A Fresh Approach To Fresh Starts
The most prevalent things that prevent us from enjoying the healthy lifestyle we desire are our habits. While striving for self improvement is a natural instinct, it’s equally as natural for tendencies towards acts of self-sabotage or gaslighting to creep into daily thoughts and actions.
So while going for a healthy start to a New Year is a pretty standard, and in our opinion honorable resolution, here’s what we’re focusing on and how we plan to make it last the entire year through.
Set A Routine But Keep It Loose
A good routine can aid in the proper functioning of your body as well as the detection of any signals that something is wrong. It also aids in the regulation of your metabolism, as well as the maintenance of healthy food and exercise habits. However that isn't to say that you should spend your entire life following the same schedule. You don't have to be exact and a broad guideline is more than an enough. For instance, maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake-up time is a great place to start. Once you get that down, you can move on to adding another small item to your routine, like a consistent breakfast time each day, or a 20 minute walk.
Find Easy Ways To Move
It is suggested that the average adult receive a minimum of 150 minutes of activity every week, in addition to typical daily activities. While that may sound daunting, if you break that down into 20 minutes a day, you’re pretty much there. Instead of signing up for a gym (do people even do that at this point in the pandemic?) or a subscription site that we’ll probably cancel out of guilt after not using it enough, we’re tweaking everyday tasks to work in an easy bit of cardio. From weekly family walks to hikes with friends, we’ve found that turning social moments into outdoor low-impact movement opportunities. Not only does it keep us in a safer environment when socializing, but it also keeps us engaged while we move.
Tough Love
Things like smoking, binge drinking, and drug usage are obviously all harmful habits that should be avoided. Considered in many ways to be a form of self harm, abusing these are pretty much the harshest things we can do to our bodies. While a rehab center may seem a little daunting, the support given while visiting one is often the key to build confidence and break bad habits that seemed cemented in stone.
Healthy Eating Defined Your Way
Many people find it challenging to keep up with a healthy eating routine. With all of the contradicting information and constantly changing diets and prodcuts we’re told we need to be healthy, it's no surprise that people are becoming more and more confused. Our diets are supposed to be straightforward, but with so much information and misinformation out there, it can be difficult to feel like we’re doing the right thing. Following fad diets does nothing more than to cause people get trapped in a rut - permanently.
When it comes to your nutrition, we believe that different things work for different people. That being said, eating the rainbow, avoiding processed foods, and going organic when you can is a great, simple place to start. And while we all love the drama of a fresh start, making modest changes can often be more powerful than larger, less sustainable ones in the long run.
