A healthier lifestyle leads to a healthier and happier you! So here are my top 10 tips to live a healthier life:
1: Don’t diet!
Diets are designed to control your eating habits based on calorie or fat reduction. This means you cut back or cut out completely certain food from your diet. All diets work, that’s a fact! However when you go back to normal eating you put on more weight than when you started! So why is that? Well when you restrict calories to the point of dramatic weight loss, your body goes into starvation mode and begins to panic. When you come off of it, your body goes even deeper into panic mode and stores all the fat you consume, causing weight gain. Also if you restrict you crave, and if you are never on a diet you can never fall off of one! It is so important to learn to amend the diet you have rather than restrict it!
2: Stop caring about what everyone thinks about you
You can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t try to. Learn to focus your energy onto the ones who know and love you for just being you! This also links well with negativity, don’t let negative people influence any decisions in your life. And let go of the negative thoughts in your own head. You are more powerful than you think, and by cutting back on negativity you will achieve so much more.
3: Go for a walk to clear your head
We all have moments when life gets on top of us. It could be work or caring for someone, being a parent or just everyday tasks. Whatever it is don’t be tempted to sit around and run from these moments. Go outside, take in the fresh air and take a moment to connect with nature, re-energise your life. You will feel so much better for it!
4: Try adding some more fruit and veg into your diet
It’s often seen as a struggle to achieve the 5 a day portions of fruit and veg that is recommended to us, so start slowly. Start by adding an extra vegetable to your main meal each day and some fruit with breakfast and afternoon snacks. If you find vegetables boring or flavourless, look into herbs and spices. Add herbs with a little vegetable oil to your veg before or after cooking. Try baking them, roasted cauliflower and broccoli taste totally different baked. Soon you will be eating a rainbow of food everyday and you will feel great!
5: Learn to meditate or do yoga
Meditation and Yoga assist with clearing your head, teaching you to breathe through any anxiety or stress. Use it as me time let the world around you disappear for a moment and treat yourself to some relaxation. Yoga is great for your posture and flexibility, this is ideal for anyone who sits at a desk all day. It is also a lot more than just stretching; it gives you a full body work out as well!
6: Don’t feel bad about asking for some me time
We all have commitments, families, jobs, pets, money. Asking for a bit of time to ourselves can feel like a luxury we can’t afford. But it is crucial for the wellbeing of your mental health. Mental health for years has been a taboo subject. I myself suffered with it working in the control room of the London Ambulance Service. When I was offered counselling I felt it was too self indulgent and unnecessary to talk about myself so much. But once I did, I felt amazing! You see its not self indulgent and it is necessary, saying your troubles out loud can actually make them smaller and more manageable. In your head things can get so big they take over your mind, and by taking some me time, you can be a better you for all of those daily commitments!
7: Drink more water
Our bodies are made up of 60% water, so it’s no surprise that water is more than beneficial for the body. Your brain is heavily influenced by its hydration status. If you have high levels of hydration it assists with improved energy levels and brain function, it can prevent headaches and fatigue. It can also assist with weight loss due to its ability to boost your metabolic rate. Drinking a glass of water before a meal will make you feel fuller, so you consume fewer calories. Drinking up to 2 litres of cold water a day will use additional energy to heat the water to your core body temperature and you could burn up to an extra 90-100 calories per day!
8: Pick exercises you enjoy
Stop making yourself go to the gym! If the gym is not your favourite place to be, stop going. There are many other activities you can do to burn calories and tone up. Home workouts using your own body weight or working out with resistant bands, are a great way to improve muscular output, and it is a lot cheaper too. Go to a local ecercise or dance class, this is so much more fun than running on a treadmill and you get the added bonus of meeting new people. Start a hobby. Gardening or keeping an allotment will give you a great workout and you will have something to admire at the end of it. Pick something that stops you realising your exercising, the results will astound you.
9: Cut down on processed food
It’s easy, we love it and it can be cheaper, but it has so many hidden nasties! In the past 30 years or so, we have been pushed towards a more quick on the go lifestyle, wanting everything easier and quicker to keep up with our busy lives. In doing so we have become heavily reliant on processed and fast food. Why make a spag bol from scratch when I can pop a ready meal in the microwave and be eating it in 5 mins. Its highly manufactured and full of hidden salt, sugar and fat. Eating this food can lead to you consuming more than the recommended amounts of these ingredients, and you don’t even realise it. Making your own from scratch is not as time consuming and tasteless as you would believe. In 15 mins you can have a delicious meal that you have made, and you know what’s in it too. Check out my cook along's and recipe cards for some tasty ideas.
10: Pick 3 things everyday that you like about yourself!
We are normally really good at making our friends and loved ones feel good about themselves, but we are rubbish at doing it for ourselves. Start your day by picking 3 things you like about yourself before you reach for the negative. You may not be the weight you want to be and choose to dismiss the mirror. But by picking out the good in you, hopefully you can see that you’re not as big as you thought you were, or it gives you the good energy to move towards more positive choices.
Stay happy, stay healthy, Gem x
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