To become as healthy as you want to be, it's important to first establish a baseline of how healthy you are today.
We should certainly do this at least annually with a medical check-up. Make sure you go over your bloodwork with your doctor so you completely understand where you may be lacking and can come up with a plan to improve.
But we can also do this several other times during the year by performing something so simple, it's almost too simple.
It's called a Health Audit.
HOW IT WORKS
There are 5 simple categories. All you do is rank yourself from 1 to 5 in each one, where 5 is "I'm crushing it" and 1 is "I'm terrible at this."
Exercise: How consistently are you moving your body?
Nutrition: Are you eating in a way that supports your goals?
Sleep: Are you getting enough, and is the quality good?
Hydration: Are you actually drinking the water you need every day?
Stress Relief and Self Care: Are you taking time to recharge?
WHY IT WORKS
Once you rank yourself 1 to 5 in each category, it becomes much easier to identify the areas where you need the most improvement. And once you know that, you can start improving them one at a time.
This is a much better strategy than trying to focus on all of them at once. Spreading your energy across five fronts is how most people burn out and quit. Focusing on the weakest link is how you actually make progress.
You can't fix what you don't measure. Five minutes of honest self-assessment beats months of guessing about why you're not making progress.
If you're ready to get started, or restarted, with a fitness program, do the audit. Score yourself in each category. Whatever you're struggling with, I probably have a resource that can help you improve.