Making a health change doesn’t need to be drastic.
Fitness programs and diets are often advertised as a way to completely reinvent your lifestyle and help you look fit and beautiful. Big changes like high-impact fitness, and the removal of entire food groups from a diet are sold as the only way to make a big difference in your general health.
Luckily, this isn’t always the case.
While radical lifestyle changes may bring about similarly radical results, the truth of the matter is that even small and incremental changes to your lifestyle can have a massive impact. If you’re looking to get healthy without the expensive fitness plan or torturous diets, here are a few options you can try out.
1. Stop Drinking High Calorie Beverages
Our first small change might not be as simple as it sounds. To make this change, drink absolutely nothing with calories in it.
A daily soda or sugary coffee drink don’t seem harmful at first, but when reading the nutrition facts, you may find that your favorite vice is costing you several hundred calories per day.
Switching to water-only is your best option to combat the consumption of calories in your beverages, but if your sweet tooth can’t seem to manage, there are several artificial sweeteners you can use temporarily to make the switch.
This simple rule will keep you accountable, cut back on calories, and encourage you to drink more water each day. Proper hydration is more important than you may realize. To maintain healthy bodily function, it is recommended that you drink about 6-8 8 oz. glasses per day.
2. Start Tracking Yourself
For the next seven days, take stock of everything you eat. Everything. Snacks, meals, treats, etc. Simply write it down either in a journal or a phone application.
After the seven days is up, look back on your week of tracking. Looking at your diet in this manner is often revealing both of what you’re doing right as well as places to improve. In many cases, tracking your diet alone will cause the changes.
Being acutely aware of what all goes into your daily routine aids in the prevention of overstocking or excusing that extra cupcake. Tracking your intake forces your body to look at your diet in a far more objective way, and will hopefully assist you in making the right changes.
3. Eat More Nutrient Rich Foods
First-time dieters make the mistake of skipping meals or fasting to keep track of their caloric goals. While this may work for some, starving the body of nutrients makes you far more likely to break a diet.
Instead of looking at quantity, try to shift your mindset towards quality.
Stock up on raw ingredients and try to eat foods with the fewest number of ingredients as possible. Thinking in this manner forces you to cut back on artificial flavors and additives and stick to simpler meals.
It’s a simple trick that can be practiced for all three meals per day. Speaking of three meals…
4. Don’t Skip Breakfast
All too many people pass up a daily breakfast in favor of a few extra minutes of sleep per day. While it’s important to get at least seven hours of sleep each night, don’t skip out on the most important meal of the day.
Studies show that a good breakfast that’s high in protein aids in the prevention of diseases and the prevention of metabolic disorders. As an added benefit, a full breakfast could keep you away from some of the more salty and sugary snacks that may be throwing a wrench into your dietary plans.
5. Walk More
While the first changes on our list pertain to diet, the final three focus on small lifestyle concessions for your general health.
Sedentary workers that stay in one location or one cubicle throughout the day can drastically improve their health simply by walking more often. Studies have shown that adding a few thousand steps to your daily routine can increase blood flow, ward off heart disease, and aid in general health.
You won’t even need to purchase a pedometer to track your steps! Most smart phones include a health application that automatically tracks your steps. Simply set a goal (5,000 is a great starting point), check in periodically, and start walking.
6. Cut Out Vices
Drinking, smoking, recreational drug use…each has their place in society, but certain things are probably best left in the past.
We don’t need to lecture anyone on the dangers of binge drinking, drugs use, or smoking, so instead, we recommend taking a hard look at the habits that make up your day and make a choice that will ensure your health moving forward.
There are many resources available to those looking to quit any addiction. For instance, smokers can look into vaporizers to cut back on their habits and stop intaking tar. Vaporizers and supplies can be purchased easily either through nearby vape shops or online retailers like VapeWild.
Whether you need to stop heading out on the town so often or simply need to switch out cigarettes for vaporizers, do what you need to and make sure that what you’re putting in your body reflects the change you’d like to see.
7. Pick Up an Active Hobby
Finally, one of the easiest ways to motivate yourself to be more active is to pick out an active hobby you love to do.
Sports are a popular hobby, but they aren’t the only way to have fun and get moving. Love music? Try your hand out on a drum set. Enjoy nature? Try going on weekly hikes to clear your mind of clutter and keep up that step count.
Whatever you choose to do, there are many hobbies that can help keep the blood flowing. Hobbies can also provide ample experiences with others that could keep you accountable.
Conclusion
So before you pick up that new fitness plan, try changing up these seven small aspects of your life. You may find that the smallest changes add up to the biggest results.
What are some healthy changes that you have made, and how big of an impact have they had on your life? Leave us a comment with your thoughts in the section below.