Recommit To Your Goals
The journey to health is not always a straight line – for anyone. Life keeps going, and sometimes our goals get left behind.
It happens. It's quite easy for the ups and downs and urgent callings of our days to push the things that are important out of perspective. We get busy and focus on the things outside of our control, when what we really need to do is to pause, take a breath, and gather the resources we need to recommit.
Let this weekend be the reset you need. A chance to get out of your own way, and get back to yourself. Three days is short and sweet, but it is all you need to refresh your goals and remind yourself where you are going and why. Don’t wait for “someday” to come before you prioritize your health. Don’t make empty promises that you won't keep about how one day you will get back to your peak health. Reclaim your health now and use the long holiday weekend to lead yourself back into the energy of day one and a fresh start. Block your calendar, make a date with yourself over the long weekend, and indulge in a total body and mind health reboot.
It’s time to refresh your health commitments
A three-day holiday weekend provides the extra time you need to finally set up a game plan for your long-awaited goals. You know, the ones you set 9 months ago! Don’t be hard on yourself, most of us are in the same boat. And it doesn't really matter how many times we have started or restated, what matters is that we restart and that we just don’t ever give up. A long holiday weekend is a perfect opportunity to reset and layer on new habits in ways that are realistic, helpful, and optimal for your health and quality of life.
It will also come as no surprise to you that gut health, movement, and nutrition are an integral part of this conversation. The three, combined with the right mindset and strategies, can propel your goals forward and give you the energy you deserve for your life. As a first step, it’s important to make space in our life, and in our environments, including in our homes.
And the kitchen is a solid place to start. In this reset guide, we will focus on the strategic setup as well as practical to-dos for you. First up is a kitchen pantry assessment and cleanout, because a healthy kitchen should equal a healthy body, right? What we eat, especially foods that contain chemical additives and ultra-processed foods, affects our gut environment and not for the better. We will also focus on getting you to a place of ease for incorporating consistent movement and nutrition. Alright, let’s open up those cabinets.
Tip:
Pair your health reboot with a digital detox. Skip the news, turn off social media, and just spend three days focused on you and your health goals.
Science Says
Reducing screen time through a digital detox and incorporating self-care activities like exercise, healthy eating, and mindfulness practices has been shown to have numerous benefits for both physical and mental health.1
Remove What’s In The Way
Start with your kitchen
With fall less than three weeks away, it’s a great time to clear out the clutter and start fresh. By this, we mean optimizing your kitchen pantry, with a mindset like “If it doesn't serve your goals or bring you joy, why is it in your cupboards?” The kitchen is a central hub for our nutrition and our health goals. It’s where we gravitate when we’re bored, thirsty, and of course, hungry.
However, facing the kitchen cupboards, refrigerator, and pantry, if you have one, can be a beast of a task–this is where the processed and packaged goods usually reside, as many have a long shelf life. Will you reach for the sugary trail mix that’s staring you in the face? Or the bag of raw almonds that you’ve replaced it with? Having the right ingredients and supplies in your cabinet is key. If you’re someone who wants to be prepared to make a healthy meal or snack anytime, even due to boredom eating (none of us are immune to that), always have certain staples in the pantry at the ready.
Key Things to Address
The first step in your pantry cleanup is to go through the labels on your cupboard items. Think of yourself like a detective and scrutinize all the food labels. Here are things to take note of:
1. First, focus on the ingredient list.
Sure, the nutrition label is important, but the breakdown of what’s in your food is even more important. To effectively read a food label, start by checking the serving size and the number of servings in the package. Then, review the calorie content and look at the amounts of total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, fiber, sugars, and protein. Finally, familiarize yourself with the ingredients list, paying attention to added sugars, artificial ingredients, and any potential allergens. Note that the most abundant (highest %) ingredient is the one listed first on any label.
2. Stick with real foods.
Can you pronounce the words on the ingredient list? Or does it feel like a foreign language? Examples include butylated hydroxytoluene, carrageenan, hydrogenated vegetable oil (transfat), aspartame, and Monosodium glutamate. Being able to correctly pronounce the ingredients in your food can help you make informed decisions about what you eat. Processed food ingredients often contain chemical additives and preservatives that can be difficult to say and may have long and complex names, making it hard to know what they are and what they do. These ingredients can be harmful to consume in excess, as they may cause health problems such as inflammation, weight gain, and an increased risk of chronic diseases.
3. Follow nutritional guidelines.
If you are going to be a consumer of packaged goods, make sure to follow Viome’s “Foods Everyone Should Avoid” list on the Guide to Your Viome Recommendations page in your app to make the best choices on them. Here’s a quick reminder of some of them- sweeteners like agave, corn syrup, sucralose, and white sugar. Flavored oatmeal, sports drinks, and granola bars–one of these three is sure to be lurking in your cabinet somewhere! Oils such as canola and shortening. Refined grains like white flour also might be hanging out in your pantry, given that this flour is in so many packaged foods like crackers and white bread. Also, look out for artificial food coloring on your labels.
4. Toss out the old.
Discard your old supplements and outdated vitamins. Americans collectively spend billions annually on new vitamins, supplements, and quick-fix trending solutions. Unfortunately, the majority of those supplements end up collecting dust and or being wasted either because they are never opened or abandoned because they did not deliver as promised. Start by tossing anything that is expired, and no longer relevant. Next, pull out any essentials that perhaps your doctor advised you to take and organize them for easy access. And finally, put everything else in a nice big box and tuck it safely into a closet, safe away from pets and children. Your new Viome supplements will provide all the essential nutrients and ingredients to restore your microbiome to optimal health.
5. Watch out for healthy marketing.
One more thing to note here is that “buzzwords” can be tricky when it comes to clearing out your pantry. If you see phrases like “gluten-free,” “sugar-free,” or “low-fat,” don’t automatically skip tossing. Being aware of health marketing buzzwords is important because these words are often used to make unhealthy food products seem more nutritious. This can be misleading and prevent you from making informed choices about your food, leading to a false sense of security about your diet and potentially compromising your health. Often these healthy descriptors are nothing more than “healthy pretenders,” meaning they seem healthy in promising that their ingredients are free from some of these potentially inflammatory markers, but flip the box over and read the ingredients label. Then make your final decision there.
The Major Action to Take
Commit to setting aside one to two hours for the cleanout, and if you have to, enlist the help of a friend or family member. Talking out decisions and having someone to hold you accountable as you go through this process can be empowering. Plant a big garbage bag in your kitchen, and be ready to dump what’s no longer serving you. If you feel bad about food waste, ask a neighbor if they might want some of the items. As you detoxify your pantry, remind yourself if “x” isn’t there, then you won’t eat it.
The Follow Up
Go through your pantry at least monthly to stay on track with your kitchen health. In addition, make sure you’re still doing your detective work at the grocery store every time you make your purchases. Check the labels for the ingredients…always.
Tip:
Turn your pantry and your refrigerator into works of healthy art. Get specialized clear but airtight containers and make a point to store your favorite foods aesthetically, showcasing the colors and variety. Food is a sensual experience and it begins with our eyes.
Science Says
The greater the availability of snack foods in the home, the more likely you will consume them, which may lead to increased consumption and a higher body mass index (BMI).2
Rethink What You Eat
Why Nutrition Matters
Now that you have Marie Kondo’d your kitchen pantry of packaged and processed foods and minimized it to what is the most nourishing for you, it's time to think about your overall nutrition habits and consider what other changes you can make.
Food is one of the best lifestyle medicines available to us. It can help with weight management, prevent health challenges and help us stay energized for our days. The nutrients in the food that you eat has a profound impact not only on your physical body, but also on your mental and emotional well being.
When you are deciding which changes to make today towards your lifestyle, meals, and routine, bear in mind your individual self–that what is healthful for your family or friends may or may not be the same for you.
Your Viome results include a personalized nutrition program that is unique to your biology. Personalized nutrition takes into consideration individual variables, including genetics, epigenetics, microbiome, metabolic profile, health status, physical activity, dietary pattern, food environment, as well as socioeconomic and psychosocial characteristics.
Your results and recommendations will apply Viome’s advanced mRNA technology and AI-powered platform to cut through any guesswork and help you uncover your nutritional needs on a molecular level. Your personalized food recommendations will then connect the dots between suboptimal functions in your body and foods you should avoid, or eat more of to improve them.
In the meantime, use this time to define your own personal set of rules and principles that can guide your nutritional choices:
Key Things to Address
1 . Your health shouldn’t wait.
It’s easy to think, I'll start on Tuesday after the long weekend. Or I'll start once my Viome test results are back. No, don’t do that to yourself. Don’t wait; start now. You can move towards healthier habits today. Start by making a written list of trigger foods that you think could be a culprit to your health challenges. Also, consider your bad eating habits–aka those destructive eating habits that send you down the dark rabbit hole. Reflect back on all of the programs and false starts that didn't work and ask yourself why. Chances are you actually do know. And if you get honest with yourself on why a ton of programs didn’t work in the past, you will find yourself acknowledging that it was a matter of self-accountability and not setting yourself up with proper resources to succeed.
2. Identify your go-to healthy foods.
Get clear on which foods are for you. Chances are you are reading this because you have already ordered your Viome Intelligence test and Viome Precision supplements or biotics. Congrats on diving in and making your health a priority. This truly can become a pivotal moment that unlocks the power of precision health in your body. The test will analyze your microbiome and cells with Viome’s cutting-edge mRNA technology and AI-powered platform. You will receive unprecedented insights, including up to 50+ individualized health scores that may highlight underlying contributors to any health issues that could be troubling you. You will receive a personalized nutrition plan that is based on your unique biology with actionable recommendations for foods, ingredients, and supplements that you can use right now. After you submit your samples, you will get your results and recommendations, which will allow you to customize your grocery list so that it’s right for YOU. Quickly after that, your Viome Precision Supplement formula will be custom-made on demand, and Probiotic + Prebiotic blend selected for you based on your test results and directly shipped to you each month.
3. Identify your essentials.
Figure out the must-have items on your grocery list. Whole foods should always take up the most space. Concentrate on categories like produce, preferably organic, seasonal, and local. The Environmental Working Group’s produce lists of Dirty Dozen (foods highly exposed to pesticides) and Clean 15 (minimally exposed) can help assist you in prioritizing what you should eat organic. For dry goods, look to whole grain staples like gluten-free grains, oats, quinoa, and brown rice, in addition to raw nuts and seeds. These longer shelf-life items come in handy when you’re low on fresh food. As for fresh selections, make it a point to keep them handy in the refrigerator and freezer, making the choice to go with antibiotic/hormone-free, grass-fed, and organic. Optimal proteins could look like whole forms of non-GMO soy food, like tofu, tempeh, and gluten-free miso, wild or sustainable seafood, grass-fed beef, organic turkey and chicken, omega-3 enriched eggs, and more. Fermented foods to support gut health are also key to add to your grocery list, with examples like cottage cheese, greek yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, and even sourdough bread!
4. Put yourself on a schedule.
Determine the shopping routines that are most realistic for your lifestyle. Is a local grocery delivery service the best way to keep stocked up? Or are you someone who can allot time to go in person to pick out your own food? Being honest with yourself on this will ensure consistency in having good options on hand. Having an organized shopping routine can help simplify and streamline the shopping process, saving you time and reducing stress. It helps you stay on track with your budget and avoid impulse purchases, leading to more mindful and financially responsible spending. By creating a shopping list, you can ensure that you always have the ingredients you need on hand and reduce food waste by purchasing only what you need. An organized shopping routine can also help you stick to a healthy eating plan, as it allows you to plan and prepare nutritious meals in advance–so you are never trying to decide what to eat when you are starving and ready to eat anything.. Overall, an organized and strategic food shopping routine becomes a ritual that can help you lead a more efficient, healthy, and stress-free life.
5. Figure out your meal-making routine.
Are you someone who thrives off making your meals? Do you prefer spontaneous cooking, or do you like planning your recipes in advance for the week? If you just have no time to be in the kitchen, a pre-prepped meal delivery service may be your speed. Many services do customize around individual nutritional needs. Whether you are making your own meals or using a service, take time to identify what you would need to transform your meals into an enjoyable ritual and part of your day. Perhaps that means setting aside time for cooking or bundling it with another favorite activity like listening to your favorite podcast or time to catch up with your family or friends on a call. For some, meal prep becomes a source of novelty, researching recipes with new foods, experimenting with ingredients and tools, and getting creative with presentations. Each person has their own preferences and now you get to discover yours.
6. Determine when you will eat.
Our bodies were not designed for all-day food consumption. Eating on a schedule and practicing time-restricted eating have numerous benefits for our health and wellness. By sticking to a consistent eating schedule, our bodies are better able to regulate hormones and metabolism, leading to improved digestion and absorption of nutrients. Time-restricted eating, which involves limiting food consumption to a specific time window each day, for example, consuming your food only between 8 am and 8 pm, has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and decrease the risk of metabolic issues. Additionally, this practice can improve our body's natural circadian rhythm, leading to better sleep and increased energy levels.
5. Establish your personal snacking criteria.
It's important to feed our bodies when we are hungry or need energy, yet we don’t need to graze on processed snacks all day long. Establishing your own personal rules and criteria around when you will snack, and the types of snacks or settings you will have snacks is a simple yet effective way to take control of your health, improve your energy levels, and boost your overall quality of life. It helps establish healthy eating habits and promotes portion control, reducing the risk of mindless overeating and weight gain. Secondly, by setting rules, you are more likely to make informed choices about what you eat, leading to a more balanced diet. Additionally, having rules in place can help reduce stress and emotional eating, as it gives you a clear plan to follow when faced with cravings or temptations.
The Major Action to Take
When you’re clear on what will be most realistic for your lifestyle and needs, and what works best for your body, take the time to plan it out. Schedule in your calendar your best day to make it into your favorite grocery store. Plan your recipes for the week accordingly and double up on dishes you’re meal prepping if you know you don't have much time to spare in the kitchen. Keep in mind what’s most realistic and least overwhelming, and you will be more likely to keep at it.
The Follow-Up
Check-in with yourself weekly to reassess how you’re doing: think higher energy levels, reduction of occasional bloat, and good, stable mood. Look to visual markers like the refrigerator being stocked week-to-week. Make note of how long your produce lasts and which items you are eating, and the ones going to waste. For the recipes that you really enjoy, keep them on a weekly rotation.
Tip:
Hate cooking? Watch your favorite show or listen to an audiobook while you prep your food.
Science Says
Temptation bundling is a strategy where one associates enjoyable activities with less desirable tasks, making the latter more appealing.3
Readjust Your Movement Routine
Now that you’ve had two out of three days to shake things up in your kitchen and diet, it’s time to readjust your current movement routine for day three to match your goals. Physical activity has been shown to provide improvement in our physical health, mental health, and, yes, also our gut microbiome health. Research links it to increases in the number of beneficial microbial species and enriching microbial diversity. Body fat percentage and muscle mass are also correlated with several bacterial populations.
Fun fact: increasing the frequency of moderate exercise from never to daily leads to greater diversity in Firmicutes, signifying a healthy gut environment and one that promotes overall health and metabolic conditions. So if you’re already active, then bravo to you! If this reset comes at the perfect time for you to get active again, then bravo to you too!
Key Things to Address
1. Schedule your activity.
Take today to focus on getting your calendar and home ready for your new movement habits. If you plan to work out at home, make sure you have the proper equipment ready–think resistance bands, adjustable dumbbells, a mat, and whichever digital platforms you might be using. If you are more of an outdoors person, start checking the weekly weather patterns to know the best times to get fresh air. For the studio fitness or gym personality, research the best classes for your goals and plug them into your calendar to keep the commitment.
2. Find your support squad.
Reach out to a friend or family member for accountability. Having a friend or family member as an accountability partner can be extremely powerful in making lasting health changes in regard to diet and movement. Research shows that individuals who have social support when trying to make lifestyle changes are more likely to stick to their goals and achieve success. This can come in the form of working out together, meal planning or even a digital support group like our Viome Facebook Community can help. Simply checking in with each other to offer encouragement and accountability and having someone who can relate and offer feedback or insights can make all the difference in sticking with and achieving your goal. Create a buddy list and start checking it off.
3. Pick your starting line.
Decide what you want your first habit to be. Behavior change is hard, and it takes time to change long-held habits. You may find things easier if you instead focus on just ONE thing at a time. When we try to do too many things, it can lead to overwhelm and burnout–a recipe for quitting. Having a clear and targeted approach to initiating health changes can lead to greater success and long-term benefits. Research has shown that starting with a keystone habit, such as regular exercise or keeping a food journal, can lead to a chain reaction of positive health behaviors and improvements in overall wellness. Some great examples of habits to layer on include the 10k step per day rule, doing an activity every day for at least 30 min, or committing to 3 strength days - one total body focused, one upper body, and one lower body.
4. Be honest with yourself.
Don’t pretend to be an early bird if you are a night owl. Studies have shown that honoring your authentic rhythms and creating a health plan that aligns with your unique physiology and lifestyle can increase the likelihood of success and sustainability. Get real about the most realistic time of day for you to get in your movement. Just because the morning routine trend is hot on social media doesn't mean it’s right for you. Maybe you are more likely to move your body in the early evening. For some people, lunch hour is a perfect time and provides a nice pick-me-up midday at work. Research shows that individuals who created physical activity plans based on their personal preferences and constraints are more likely to stick to the plan and achieve their health goals compared to those who followed a generic plan. This highlights the importance of taking an individualized approach to health and wellness, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach.
The Major Action to Take
The big tip to success of any kind is perseverance. Setting up your personal system for this first week and then editing it accordingly for the following weeks will be key in your journey. Go ahead and book that boxing class down the street. Get your friend’s schedule, and then set your meetup walk time. Whatever activity or time that you’re most likely to do, just keep going.
The Follow-Up
Check-in with yourself weekly to reassess how you’re doing. Use your favorite health trackers and set up a plan to monitor your progress. Measurements with a tape measure might speak to you. Reflecting on your energy levels, mental clarity, and moods might make more sense. Qualitatively, pay attention to things that matter, like how you feel when you run up the stairs, and how your body feels when you wake up in the morning. The changes you see will fuel you to keep going.
Tip:
Experiment with ways to feel good and to release tension in your body. Stretching or getting a massage is a treat we all need, but simple movement, mobility and self massage can extend a weekly massage into an everyday oasis.
Science Says
Experimenting with various forms of stretching, simple movement, mobility, and self-massage can greatly enhance physical and mental well-being. One study found that these practices can lead to reduced tension and muscle soreness, improved range of motion, and increased feelings of relaxation and stress relief.4
RECLAIM AGENCY OVER YOUR HEALTH
The Big Takeaway –
Perseverance = Success
With these three days to reset, you’re optimizing and safe-zoning your kitchen, nourishing rather than harming your body and its microbiome and moving for your physical, mental, and gut health.
Keep in mind that in order to have enough energy to make healthy food decisions, and move your body well, you must also prioritize your rest and get sufficient quality sleep. Sleep is a huge regulator of the microbiome and also impacts decision-making, food cravings and more. Your body works systemically, and your lifestyle habits work together to influence your health.
Envision yourself in six months after you have taken your test, after you have consistently incorporated the recommendations, and after you have supported your body with precision nutrition.
The after-effect is what is key, it is the transformation from where you are right now to where you want to be. From how you feel right now to how you want to feel. From who you are, to who you want to become. It is within your grasp to transform your health and directly improve the quality of your life.
And you can start it this weekend.
Tip:
Link your health goals to your personalized nutrition plan and commit to regularly monitor your progress can lead to improved health outcomes and further increase your motivation to maintain your healthy habits.
Science Says
A study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that individuals who set specific, achievable health goals and regularly monitored their progress were more likely to maintain healthy eating habits over time compared to those who did not set goals.5
REFERENCES
1 Khaled R, Nasir H, Obeidat BM, Alkhatib A, Aljuraiban GS, Alshamrani MM, Al-Zahrani MS, Aljehani A, AlQahtani A, Al-Qahtani A, AlDosari M, AlAsmari A, Alqahtani H, Balkhi H, Alenazy M, Bahammam A. ( 2018). Journal of Sleep Research. 2018 Nov;27(6):e12706. doi: 10.1111/jsr.12706
2 Drewnowski A, Bellisle F. (2004). Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2004 Oct;28(10):1283-1289. doi: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0802712.
3 Milkman KL, Volpp KG, Liu SR. (2012). J Mark Res. 2012 Feb;49(1):1-13. doi: 10.1509/jmr.09.0368.
4 Dalleck, Lance C., et al. (2014). Journal of Athletic Training, Vol. 49, No. 3, 2014, pp. 324-332.
5 Schneider K, Langenberg P, O'Neil CE, Amish S, Nicklas TA. (2018). J Nutr Educ Behav. 2018 May - Jun;50(5):342-346.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2017.10.007.
Connell J, Toma R, Ho CH-C, et al. (2023). American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 2023;0(0). doi:10.1177/15598276231216393
Hatch A, Horne J, Toma R, Twibell BL, Somerville KM, Pelle B, Canfield KP, Genkin M, Banavar G, Perlina A, Messier H, Klitgord N, Vuyisich M. (2019). Int J Genomics. 2019;2019:1718741. doi: 10.1155/2019/1718741
Tily H, Partridge E, Cai Y, et al. (2022). Diabetes Ther. 2022;13(1):89-111. doi:10.1007/s13300-021-01174-z
Toma R, Duval N, Pelle B, et al. (2020). BioTechniques. 2020;69(4):289-301.
