How To Start a Healthy Lifestyle And Stick To It
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Spring is just around the corner and you have probably thought at least once about starting a healthy lifestyle by now.
After all, what’s a better time to start a healthy lifestyle than spring!
If you’ve tried implementing healthier lifestyle choices in the past, you might have noticed that it’s not so easy to keep up with it. There’s a lot of information on the internet and just because there are so many ideas to choose from, creating healthier habits, losing weight, and improving your health can get a little tricky.
In this article, you will learn how to start a healthy lifestyle and finally stick to it.
Even if you’ve been living unhealthy for a long time, there are a few things that can help you to implement healthy choices easier and make them last.
So here we go!
How To Start a Healthy Lifestyle
1. Do it for you
If you want to start a healthy lifestyle, it’s really important to understand that you should do it for yourself.
You might be pushed to start a healthy lifestyle by other people or by particular society standards that you see on the internet, but if you really want your healthy lifestyle to last… You have to decide that you will be doing this for yourself – not for anyone else.
Another reason why it’s so important is that if you try changing yourself only because you want to look a certain way or appeal to certain people, you might forget the most important benefit.
And that is, well, getting healthy.
If you focus your healthy lifestyle solely on becoming healthy, it will be so much easier and more enjoyable to do it.
2. Make a decision
If you want to get serious about getting healthy and creating healthier habits, you have to make a strong decision.
To start a healthy lifestyle, you need to set a strong mindset foundation in order to make it last.
Sure, eating healthy and working out for a week or two can give you a nice boost, but it’s not a sustainable healthy lifestyle.
You should strive for lifelong lifestyle choices, that can go with you as you grow as a person and as a human being. Making such a decision may seem intimidating, but you should know that a decision doesn’t mean you promise to be 100% perfect.
No one and nothing is perfect.
Even if you make a mistake or slip up for a while, it doesn’t mean that you can’t go back to living healthy.
However, making a decision can help you draw an imaginary line between your old lifestyle and a new, healthy, nourishing life that you’re trying to create.
3. Get informed
Once you’ve made a decision to start a healthy lifestyle (and do it for you), start gathering information.
This means:
- reading about health and nutrition;
- looking for the best way to start working out in your current condition;
- maybe starting a health journal to track your changes;
- increasing your health knowledge overall.
Getting informed will help you make better decisions and simplify the process.
Additionally, building a habit of reading about a healthy lifestyle regularly can help you to stay inspired and motivated.
Just make sure to choose trusted sources!
Here’s a wonderful book to start:
Also – avoid fad diets and restrictive diets that eliminate whole food groups from your menu.
Trust me, you can eat all the food groups and still lose weight!
I managed to lose mine while still eating potatoes, bread, eggs, dairy, and other stuff that some people completely demonize these days.
Related: 99 Simple Ways To Improve Your Health
4. Start a healthy lifestyle SLOWLY
The worst thing you can do for yourself, especially if you’ve been living an unhealthy lifestyle for a really long time, it’s to start with grandiose changes.
People like to jump into diets and hardcore workouts like they’ve been training for years.
But in reality, your body has to adapt to new movements and foods slowly.
Otherwise, you’re risking trauma and negative body response.
This can certainly limit your success.
To avoid that, allow yourself to start slowly and give yourself enough time to adapt to the changes. Try walking before starting to do a harder workout, choose a healthier breakfast before jumping to 24/7 clean eating, and measure yourself once a month instead of every day. Be gentle with yourself.
5. Stick to what’s working
As with everything, there’s no single formula that fits everyone.
To start a healthy lifestyle successfully, try a few different things and choose only what works for you.
It’s easy to get lost on the internet, where there are tons of different strategies that people claim to be working.
But there’s no need to stick to a particular method (or diet or workout) just because someone else is getting great results from it.
Try it, but if it doesn’t work for you, it means there’s something that might fit you better.
Don’t be afraid to experiment until you find that sweet spot.
6. Support yourself
You might find it difficult to start a healthy lifestyle at first, and this is what you should expect.
After all, quitting bad habits, and losing weight will require some willpower.
So try to be as supportive of yourself as it’s possible.
Don’t punish yourself for slip-ups.
Keep positive and gentle self-talk along the way.
A great way to eliminate some of the confusion + stay positive is to use a daily thought journal that can help you notice irrational thought patterns that could be making things harder than they should be.
Also, do check your sleep patterns.
Many people suffer from sleep disorders, and they can greatly contribute to their energy levels and overall health.
You can test your sleep quality with an app or get real sleeping tests done for an accurate diagnosis.
6. Leave some room for rewards
There’s an old saying: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.
If you try to be ultra-strict with yourself all the time, you’ll get bored and angry pretty soon.
How to start a healthy lifestyle without feeling overwhelmed?
Try to find a way to reward yourself for being such an awesome person who decided to go for that healthy life she was always dreaming of. My favorite way to reward myself for doing hard work is to buy nice smelling bath salts and body lotions.
This is a fun, non-food way to get rewarded, and it kind of adds a little extra to this whole “taking care of myself” idea.
7. Don’t make it an obsession
Last but not least, try to not make living healthy an obsession. Yes, it’s very important and it can radically improve your life quality… But try to remember that life is not only about eating clean and exercising a particular number of days every week.
How To Start a Healthy Lifestyle: The Bottom Line
Life is about living and having fun with it. Take it easy, try to enjoy everything you do, and you will find that you’re living a fun, healthy lifestyle that’s not only beneficial but also easy to stick to.
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