Creating a healthy lifestyle can be a challenge for many of us. But challenges are worth overcoming if we know the benefits will be good for us. These benefits can include helping our bodies stay strong, warding off degenerative disease, maintaining a positive outlook and extra energy needed to follow that dream of a better job or our own business! The benefits truly are numerous.
So to help you start making positive changes in your life, here is a list some guidelines to keep in mind. Use these to help on your path to a healthy lifestyle change.
- Have patience with yourself. Know that healthy lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight. Positive changes that stick will usually come slow and steady.
- You have to practice – and just like any endeavor, practice makes you better. Many negative aspects of our lives (such as poor and convenient food choices) have become habits. Breaking the habit and practice replacing it with a new one.
- Healthy food can be convenient, too. Many “fast food” choices are made because they seem convenient. Again – this is just a matter of practice. You can re-learn how to choose healthy fast foods by stopping in your local health food store and see what’s prepared that you can take with you for lunch.
- Chemicals in foods do affect your mental state. For example, excess mercury is associated with depression. So watch for foods that are processed with excess chemicals since these can leave you feeling worse.
- Eat whole, organic, fruits and veggies as often as possible. Organics foods are shown to have up to four times the nutrition of non-organic foods. Nutrients in food are needed by your body so that it can manufacture proteins such as serotonin and dopamine, which are needed for feelings of wellbeing. If you don’t feel well and happy – you will lose energy and may not be able to break the barrier of “lack of motivation” to make positive change.
- Limit junk or fast foods. Junk foods and processed foods lack nutrition and many even have what is referred to as a “nutrition deficit.” This means they use your existing, stored nutrients (if you have any) to digest and process the food leaving you nutritionally depleted. Pay attention to how you feel thirty minutes or an hour after eating “fast food.” Do you feel fulfilled and energetic or tired and ready for a nap?
- Stick with it. If you “fall off the wagon” don’t let it drive away without you. It’s okay to falter then get back on track. This is a natural learning process.
- Take a break. It is not what you do once in a while, it’s what you do all the time. For example – give yourself one day a week to eat out at your favorite restaurant and have dessert or take a day off from exercise.
- Stay motivated. Do what you have to do to remember why you’re making the healthy lifestyle change. Write a list of reasons and post it where you can easily see it each day. Read magazines and books that continue to feed your brain tips and techniques to help you on your path. Listen to motivational CD’s while you’re driving. These are just a few ways to help you stay on your path.
- Cleanse your body. Cleansing helps eliminate toxins that can leave us dull and sluggish. Helping your body rid these toxins can leave you feeling more energetic and motivated.
Creating a healthy lifestyle is a novel goal. It is worth making a daily effort to get the changes in place. For many of us, cleansing is a great start to a healthy lifestyle. Cleansing can help you by eliminating chemicals, changing food attitudes and learning to make healthy food choices.
