Small Steps to a Healthier You
Most of us put our health on the back burner because it feels all too overwhelming. How many of you have played these thoughts in your head:
Dinner cooked at home every day? Don’t got time for that
Two hours of exercise six days a week? Yeah.. that’s never happening
Drop 10 pounds in the next two to three months? Keep dreaming
As busy as we are with our current day to day lives, it’s all too much to completely overhaul our entire lifestyles to make huge strides when it comes to our health.
But I have some good news for you: You don’t actually need to go through a huge, major change and overhaul of your life in order to become healthier. In fact, that is quite the opposite of what you want to do in order to sustain the healthy lifestyle choices you’d like to make.
So what’s the secret: Focusing on small, incremental changes, or swaps, to your existing lifestyle one day at a time is all you need to get started. Not only is focusing on making piecemeal changes to your lifestyle more doable but it’s also more sustainable for a long-term healthier you.
By making small, minor tweaks to your daily routine, you’ll start to reap the health benefits before you even know it. Let’s take a look at a couple of these small tweaks:
Morning Brew
We all love a good old cup of coffee to get us started on our days. Whether at home or on the go, we love making or picking up coffee that’s filled with extra sugar and calories to add extra enjoyment to the jolt we need from a morning dose of caffeine. Over time, your mind and taste buds become accustomed to this normal cup of coffee that it’s difficult thinking of switching to just plain black coffee.
Why not consider swapping out some of the ingredients for near-perfect swaps that can keep your mind and taste buds still satisfied? Try switching out your normal whole milk mix for almond milk to reduce the number of calories per serving. Additionally, you can swap out artificial creamers for a teaspoon of honey and a dash of cinnamon to still enjoy the sweet healthy experience of your morning coffee.
Changing the Snack Game
Everyone can relate to the mid to late afternoon slump when we need a little pick me up. We go for a couple of cookies in the break room or pantry and a bag of chips in the cupboard to snack on. Your mind and body are both already so used to snacking on some cookies and chips since they’re easily accessible to you when you feel the afternoon energy drain.
Why not swap out the plate in the break room or pantry which usually has cookies for a fruit bowl with some dark chocolate squares to the side? We’re not completely removing the urge to snack on something sweet, but we’re easily swapping it out for an alternative option that can more nutritiously satisfy your sweets craving.
Move on the Hour
With busy schedules, it’s hard not to be glued down to a seat sedentary for most of the day. Messages and alerts continue to pop up throughout the day and we can’t tear ourselves out of our seats. Eventually, when we do find some free time during the day, our minds are already so wired to sitting down all day that we decide to take a break by surfing the web or scrolling through our phones still sitting down.
Why not look at your schedule for the day and identify pockets of time, even if it’s just for two to three minutes, every hour when you know you are typically free most days? By deciding to stand up and move from one room to another, all while still taking a quick phone break, can serve as a healthy alternative that doesn’t sacrifice your time for a work break.
Let’s take a look at how these small tweaks to your daily routine can yield significant health results in the grand scheme of things.
All it takes is for these small, seemingly effortless swaps to get you started towards building a healthier life for the long haul. As you continue to build up these small new habits into your daily routine, you’ll soon find that you’ll have the confidence to embrace even bigger health changes to your lifestyle.
Taking the three examples from above, once you’re able to change your morning cup of brew and snacking choices, you’ll find that you’ll be more inclined to keep up with the subtle ingredient and nutritional swaps by changing up larger portions of your diet in breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In a similar vein, by actively moving for two to three minutes every hour, you’ll start to gain a greater sense of time in the day and be excited to maybe fit in a quick 20 to 30 minute exercise session during a lull period in the work day.
It’s all about building small little habits that provide you the momentum to carry on forward with bigger opportunities for change. On top of that, your aim from the get go is to embrace healthy changes and stick with them. By starting out with huge overhauls of changing your diet down to bland meals and having to go to the gym six days a week for two hours a day, you’ll only fall off the wagon after the initial adrenaline and motivation wane and begin to resent the lifestyle.
Start small to build up your inner momentum and confidence and soon thereafter, everything else will fall into place. No more 30 day fitness challenges or quick fad diets that promise results in just a matter of a week or two. Small incremental changes, like the three examples which are effortless swaps to your current routine, will make all the difference. Slow and steady always wins the race, and that’s how you’ll be able to sustain a healthier life for yourself over the long haul!
“Small changes eventually add up to huge results.“ - Unknown
