Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is actually you doing yourself a favor. Something that your elder-self would thank you later. As they rightfully say – you are what you eat and there is no denying that. You might not realize the benefits of running and working out now. But you will regret not doing so when you grow old. Because people who do not adapt their bodies to a healthy lifestyle give an invitation to all sorts of diseases and pains.
Here is how you can start living a healthy lifestyle from today:
Eat Vegetables and Fruits
You might hate them but you do not know the immense amount of benefits that the vegetables and fruits come packed with. Vitamins, minerals, and water – you will naturally find them all once you make vegetables and fruits a part of your daily meals. There are many ways to go about it. For example, you can replace your carbs and protein with fruits for lunch.
Ideally, you should aim for 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. They can be in any form – raw or steamed. Although stir-frying them is also an option but using oil kills the whole purpose of having a healthy lifestyle diet.
If you succeed in making vegetables and fruits an essential part of your daily meals, then you will be ahead of others who struggle to take this basic step.
High Volume and Low-Calorie Foods
Start eating foods that are high in volume but low in calories. In case you are looking for a technical term for these types of foods, it is eatables low in caloric density. So, you have to look for and eat foods that do not have many calories but are filling at the same time. Therefore, a win-win situation.
In case, you are wondering what these foods are, then the veggies that you plan to add to your diet are one. Other than that, you can also look for healthy alternatives of foods like noodles and replace them with protein noodles, for instance. Your creativity will count in this scenario. For example, substituting tortilla wraps with lettuce wraps. So, you are aiming at cutting down the carbs in your life.
Eliminate Sugar
Do you know what is more addicting than cocaine? It’s Sugar. And no one will ask ‘why’ once they read this. Although it will seem like a tough job at first, if you succeed in doing so, you have no idea how well-balanced your life will become. I have been recommending to take baby steps for almost all the tricks that you can make use of to stay healthy but cutting the amount of sugar is an exception.
As long as you keep consuming sugar, you will not be able to leave it. Therefore, it would be the best decision of your life to cut it completely. You might think that it will be hard. And you are right. But once you get over the detox symptoms, all your sugar cravings will disappear. Wouldn’t that be great!
Don’t Starve
Many people think that starving will get them what they want – they will lose weight. However, starving yourself will slow down your metabolism. And you will not be able to achieve what you were trying to initially. You might think that you are going in the right direction when your weight drops suddenly, but there is nothing good about that lost weight. It’s all muscles that you lost.
Moreover, starving won’t leave you with the energy to work out. And if you are not energized enough, you might not be able to perform the other daily tasks as well.
Exercise
Working out once a month is not ideal here. You have to exercise daily. Missing out even a single day would be wrong as your body needs the work out more than you realize. Do not think that exercising will make you tired and you won’t be able to perform well. Instead, the opposite holds in this case. Once your body starts adapting to the workout routine, you will see that there won’t be a day that you can go without doing the same.
In case you are not used to it, start with light workout routines. For example, taking a walk in the park nearby. Gradually you can turn the strolling into brisk walking. And then you can aim at running. On the other hand, you can hit the gym as well. However, you do not have to start with cardio the first day that you join the gym as well. Take one step at a time.
The best part is that besides losing weight, you will also keep many diseases like high blood pressure away if you start working out.