10 Tips for Healthy Habits
With a new challenge starting November 1st, 2022 – now seems like a good time to offer up some helpful tips. Weight loss isn’t about finding the next quick fix, or the next fad diet. It’s about looking at your nutrition and changing it so that it becomes a habit, which in turn leads to a healthier lifestyle.
1: Work on making small changes – you don’t need to completely overhaul your entire diet to start losing weight. Start small. Try adding more fruit and vegetables to your meals or snacks. You can also work on drinking a few more glasses of water each day.
2: Set a realistic goal for yourself – nothing wrong with wanting to reach for the stars, but like the first bullet point says – start small. Try setting a reachable goal, like losing a 1/2 pound every week, or maybe cutting out more sugar in your diet, or adding a piece of fruit to your daily meal plan. Keep it simple, keep it small, and take the win when it happens!
3: Stay positive – changing habits can be difficult and can sometimes take months to accomplish! If you make a mistake and get off track, don’t beat yourself up over it. Make a note of what you did wrong and what you should change the next time, then move on. Look back at what you’ve done right and appreciate it! A positive mindset always makes it easier to change habits. You’ve got this!
4: Track your food – this isn’t about just counting calories. Using an app like MyFitnessPal not only shows you the calories, but it also shows you the macronutrients, or the amounts of carbs, fat, and protein you are consuming. We’ll cover macronutrients another time. Tracking your food lets you get a better idea of what you are eating, and if it’s good for your body or not. Once you start tracking, you might be surprised to see some “healthy” foods really aren’t that good for you!
5: Spend more time cooking at home – this can be a little challenging, as it takes more time. Not just the cooking, but the planning and prep too. But cooking more at home gives you control over what you put in your body! You can add more fruits and vegetables. You can control the amounts of ingredients like sugar or salt. And you can cut out the processed and packaged foods that have no nutritional value.
6: Add more lean protein – going along with the above bullet point, add more lean protein to your meals. Not just meats like chicken or turkey, but legumes like chickpeas or beans. Our bodies need protein. It uses it to help with weight loss, build muscle, and recover from tough workouts.
7: Find something that works for you – there are a lot of different diet options out there, and they don’t always work for everyone. You might know someone who had great results with a certain diet, but that doesn’t mean it could work for you. Remember, you are investing in yourself and your health, and you want to make changes that last a lifetime! Take the time to research something before implementing it. If you are taking medicine for any reason, make sure you talk with your doctor about the diet that you want to try first – you don’t want to do something that sets you back!
8: Don’t let a setback stop you – if you make a mistake or get off track, stop and assess the situation, make note of what you did wrong and how to change it, then change it and move forward. You are making the changes for you – and you have the right to keep trying! Good, bad, or indifferent – learn from your mistakes and keep moving forward.
9: Watch your portions and try not to overeat – this is another reason to cook at home. Restaurants aren’t going to ask you how much you want! But at home, you control what you put on your plate, and how much. Holidays are a lot harder, as there is almost always going to be lots of different foods that you might want to try. Limit how much you put on your plate, and before you go back for seconds (or more desserts), get a glass of water, and wait a little bit to see if you really are hungry. It could be you are full, and the stomach just needed a little more time to tell the brain.
10: Use the scale as a tool – Some weigh themselves every day, others only once a week. No matter what you pick, use it as nothing more than a tracking point, not as a reason to beat yourself up! Weighing daily will show you more ups-and-downs and could become a point of frustration as you won’t always see results unless you track it every day. Weighing yourself weekly might be more beneficial, as you won’t see the ups-and-downs and would likely see the changes that have happened. Try to weigh yourself at the same time on the same day.
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