Top 10 Tips for Healthy Living
In our fast-paced world, healthy living, whether at work, in sports, or personal projects, is a common goal. Achieving great health isn’t necessarily about making massive changes; often, it’s about consistently applying simple principles.
Here are ten tips to help you boost your health:
- Incorporate cardio and strength training 3x a week.
- Start the day with a large glass of water. Bonus: add lemon.
- Eat 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight every day.
- Establish a morning routine.
- Eat 30 grams of protein for your first meal of the day
- Walk after meals, especially dinner.
- Eat real food. Limit processed foods and ingredients you can’t pronounce.
- Walk at least 8,000 steps each day.
- Go to sleep and wake up at the same time.
- Fast for 12 hours each night. Start by not eating after dinner.
Remember, while these tips are straightforward, they’re not always easy to implement. Which of these do you need to focus on?
If I was just looking at the scale, I would have thought I had good results losing 2 pounds. However, when I look closer, you will see I lost almost 2 pounds of muscle. That was just in 3 months! What it did to my basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is calories your body burns automatically, was it decreased 51 calories.
At first glance that might not seem like a big deal. Yet, it is significant because if I continued to eat the same, I would gain 5.3 pounds over 1 year with my BMR going down 51 calories. You might be thinking, “but you didn’t gain weight.” I made adjustments to eat higher protein and vegetables and lowering sugar during this time, because I knew this was coming!
Why am I sharing? For a few reasons:
First: I hear and see many people “take the summers off” from their workout routine to be outside. I am all for being outside, but don’t stop your training inside. You need to challenge your heart rate and strength train. Muscle change happens so quickly; you may not realize what is actually changing until you have significant ground to make up. I knew this would happen and am prepared to put in the work to regain the strength but if it wasn’t for an injury, I would not choose this!
Second: Muscle strength is a key to longevity! We lose muscle as we age unless we are actively working to keep it. I love Orangetheory for this reason. It works our number one muscle, which is our heart, but also works all of our muscles to keep members strong. I know I am biased on that! However you do it, I would just encourage you to pay attention to strength and muscle mass. Your body looks will improve, but more importantly how you age will improve! It is never too late; we have many members in their 70s and a few in their 80s!! Our oldest member was 93!
I will share my progress as I regain this muscle! I started to do weekly challenges on my social media. This week is all about walking and step count. If you want to join me in my challenges, follow me on social with the links below!