A Path to a Healthier You

Sharing with you all a column I write for our company's newsletter for the Health and Wellness section. :)

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Summer’s just a stone’s throw away and many has gone into all the diet and fitness craze just to be beach-body ready come sunny season. With all the efforts placed in vying for a healthier regimen, we so often fail due to our continuous bingeing on forbidden foods and relying on fast track diets which is nothing but a temporary fix. Interestingly, most of us are guilty about this.

According to one article “Healthy eating is not about strict nutrition philosophies, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love.” This has been a misconception the reason why it always pulls us back to our goal of sticking to a healthy habit.  We believe that in order to maintain a supermodel physique, we have to starve ourselves and just stay away from all the best tasting food in the world.

So how does one really develop good habits that can go a long way in staying healthy even if the beach season is over? And how do we stay on that same road even if we’re living in a “rush, rush” kind of world?

Here are a few tips from several health and wellness sites that can guide you on your journey to good health.

 

1.       Educate yourself on healthy versus unhealthy foods. The general rule of the thumb is to limit one’s consumption to foods that doesn’t come from nature. Go for real and natural foods for they are not packed with consuming additives and preservatives that doesn’t do your body any favors. 

 

2.       Set small but attainable goals. Running a marathon after being a lifetime couch potato may be a little lofty of a goal. Apply goals that you can stick to every day and can motivate you into achieving bigger goals. One can start by walking down a small flight of stairs, taking a 30-minute walk every day, or as simple as jumping up and down at home. Every time you do an activity that causes you to sweat is tantamount to burning a certain amount of calories.

 

3.       Improve your sleep quality. We usually underestimate the power of sleep. If you’re running low on sleep, you’ll be very tired throughout the day. Your willpower to eat well completely disappears causing you to reach out for anything unhealthy just to give you the energy you need.

 

4.       Eat to live, not live to eat. Do you find yourself eating food when you’re not even hungry? According to Michell May, MD, author of Am I Hungry, whenever you feel like eating, always look for signs of hunger. You eat to not to stuff yourself but to refuel. Our stomach is only the size of your first, and it would only take a handful of food to fill it comfortably.

 

5.       Drink plenty of water. Science can provide you with lots of good reasons to chug down on water. It prevents you from being dehydrated which can sap up your energy. It helps flush out toxins from your body and provides your brain with a lot of oxygen needed to function at optimum levels. While it may not give you a drastic effect on weight loss, substituting it for higher calorie beverages will certainly help.