Looking for essential tips on leading a healthy lifestyle to kickstart your journey of self-care and well-being?
In this fast-paced world, prioritizing our health has become difficult, and more crucial than ever.
With this much information on our fingertips today, it can be overwhelming to transition towards a new and different lifestyle.
Every other page out there will tell you something different, complicated, and then scare you off.
What we have tried to do here is well, not that.
We will today discuss the simple and most practical tips that will start off this journey for you.
Read on and we’ll tell you the 5 most simple and easy-to-follow practices that will get you living a healthy lifestyle in no time!
What is a Healthy Lifestyle though?
The World Health Organization says “
“It’s a way of living that helps you enjoy more aspects of life.”
Pretty accurate.
By a healthy lifestyle, we don’t mean bodybuilding, weight lifting, boxing or stuff like that, it just means living a life where you are happy; mentally and physically.
It’s a life where you don’t procrastinate (goodluck doing that with your short attention span 😉), you don’t lag, you’re active, you take care of yourself and your body.
Before we start, just know, it’s the very small changes that will make the biggest impact, you don’t need to become a gym freak just yet.
Here are a few tips on leading a healthy lifestyle.
Managing Weight
First of all, you’ve got to know where you stand.
So get out there and buy a weight machine, so you can easily keep track.
Next step, set a goal.
The goal can be reducing fats, gaining muscles, or putting on weight when striving to overcome your skinny physique.
The goal is your aspiration, where you want to see yourself.
Do whatever you can to achieve your target and then keep the weight at your target.
Easier said than done, but we all have to start somewhere, so.
Just exercise a lot, do something like weight loss yoga or intermittent fasting.
So, stay motivated, be consistent, and work hard!
Eating Healthy
‘Eat Healthy, Stay Healthy.’ Imagine doing that here in Pakistan 🙂.
As frustrating as it sounds, it’s what you’ve got to do if you wanna be healthy.
It’s not easy to resist those desi ghee-made parathas, the shinwaris, and chai with a small side of 3 mithais 🙂.
These are not the ideal food options if you want to be living your best, healthiest life.
There’s a ton of information on what you can do, but let’s keep it simple.
Reduce fats, cut sugar, and go for healthier substitutes.
That doesn’t mean completely overhauling your diet! It just means making small changes like having 1 roti instead of 2. Cutting back on the oils in your salans, or just having an extra side of fruit or veggies.
Remember, it’s the small changes that add up in the long run! Oh, and don’t forget to keep track of your calories, vitamins, and proteins. Here’s a good calorie tracker option.
Exercising and Being More Physical
Next on the list for our tips on leading a healthy lifestyle is an important one when turning over this new leaf: Stay active physically.
You need to burn your calories, and this requires exercise, playing sports, working out, cardio, or anything you’d like but just don’t sit around all day.
Many of you will have a hard time staying motivated for this but we could always start with the minimum; take stairs instead of elevator, ride a bicycle to work, and walk to the general store.
If this is a little overwhelming, maybe just start some exercises at home, and up the game slowly 🤷.
Use apps to track your steps, set goals, break records, and get addicted to being healthier!
Just remember, it only gets better from here.
Reducing Fats
While it may seem that reducing fats has been the theme for today’s article, well yes and no. Let me explain.
Fats are an essential part of our diet. In fact, burning consumed fats is how our body makes energy.
Fats have three major types: Saturated, Unsaturated, and Trans fats.
What we want to do is to reduce our consumption of saturated and trans fats. These fats increase the cholesterol level of our body to an unhealthy level and you don’t want that.
According to WHO this high cholesterol level then leads to heart diseases, diabetes, infertility, gallstones etc.
Unfortunately most of what our diet is, in Pakistan, contains lots of saturated fats, like ghee, oil, butter, and raw milk. See a list of this food here.
What you need to know now is that excessive consumption of these saturated and trans fats is harmful, so just cut back on it a little.
Read about Fats in detail here.
Staying Hydrated
According to Harvard University, healthy men drink at least 15 and a half glasses of water per day, and healthy women, up to 11 and a half!
Not to mention, the heat wave is killing people off by the day. What’s the only solution? Stay Hydrated.
Water is an essential part of sustaining this healthy lifestyle. It keeps your body fresh, up, and running!
It’s recommended to start your day with a glass of water, shake off the dehydration from your sleep.
You would need water and electrolytes in your body to sustain all the other work you’re doing to maintain this lifestyle, so just drink lots of it.
Maintaining Sleep
Last tip for leading this healthy lifestyle is to just maintain your sleep schedule and habits.
After doing all this effort, exercises, and whatnot, you deserve a good night’s sleep.
But not more than 8 hours, and not less than 7 hours.
Relax and enjoy your sleep, but don’t forget to strictly adhere to your fixed sleep schedule.
Remember to be aware of your sleeping positions, you don’t want to wake up daily with sore arms and pain in your neck.
Avoid sleeping on your chest, stick to sleeping at night, leave the stress and worries out of your bedroom, and don’t hesitate to take naps every now and then.
Take-Home Message
“Your body is a temple so treat it with respect.”
-ChatGPT 🙃
Remember that the journey towards a better sustainable life is a slow one but a transformative one. Celebrate every step taken towards this healthy lifestyle. And don’t enter into competition with someone, everyone has their own individual journey.
Each step is small, these small, but consistent changes will lead to big things. You took a step, read an article, and now a lot of avenues lie ahead.
Good Luck with your journey and remember to:
1. Set your Target Weight
2. Eat Healthy
3. Stay Active
4. Stay Hydrated
5. Have a Good Sleep
