In light of World Health Day which took place on April 7th, we were inspired to write an article about getting healthy. There are many ways to stay healthy, to get fit, but you want to do it the right way, for you, you are at at the right pace. We do spend a lot of time encouraging ourselves to exercise, eat right, and to maintain a healthy physique, however, there is a lot more to it then that as we have to consider where we are at and what we can handle. Regardless, we want results and we want them fast. You can certainly speed up the process, but you may have to go beyond the basics and try some new things. If you see results it will be worth it and I guarantee that you’re going to feel a whole lot better about yourself. Often, just knowing that you tried or that you did it can make the biggest difference on your day. Here are 7 effective ways to stay healthy:
It's always a good time to get healthy.
1. Change How You Eat, But Don’t Go On a Diet
Diet almost never work or they work for a little while and then they seem to crash, hence the popular term, “crash diet.” Eating less calorie meals more consistently will help you lose weight. If you pump your system with nutrition every three to four hours, you can drive your metabolism to it’s pinnacle. This is the goal, to get the metabolism working fast and in the right way.
Make healthy food fun.
2. Do Shorter Consistent Workouts like Hill Sprints to Burn Calories Faster
Hill sprints are a great way to burn fast fast in a short period of time. Sprinting in general can burn up to 500 calories at a time, and you can even do this on the treadmill by increasing speed and incline. Running a set of hill spirits is actually more effective than riding a bicycle for 30 mins. According to Colorado State University, “doing a shorter workout at 75% of your max aerobic capacity will give you a greater metabolic boost that sweating longer at 50%.” Hill sprints are a great way to get into shape quickly, and once you increase your endurance you will see that you can run even more sprints and at a faster speed. In addition, they are great for your mental health and stress levels, whatever is bothering can be pumped out through a hill sprint. You can walk down the hill and sprint up, or run down the hill for an even more high intensity workout.
The more you do it, the easier it gets.
3. Incorporate Fat Burning Foods
Try to incorporate fat burning food into your diet. Five great fat burning food are hard boiled eggs, oatmeal, walnuts, dark leafy greens and apples. Eggs are great for building muscle and burning fat. They are also high in protein, which your body needs lots of and benefits from highly. Oatmeal is known for being the right kind of carbohydrates that is recommend for you and helps with weight loss. Oats are great for before you start your workout or after you finish. Walnuts are nuts that hold healthy fats and are great food to grab on the go. Walnuts are cancer fighting properties, and are known to help with heart issues and brain health. Dark leafy greens are filled with minerals and nutrients that are good for your body. They are high in fiber and help restore your digestive system. As they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Filled with fiber, apples are great for satisfying sugar cravings and make for excellent sugar supplements. While many like to peel it off, eating the skin of the apple will provide additional nutritional value. Drinking pop is not a good idea.
Eating lots of fruits and vegtables is good for you.
4. Stay off the Scale
You could be building muscle, which weighs more than fat. You could be losing inches over pounds. Regardless, focus on your personal progress and stick to your routine. The scale will only frustrate you as you hope to see results in numbers. Focus on how your body feels and notices the changes—but don’t track them with a scale. You will know if you are losing weight, you don’t need a scale for that, even your clothes will speak to you and let you know that you have slimmed down. Additionally, scales defeat us and lower our self-steam when we don’t see the results that we’d like to. It’s not a race. Yes, we want to see results quickly but we need to be patient and consistent and give things time. Don’t make it a competition, make it a personal mission, which means that you go at the appropriate pace for you.
Work out at your own pace.
5. Get a Good Nights Sleep
Sleep is so important and it will affect how you function and what you are capable of doing in a day. If you don’t get a good sleep it will be hard to eat right and work out. Try to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night if you can. Getting more sleep than that is not unwelcomed as the body needs rest. As long as your biorhythms or body clock is ticking normally, your cravings for greasy, sugary or salty food will remain at a meaningful level. Also, try using wise mind to stop eating at a decent hour because once you go to sleep you might not be able to burn off those calories as fast because you won’t be as active. Eating too late in general is not a good idea.
Health is more importan than wealth.
6. Change Your Plate
It may sound strange, but studies for both men and women have shown that changing your normal (generally white) dinner plate to a small blue one can make quite the difference. Apparently, the color blue has an “appetite suppressing effect” on people, compared to red and yellow colored plates. This is why you will often see yellow and red colors at restaurants as they are encouraging you to open your appetite.
Always start your day off with something to eat.
7. Avoid Junk Food
You need fat to burn fat so eat foods that are high in “good fats”. Food items like avocado, salmon, tuna, walnuts and plant-based oils are all good examples of healthy fats you can eat. There are a lot of low calories options that you can explore as you should deprive yourself.
There are a lot of yummy healthy foods.
There are over 100 ways to stay healthy, but giving some of these suggestions a try could make a small to large difference in your life. The key here is self-care, getting enough sleep, eating the right foods, abandoning the scale and doing more intense shorter workouts. Consistency will also help you to see results—don’t give up. Try to get into a routine or even make a schedule if you need to and do your best to stick to it.
Try to set goals and follow through with them, even if you have to push yourself a bit, even if are taking baby steps, at least you are on the right path and at least you are doing the work at a level that works for you. Remember the most important thing is that you are taking care of yourself, or at least trying to. Do what works for you and what feels right. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t do it all. Working at it slowly will help you to build stamina, and eventually it will just feel natural. Plus it’s an individual activity so it really is done by ourselves for ourselves.
Have your say
Do you stay heathy? What types of things do you do to stay healthy? Comment below.
