How to become and stay healthy

Do you feel out of shape, have low energy, or weigh too much? A lot of people do. Most of us will follow a diet for a week or so and quickly loose interest. It doesn’t take long before we go back to our old bad habits. Yet, just a few small and easy changes can help you get in better shape and feeling healthy.

How to become and stay healthy is not an easy task for most people. You most likely are extremely busy juggling your job, social life, and family life. That doesn’t leave much time for anything else, let alone spending hours working out or cooking complicated healthy meals.

Good news is, you don’t have to do any of that. 

But first, to become and stay healthy, you need to understand what being healthy really means. 

Understanding what healthy means 

Health refers to mental, emotional, and physical well-being. The World Health Organization defines health as “a complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Good health generally entails regular exercise, balanced nutrition, and enough sleep. 

But what does a healthy lifestyle actually mean? People’s opinions differ on this. Is it eating a plant-based diet, going to the gym every day, running marathons, drinking smoothies? 

Well I believe it can be all of these or none at all. I believe a healthy lifestyle is about how it feels. It is a mix of components that make you feel better mentally, physically, and emotionally. It is all about kicking the bad habits and replacing them by better ones that will uplift you. 

What is unhealthy is usually easier to define: 

• Junk food 
• Obesity 
• Sitting on the couch all day 
• Drinking too much 
• Not sleeping enough 
• Smoking 
• And so on…

How many of these are you doing on a regular basis? How many are you willing to give up? You see, I don’t think that in order to adopt a healthy lifestyle you necessarily need to give up on everything. I think you need to restrict the bad habits to a minimum and adopt better ones, but doing something unhealthy once in a while certainly won’t kill you. After all, being healthy is also about living a full and happy life.

So the good news is that no, you don’t have to eat celery sticks and quinoa at every meal, never touch a cookie again, and kiss your sodas goodbye. You can have it all. In moderation. There are quite a few easy steps you can take to be healthier.

7 ways to become and stay healthy

You can be healthy by making small changes to your daily habits. Here are 7 easy ways to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

1. Think about your goal

What’s your goal? Why do you want to adopt a healthy lifestyle in the first place? It will be a lot easier to stay healthy if you know why you want it and have a clear focus. Is it for health reasons, is it to look good, is it to feel more energized? Motivation is key to get rid of your bad habits.

Think about how much better your life will be. Think about how good you’ll look. Whatever your motivation is, ultimately, you have to do it for you, and only you.

2. Be mindful

Mindfulness teaches you to live in the present. It’s about being aware of your surroundings and your state of mind. By being mindful, you pay attention to where you are and what you are doing. It’s a bit like the opposite of mind wandering or day dreaming. When you feel your mind drifts, acknowledge it – it’s human nature – and bring it back. Return your attention to the present. 

Mindfulness will put you back in touch with your body and emotions. It helps lowering stress levels and negative emotions. It has benefits for your health and happiness. Eating mindfully is what helped me a lot. I’ve always had a problem with overeating but when I’m actually paying attention to what I eat and savor it slowly, it allows me to eat less without feeling deprived. 

3. Eat better foods

A balanced diet is key to a good health. Eat a lot of fruits and veggies, lean meats, and whole grains. Avoid processed food. Processed food are low in nutritional value and have added preservatives that can hurt your health. Avoiding processed food is not easy, especially if you don’t have much time for cooking your own meals, but you should definitely keep your intake to a minimum. 

Keep in mind, a treat once in a while won’t do any harm. Actually, I highly recommend allowing yourself to eat whichever unhealthy food you crave as long as it’s very occasional. Savor it and move on. Strict diets are known for not working for most people. They fall off the wagon and end up regaining all their weight and some more. Of course, if something is a “trigger food” for you – meaning if you eat it, it causes you to crave more unhealthy foods – then you should consider getting rid of it completely.

A diet that works is a diet you can stick to for the rest of your life. It’s a lifestyle change.

4. Hydrate

Drink plenty of water. Water helps balance your body fluids but also helps with hunger and having good skin. It’s full of benefits! The guest ranch I used to work at had a saying “hydrate or die!”.

Dehydration has physical and mental consequences: it lowers performance and reduces your motivation, causes you to be more susceptible and to feel more anxious. You will never hear it enough: remember to stay hydrated.

5. Read health blogs

Reading health blogs can help motivate you and give you tons of ideas to better your lifestyle. When I thought of becoming healthy, I started reading a lot of blogs and this really motivated me to get started and keep at it. It made me realize that being healthy is a state of mind too. It also made me realized that there was a lot of people like me wanting to change their lifestyle and that I was not alone in this. 

You can learn a lot from researching the subject online. It may help you clarify your goals too. Not to mention all the tips and tricks you will discover. Not every method will work for you so it’s important to try several things until you find something you feel comfortable implementing into your daily life. Everyone is different.

6. Get some sleep

A good night of sleep helps with brain function, energy, and even weight maintenance! An adult needs between 7-9 hours of sleep per night. It plays a very important part in our physical health. Sleep deprivation is associated with risk of weight gain, low energy, impaired brain function, higher disease risk, depression, and so on. Not getting enough sleep will also make you more irritable and less in control of your emotions. 

I spent years in a constant state of sleep deprivation and let me tell you, it’s horrible! It is paramount that you sleep well and enough. You will be more productive, creative, and a whole lot happier.

7. Make it a routine

Last but not least, good habits need to become a routine. You have to do them because they are part of your daily life, and in order to do this, you have to enjoy them. If you hate your diet or your way of exercising, you may stick to it for a while but you won’t keep it up. Becoming and staying healthy is about the long run. 

Think about it. Where would like to be physically and emotionally in ten years? Can you sustain your current way of living for all those years? If the answer is no, then you need to change your method. 

Find what you enjoy, find what works for you. 

Make it a routine.

Related articles:

• My Self-Care Routine, 7 Habits for a Healthy Lifestyle
• How to Love Yourself More and Why you Should
• Why Doing What you Love is Important