Maintain Healthy Eating Habits. In this day in age with healthcare costs sky rocketing, it will cost you more in health insurance to be overweight. Learn to love vegetables it is your only insurance to staying at a healthy weight and to prevent disease. Organic fruits and vegetables have more nutritional value than conventional. The reason, conventional relies on chemicals to make them grow and prevent disease and pests from destroying them. They don't get their nutrition from the soil, since the soil is depleted of most nutrients from over farming and from not replenishing the soil by way of organic matter like manure and compost. So, to help them grow better, conventional farming relies on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. These are toxic to our bodies and even to the animals we eat. It over burdens the elimating organs (liver and kidneys) and if they cannot eliminate them, for whatever reason, our body protects us by encapsulating the toxins in fat. Organic farming relies on building the soil nutrition to promote beneficial insects and maintain a high nutrition value for the crops to grow. The more nutritious the crop the less that pests eat, because it takes less to make the pests satisfied. As with us, we eat more nutritious food that feed us at a cellular level, we feel satisfied, we have less cravings and eat less. There is a great App, My Fitness Pal, that makes it easy to keep track of calories eaten and other nutrition facts, cardio, strength training, water intake and a place to type in notes for each day.
Sleep Well. Not getting enough sleep makes us cranky and have less energy to get through our day. Eating healthy everyday and not eating heavy meals just before going to bed will help. Sleeping is also a good way to prevent overeating. A study by The Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that men who only slept for 4 hours consumed 500 calories more, on average, than they did after sleeping for 8 hours. Another good way to improve your sleep is exercise.
Stick to an Exercise Program. There are all types of gyms these days, from the very fancy to the ones you use a key card to have access to at all times of the day. Building muscle will help burn calories even while at rest. Cardio will improve your cardiovascular health and endurance. Even if you can't afford a gym membership all you really need is a good pair of tennis shoes to walk or run for cardio and body weight exercises for strength (pull-ups, push-ups, and squats).
Get a Hobby. Gardening, woodworking, photography, ceramics, painting, or pick-up that instrument that has been collecting dust in the closet, anything that will help keep your mind off your bad habit and engaged in life. If you don't think you have time, try to cut back on time-wasting activities like the TV and computer, or texting and Facebook.
Limit your Vices. Smoking and drugs will make your health insurance high and the fact they cause more harm than good. If you are self employed or getting ready to retire, think now to quit before it will be neccessary to have private health insurance. Mixed drinks, like a 16 oz. margarita, can have a whopping 720 calories! If you stick to citrus vodka and water with a couple of lemon wedges, it is not as bad, 90 calories for 2 shots of vodka. Still, if you over do it all the time you can damage your liver.
Improve Your Psychological Health. If you don't love yourself how can you have a healthy relationship with others. Declutter your mind by:
- Accept what is.
- Be kind to yourself.
- Release your guilt and fears.
- Let go of control.
- Visualize what's important to you.
- Focus on your life-force energy (Spirit).
- Allow yourself to be vulnerable.
- Find what doesn't serve or interest you and let it go.
Exercise Your Mind. If you don't use it, you lose it. Right? Don't wait 'til the doctor says you have the onset of Alzheimers. Read more, do puzzle games, play chess, learn to play an instrument, and never stop learning. Ma Xiuxian, 102 year old Chinese women, never had an opportunity to go to school as a child. At the age of 13 years old she began working at a cotton mill, married at the age of 18, and gave birth to 9 children. But, now she was given the chance to go to school at Weishan Road Elementary School. It is NEVER to late to learn!
Be Clean. Wash your hands, brush your teeth and take a shower are the obvious. De-clutter your office and home, clutter can be stressful. If you haven't used it in a year then it is probably time to pitch it or donate it.
Make Little Changes. Don't go all out or nothing that can be overwhelming and stressful. Start small, like decide to drink less pop, for instance. Gradually every week cut back on pop. When you feel like that habit of not drinking pop at all is solid, then move to the next thing you want to improve. Also, research why it would be important or beneficial to stop a bad habit. Solid facts will help change your mind about a bad habit. Getting advice from your doctor might help, but keep in mind they have very little training in nutrition and alternative medicine, unless they promote that they do.
Keep it Fun! Finding ways to make getting healthy fun... can be fun. Make a list of all the activities you like to do and change your exercise up. Walking everyday can be boring-having options makes it more interesting. Change the scenery, or going on vacation can really make it fun, as long as you stay safe. If you are used to living close to the mountains, going on vacation to a beach resort will give you different ways to stay active. Having a buddy to workout with "kills 2 birds with 1 stone". You get to catch-up with your friend and get your exercise in for the day. The internet has thousands of recipes to be had. Just Google the ingredients you have on hand and it will bring up all kinds of recipes. When I make a healthy habit stick, I celebrate, but I don't celebrate with food or drink. I celebrate by buying a new outfit, massage, or a facial!
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