How to Get Started Living a Healthier Lifestyle
Are you feeling overwhelmed but want to start living healthier? Maybe you’re looking to lose weight, tone up, or just improve your health. Whatever you reason is for wanting to start, it can seem daunting. Not to mention you have plenty of information out there telling you which diet is best and what you need to do in order to lose weight. However, my best advice, and the best advice you can take on board, is to start out simple. Taking a few simple steps forward will get you started on the path to living healthier, and as you go on, taking those baby steps will eventually get you to your goals!
With that being said, I have five tips to help you start off simple. None of these tasks are too extreme or restrictive, but taking these few changes on will actually begin to add up. (I have even started to use an app to keep track of my habits!) Try them out for yourself, and see how much better you start to feel!
1 Swap beverages for water: Try using a reusable water bottle— it’ll become your best friend! Try and refill it throughout the day. Each time you choose water over juice, soft drinks, sweetened iced tea and creamy drinks, you’ll
save about 100 calories! Those calories will start to add up.
2 Make lunch easy with a big salad: Veggies are low in calories, are super duper high in nutrients and are packed with fiber too, which means they’ll help you curb hunger, and fill you up quicker. Think MORE here – mixed lettuce, baby spinach, snow peas, strawberries, feta, capsicum, tomatoes, blueberries, cashews and avocado are the ingredients to my favourite lunch salad.
3 Get your body moving: If you’re someone who struggles with working out, start with just 10 minutes. Each day, try adding on two minutes, until you’re up to 30 minutes a day. Start out small and add in bit by bit will help you adjust smoothly, and stick with it. Or better yet, find a motivating group who do exercise that you will enjoy.
4 Keep cut-up fruits and veggies in the fridge: This is one of the best tips! When you go grocery shopping, come home and cut up your fruits and veggies right away. This way, when you’re feeling really hungry and don’t have the time to cook anything, grab all the veggies and throw them into the pan for a stir fry. This is especially important for those who love to snack (PICK ME!) as you can grab a quick healthy snack out of your fridge, rather than reaching for the bag of potato chips.
5 Use smaller plates: When we prepare a plate of food, we feel the need to fill it up completely, I know I do this a lot – it’s a science brain thing where we feel like we haven’t had enough if we see empty space. Using smaller plates means there’s less room to pile on tons of extra food! It will help teach you portion sizes too.
Try them out, let me know which ones you do, and which ones help you the most!