Everyone’s talking about it. Does it belong in my routine?

By the time you reach your 40s, you’ve collected a lot of information about taking care of yourself.

Eat more protein. Get enough fiber. Strength train. Protect your sleep. Pay attention to blood sugar. Drink enough water. Manage stress. Support your heart health. Maintain muscle.

Most of it is worthwhile advice.  Then something changes.

Your jeans feel tighter. You’re hungry every afternoon. Your energy drops at 3:00. You aren’t sleeping as well. Your digestion feels different. Your usual way of eating doesn’t seem to be working quite the way it used to.

That’s when all that health advice can start to feel more urgent.  More protein. More fiber. A supplement. Better sleep. Strength training. Fewer carbs.

The problem starts when several worthwhile recommendations become several new habits you’re trying to build at the same time.  You can end up putting a lot of effort into taking care of yourself without feeling particularly clear about what deserves your attention.

WHAT’S BEHIND IT

Midlife really does change some of what deserves your attention.

Maintaining muscle and strength becomes increasingly important. Sleep can change. Hormonal changes can affect how you feel and function. Cardiometabolic health deserves attention. Your schedule, responsibilities and capacity may look very different than they did ten or twenty years ago.

So learning more about your health makes sense.  The useful question is what you do with all that information.

When you try to build several new habits at once, each one requires attention. You have to remember it, make choices around it, figure out how it fits your day and repeat it often enough for it to become familiar.  That’s a lot of mental work.

Choose one meaningful habit, and you give yourself the opportunity to practice it often enough to learn it.

You learn what a protein-rich breakfast looks like when you’re home and when you’re rushing out the door. You figure out what keeps you fueled through the afternoon on a normal Tuesday and what works when meetings run long. You learn how to make the choice when life cooperates—and when it doesn’t.

Repetition turns something you’re trying to remember into something you know how to do.  Once you know how to do it, it requires less of you.

That becomes especially valuable in midlife because your needs will continue to change. You don’t need a perfect routine that never changes. You need a way to recognize what deserves your attention and build from there.

ONE USEFUL RHYTHM

The next time something makes you think you need to change the way you’re eating, resist the urge to immediately add another rule to your day.  Instead, get curious about what is actually happening.

Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling?
• What happened before this?
• What deserves my attention?

You might notice that the afternoon craving keeps happening on days when lunch is small. Poor sleep might affect your hunger the next day. Feeling uncomfortable after dinner might happen under very specific circumstances.

You’re looking for a pattern.  Once you see one, choose one meaningful place to respond to it and practice that long enough to learn what works.  You can always build from there.

When you know what deserves your attention first, you can give one meaningful change enough time to become part of your life.

Warmly,

Kim Stitzel, MS, RD
Founder, The Fuel Queen
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist

Helping women discover what deserves their attention and build rhythms that fit real life.

P.S. This is exactly what we’ll go deeper into at the next Fuel Queen Live!: Why Trying to Fix Everything Never Works. We’ll talk about why trying to build several healthy habits at once can make healthy eating harder, how to decide what deserves your attention first, and how to make that change work in real life. Join me live September 9th at 5 pm CT. Save your seat here.