Helping your body stay young or feel younger should be a proactive process instead of being reactive as we age. It is important to keep a healthy body as we age and we all know that staying active and eating right play the biggest roles. Here are some commonsense health tips that I hope will remind you to keep investing in your long term healthy future. This is stuff we all know but tend to put in the file cabinet called, "I'm Too Busy But I'll Get to It." Let's all work together to get to it now so that we can keep enjoying all the things we want to do for a long, long time.
1. The body was designed to be in motion. So get out of the house or office and get your body moving. Park the car. Do you have friends or a place of interest within one mile of your home? Walk there. How about a three mile range? Ride a bike.
2. Host a meeting in a park rather than at a restaurant. Be a trendsetter on this one. Contrary to popular habit, it is not necessary to have food to get productively through an agenda.
3. Breakfast is the most vital meal. It is what refuels your body after metabolic changes during sleep. It is best to include carbohydrates, fats, and proteins for an ideal nutritional mix. Remember we talked about productive carbs and healthy fats in earlier posts.
4. Limit intake of processed foods like canned goods, refrigerated, packaged, and dried foods. Consider eating whole foods. Start by adding slices of fresh fruits and vegetables to each and every meal.
5. Be conscious of what you are drinking. Sodas, coffee, energy drinks, and alcohol drinks contain a lot of calories and/or chemicals. When you feel thirsty, the cheapest and most helpful for your body is to grab a glass of water or diluted freshly squeezed juice instead.
6. Reduce your sugar gradually in your beverages, cereals, dressings - wherever you add it.
7. Monitor your food and beverage intake by keeping a diary for a few weeks. This will allow you to know what and how you eat and can help you think about your goals and triggers that sabotage your plan.
See, you already knew all this stuff. Just start implementing some of these simple changes into your existing routine. Think about adding one good habit a week.
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