.
1. Foundational Health Habits
Drum roll….. no big surprise here – my number one focus will be my foundational health habits.
I often refer to these as the base of the pyramid. That’s because they are the cornerstone of my health and fitness efforts.
Not only have I found they make the biggest difference to how I look and feel – but importantly they are critical to me being a strong and disciplined person. They make me someone who is capable of being consistent with my health and fitness efforts.
When my foundational health habits slide, I immediately start to feel crappy. From there, everything else gets ten times harder.
That’s why, if someone is looking to take a first step in improving their health and fitness – or in fact their life – it’s always where I would suggest starting. Forget training programs. Forget the latest diet. Don’t worry about which supplements to take. Ignore the hacks. Start with foundational health habits and build from there.
I know for me personally, it’s a journey I’m always going to be on and will be trying to improve. That’s why it’s one of my areas of focus for 2025.
Let’s start with a quick re-cap on where I’m at with my foundational health habits.
I have seven foundational health habits.
Four of my foundational health habits are in a very strong place – alcohol, caffeine, protein and water. These are almost always over 80% consistency (my target) each month.
Two of my foundational health habits are in a fairly OK place, but are vulnerable – steps and sleep. Whilst I would hope for these to be at 80% consistency each month, they often dip below 80%. When I do hit 80% consistency, I get there by the skin of my teeth.
Lastly, I have one foundational health habit that I am still trying to get off the ground – whole foods. This is where I want 80% of my foods each day to come from whole foods. I’m still on pretty shaky ground here, usually coming in around 50% consistency for the month.
Alright, so, where am I going to focus my efforts to make an improvement?
- For a start, I want to keep the four foundational health habits I have in a good place, staying in a good place. I don’t want to become complacent and let them slide.
- I want to get the two foundational health habits that are vulnerable (steps and sleep) into a more robust place – where they’re mostly over 80% consistent each month and are feeling more like the above four habits.
- Lastly, I want to get my whole foods habit up and closer to 80% consistency each month. It’s fine for there to still be some vulnerability, but I want to break out of the ‘early stages of building’ mode and have whole foods feel more like sleep and steps do now.
That would be an AMAZING place for my foundational health habits to be, It would represent a big step forward from where I am now.
So, that’s the first area of focus – foundational health habits. Of course, I’ll be covering my progress with these throughout the year.
2. Digestive Health
Digestive health is going to be my second area of focus for 2025.
I’ve struggled with digestive issues for as long as I can remember – right back to when I was a child. My stomach has always been unpredictable. Some days, I’ll be bloated and in quite a bit of pain. I also suffer from constipation, and a lot of irregularity.
I had a health hiccup over Christmas that was a big wake up call for me. It made me realise I had normalised what is actually a pretty bad situation. I’d just got used to feeling like this – thinking that’s who I am.
However, I really want to make some big improvements to my digestive health this year. I want to try and get much closer to being normal.
I’ve already made two big changes this year that have made a huge difference.
Firstly, I’ve almost tripled my fibre intake, from around 10 grams per day, to 30 grams per day. Secondly, I’m now eating so much more slowly. Both of these changes have already helped reduce my symptoms and have me feeling so much better.
I’ve also started working with a nutritionist / gut health coach recently. I’ve already started to work on some of their initial advice – bringing in a few supplements and getting into much better gut health habits. I’ve also just done a stool test which I’m waiting on the results for, which I hope can lead to a few other changes too.
So, in summary, that’s two areas of focus so far – a big step forward with my foundational health habits and a big improvement in my digestive health.
The third area of focus is also something that’s plagued me for a lot of my life, and I’m determined to tackle it head on this year.
3. Mobility
My training is going the best it’s ever been. I’m training five times a week – a mix of weights, high intensity training and zone 2 cardio. I’m now extremely consistent in training like this, week in, week out.
I’m also seeing really good results. I look better and I’m stronger, leaner and fitter than I’ve ever been. I’ve had more results in the last two years, than the previous ten years.
But, I do have a weak spot – and that’s mobility.
I’ve always been a very stiff and inflexible person. This means that I tend to get injured more easily. Also, I often feel creaky – especially when waking up, or when I move in a certain way (i.e picking things up, getting up from the floor etc.).
So, I know I can make some really nice improvements to how I feel, if I can find a way to consistently do some work on my mobility.
So what does that look like?
Right now, I have a pretty loose plan. I want to bring in a weekly yoga practice. I want to incorporate some daily stretching. And there are also a few mobility programmes I’d quite like to work through.
I want to start folding these types of things into my week – essentially getting into the habit of doing a few things per week.
I know this is a bit of a vague action plan. However, I also want to be fairly agile about this. I want to explore and try lots of different things until I find something that works for me and I’m able to stick to. .
And there you have it. My three big areas of focus for 2025 are:
- Take a big step forward with my foundational health habits
- Improve my digestive health
- Improve my mobility
If I can make good progress across these three areas, I’m confident it will help take all of my health and fitness to a whole new level.
I’m sure there are going to be quite a lot of ‘two steps forward, one step backward’ moments when it comes to these three things. That said, I’m going to work really hard, and I’ll keep you in the loop with how I’m doing.
I’ll wrap with one final thought. If you’re thinking about improving your health and want to look and feel better in 2025, I would massively encourage you to get on a journey with building foundational health habits.
Life is too short to feel tired, crappy and to be out of shape. Foundational health habits are your best bet to get yourself out of feeling like this, and onto a better track.
If you want any help at all with this, DM me on X or LinkedIn, or shoot me an email. I’d love to chat and help however I can.
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