Who doesn’t want to look their best? It’s natural to want to look good and feel good. You can have your best body starting this year, but it won’t happen magically. It takes effort on your part. Getting fit isn’t magic. It starts with making lifestyle changes, like eating healthier, exercising regularly and getting more sleep. Giving up habits that hurt your health, like smoking or drinking too much and staying hydrated are also changes that you should make. You don’t have to do it all at once, either.
Take one lifestyle change or two at a time.
Find the lifestyle changes you want to make and choose one or two. If you take two, make them complementary, such as quitting smoking and adding exercise or a healthy diet. When you quit something that’s unhealthy, you often need to replace it and making a healthy change is important. Most people find that eating healthier is the best place to start. It helps you shed pounds or improve your overall health.
How do you decide where to start?
Some people burn the candle at both ends, smoke, live an inactive lifestyle and maybe drink a bit too much. They have a lot to work on to look and feel their best. Others may not have bad habits but need to shed a few pounds. Find out what’s most important to you and make it your goal. Starting with a healthy diet and/or regular exercise may be their best place to start, since it makes you healthier and helps you achieve the proper body weight. We make eating healthy easier, so often recommend you choose healthy eating, giving you more potential for success.
Don’t despair if you don’t see changes immediately.
Give yourself plenty of time to adopt the lifestyle change. It might take a few months before your taste in food changes and you no longer enjoy junk food. It does happen, especially once you kick sugar and can taste food again. It takes time to lose weight and you won’t build muscles overnight. If you start exercising, you’ll notice a boost in your energy level within the first two weeks, but visual changes to the shape of your body take longer.
- Once you set your goal, give yourself a time limit to achieve it. Make that goal realistic. You won’t lose 40 after eating healthy a month. Break your larger goal into weekly goals you can reach quickly, like losing a pound or two a week.
- Track your progress. Winners keep score. If your goal is weight loss and you’re using a diet to achieve it, weigh yourself once a week. Then, track everything you eat in a journal and your weight.
- If you’re starting a program of regular exercise, make changes to your workout about every six weeks, especially if you’re trying to lose weight. The body becomes proficient at movements the more it does them, which causes you to burn fewer calories and plateau.
- Remember, if you overeat at one meal or forget an exercise session, it’s not the end of the world. Just start back on track at the next meal or the next day. It’s all about consistency, but one slip won’t destroy your chance to get the body you want.
For more information, contact us today at Targeted Nutrition Technologies
