Make Time For Your Health
These days everyone, including myself, seems to have difficulty finding the time to be our healthiest selves. Being your healthiest self means different things to different people.
I do my best to try to change my eating habits and cut out the bad stuff like wheat and sugars, but being human and all, I definitely slip up from time to time. And thank goodness for cheat days! In terms of physical fitness, I try to get in an hour at the gym a day, six days a week, but once again, this takes some serious discipline for me!
I will share with you some of my personal tips on how to make more time for your health, and provide links to some of the experts' tips on doing so:
My tips:
- above all else, you have to first educate yourself about what it means to be healthy today. Take the time to read books, online health news, etc. This is the only way that it will feel worthwhile for yourself to change your eating habits. In other words, you need to know why you are doing what you are doing. Then you are more likely to take the time to make smarter food choices.
- decide on a schedule for yourself for how long you will work out daily and which day of the week can be your "off" day. Off days can be used for healthy eating habits and workouts as well. For myself, I find it gives me something to look forward to once a week, and pushes me through the more disciplined days.
- talk to friends and family and see if anyone can join forces with you in working out, as this way you may be more likely to actually do it. Find someone who is a health nut too, they will have great information for you. (These were all the foundation tips. Next, the more practical tips)
- pick a day of the week when you will go to get your healthy groceries for the week. If you stick to this, then you will have healthy items on hand to pack healthy lunches and make healthy dinners.
- take a look at your schedule, see what elements can be cut down (such as screen time) and try to replace this with an hour of workout time. Workouts for me happen either earlier in the day or later, depending on my work schedule. It's unrealistic for me to plan to work out at exactly the same time daily, as my work schedule is not the same every day.
- it's a good idea to write down whether you are sticking to these healthy habits or not. If not, evaluate what other activities can be reduced or eliminated from your schedule to fit them in.
Experts’ Tips:
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/make-time-to-work-out?page=0
http://www.mayoclinic.org/fitness/ART-20044531
Please have a look at books from the Toronto Public Library website on this important topic as well:
3 thoughts on “Make Time For Your Health”
And for more information on the benefits of organic and local foods, plus other healthy lifestyle tips, you could attend a presentation at the Barbara Frum Library on April 10 – An Ounce of Prevention: 5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Toxic Load, with a speaker from Enviro-Health Presentations.
Great tips! I strongly believe in joining forces either with a friend, with a group of people or with a trainer – when you’re accountable to someone, you’ll likely stick to your fitness plan.
Thanks for the comments. It’s true..you don’t want to let your workout buddies down!