A better you: healthy body and mind

How much working out, and of what variety, do you need to do? According to John Brewer, professor of sport at the University of Bedfordshire, variety is best. “Aerobic activity, such as jogging, cycling and swimming, should be the mainstay of any fitness regimen. That will help you to lose weight and improve cardiovascular efficiency,” he says. “But a stand-alone flexibility session — stretching in front of the television, for example — and a strength workout are required for a holistic physical overhaul.”

To get really fit, you need to do more than half an hour of gentle daily activity, which the government currently recommends. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends moderately intense cardio (to the point where you break sweat) 30 minutes a day, five days a week, or vigorously intense cardio (to the point where you are breathless) 20 minutes a day, three days a week, to increase aerobic capacity; plus, 8 to 10 strength-training exercises, 8 to 12 repetitions of each, twice a week. Brewer agrees: “Twice a week, try simple strength or resistance exercises using weights or equipment like the Pilates reformer machine. Boosting strength will increase muscle tone and improve your body’s ability to burn calories efficiently.”

It is also a good idea to vary your workout. According to Malcolm Armstrong, national personal training manager at Virgin Active, if you do the same workout over and over again, the body has no reason to change. You’ll see an initial improvement, but, eventually, you’ll get to a point of diminishing returns. Get away from the machines and routines that you feel most comfortable with and set yourself goals by taking part in classes that you haven’t previously tried. The key is to challenge your body so that it is tested in as many different ways as possible.

9 REVEL IN 'STRONG' MOMENTS

If all this talk of reinvention leaves you feeling overwhelmed, relax — there is a simpler way. Chuck out those lists of goals, plans and targets. This approach scales things right back to onesingle moment: the “strong” moment. Marcus Buckingham, author of Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, explains: “Certain moments in your life create in you strongly positive emotions.” This is that warm fuzzy, that inner smile, that happens when, say, you spot a revealing pattern in a financial report; when you resolve a dispute at work; when your son snuggles up to you at story time; when laughing with your girlfriends or guy friends (this works equally on men as women).

Once you’ve identified your own strong moments, then you can adjust your life to maximise them. Pursuing goals is futile, because goals have a short life. “Once you get to your desired destination, it evaporates,” says Buckingham. And what about that all-hallowed journey? “All very well, but it comes with so many steps we hate.” Focus on the bits that make you happy, and the goals come to you, or so the theory goes. By maximising strong moments, you will be more fulfilled and, therefore, more effective, happy and successful, in and out of work. It’s about being true to yourself, rather than committing to some vague ideal. “Instead, you are committing to the truth that this specific moment, for no rational reason, energises you.” Thus, this personal prescription harnesses — thankfully — whatever works for you, and helps you become the best, most authentic version of yourself.

Buckingham discovered the idea when interviewing women who had bucked the “happiness decline” — the observation that, over the past 40 years, women have become increasingly unhappy. These women looked forward to the day ahead; they experienced the positive state of “flow” in their work and felt invigorated, even at the end of a long, busy day. What’s more, he found that their happiness was intentional, and not a matter of timing or luck. And yours can be, too, promises Buckingham, whose three-hour workshops have been downloaded from Oprah Winfrey’s website by 2.1m people. How? By identifying what activities deliver such “strong” moments in you. Some apply to all: socialising, good health and employment are all good; loneliness, poor health and unemployment are bad. Others vary dramatically — to locate yours, equip yourself with a pad of paper for a week. On one side, write down the things you love about your week, on the other, those you loathe, and write them down immediately as they happen. There are four kinds of “strong” moment, says Buckingham, memorable with one handy acronym: SIGN. S is for success: any time you feel a sense of achievement. I is for instinct: when you instinctively look forward to something. G is for growth of mind: when your synapses are firing, when you’re in flow. N is for needs: when a need of yours has been fulfilled. And what to do with your new-found “strong” moments? “Tilt your life towards deliberately making them happen,” Buckingham says.

How far could you take this? Would your heart’s desire of white wine count as a strong moment? “You have to pay attention to what it is you really love,” he warns. “Is it about good wine and the company of friends, or downing bottles of wine? You have to choose the healthiest way to live out a moment.”

10 FIND YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE

If the January blues left you sighing, “What’s the point? Why are we here anyway?”, the answer lies in finding your purpose. It’s also the answer, according to Patrick Holford’s research, to achieving a 100% score in your physical and emotional health. He quotes Bertrand Russell: “As you get older, you must have a purpose larger than yourself — that's what makes life meaningful.” But finding your true purpose can be like trying to catch a cloud. It can change with age; it can depend on your job, on family. And what works for me may not for you.

Fortunately, there are life coaches. There are the classic self-help books: for example, M Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, and Robin S Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. There are also some universal knowns, says Holford, that can help locate your purpose: serving others in need; connecting with nature and nurturing the earth; becoming the best you can be and doing everything with excellence; letting go of pettiness, negative thoughts and selfishness; doing everything with love — with everyone and everything, not only with those you like. After all, having a purpose greater than yourself (and serving others and the earth) is an act of love. Holford points out that we must find a larger context, and a connectedness with our family, community or environment, to bring meaning, purpose and, ultimately, happiness and health to our lives.

What about something that is true to you, and relevant right now, though? To find your own personal purpose, first you need to find some silence. Then, to find insights, write down whatever has given you purpose at ages 10, 15, 20, 26 and 35. What fulfils you now? What are you good at? What do you love doing? What do others — your family, your community, the world — need? How can your unique gifts help? Perhaps your job doesn’t harness your gifts, so consider extracurricular avenues. He also recommends meditation, because those with purposes “usually have more connection with the part of themselves that is deeper than the thinking mind”. (It can be as simple as physical exercise, he promises, with breathing and relaxing techniques.) Meditation might sound like hard work, but it will help you — research on meditating monks shows we can hardwire our brains for connection and compassion.

In fact, warns the psychotherapist Susie Orbach, expect any part of your quest for your life’s mission to be easy and you may miss it completely. “You have to pass through boredom to see where your curiosities really lie. You may need to try a few things, and it takes allowing your interests to deepen.” Having purpose, she argues, requires discipline to sustain those difficulties and not give up: “With so much inflow of seductive stuff, it’s very hard to think for oneself.”

For sure, we won’t find our purpose in that ultimately seductive place, the comfort zone. Sharma, whose new book, The Leader Who Had No Title, is out in April, agrees: “The more you go to your limits, the wider your limits will grow.” To find your purpose, he says, it’s essential to take risks — the more you take, the more answers you’ll find. “The reward is that you can begin to see life as a glorious adventure rather than moving through it in a waking coma. It’s about playing out on the edge — a scary place, yet the only place you’ll experience growth, progress and happiness.”

1 Always take the stairs: One study has shown that walking up stairs for an average six minutes a day lowered cholesterol by 15% and left people 10%-15% aerobically fitter.

2 Get a pedometer Aim for 4,000 steps daily in week 1 and 6,000 in week 2. Build up to 10,000 a day to maintain your current weight. To shed weight, you need to be doing 15,000 steps daily.

3 Work out with friends once a week Whether it’s running, walking, football or tennis, the thought of meeting up with them will keep you motivated to stay in shape on the other six days.

4 Do moderate activity daily To lose weight, says the ACSM, you need to walk for 1 to 1½ hours a day. Holford suggests achieving this by walking the kids to school, or walking to work every day.

5 Do a TV workout Exercise in front of the box — do a series of stretches, a workout DVD or some chair dips on the sofa.