Health and Lifestyle Tips
Simple changes in the way you eat and move can make major differences in how you feel, your energy and how you look. Try some of these simple suggestions and see results within days.
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- Get enough sleep. Most of us do not except on weekends. Sleep deprivation can make you eat too much, feel too tired to exercise and even affect your memory and concentration. Try a week of going to bed earlier and see what a difference it makes.
- Eat breakfast. You may not be hungry when you awaken or if you exercise in the early morning, may not want to eat before going off for a run or to the health club. However as long as you eat something that resembles a small meal before lunch, your brain will function better and you will not be tempted to overeat at lunchtime.
- Don't sit at your computer for more than an hour or two without going out for 'recess'. Walk down the hall or up and down a flight of stairs, do some leg and shoulder stretches to ease tired muscles, walk outside if you have five minutes to spare. Moving around will prevent tightness and stiffness in your muscles and joints and improve your ability to concentrate when you return to work.
- Eat out with caution. Restaurant foods are notorious for super large portions and a heavy hand with the butter and oil. Assume that the restaurant food will contain substantially more fat than the same food made at home and thus more calories. Do not clean your plate; you will be eating too much. Ask for a doggy bag or share a supersized entrée with your dining companion.
- Avoid temptations. It is a lot easier not to eat food you do not see than say no to it when it is in front of your nose. If you cannot refrain from buying a doughnut or coffee roll when you buy your morning coffee, then buy your coffee somewhere else. If street fairs have you snacking on sausages with fried onions followed by fried dough and a 64-ounce container of soda, go on nature hikes instead.
And if you are the sort of person who wants to eat everything you have paid for, avoid cruises at all cost.
- No time to exercise? Do you have 10 minutes? Everyone has 10 minutes. Even if that is all the time you have, it is better than zero. And if you are able to exercise 3 times a day for 10 minutes at a time, you will be doing very well.
- Leftovers can be lethal if you feel your role is to dispose of them by eating them. As you clean up the kitchen after a meal, look at what you are saving and ask yourself whether you will feel obligated to eat it because no one else will. You are not obligated to eat extra calories because you do not want to dirty a food container. If the leftover is something so delectable (but fattening) that it will call your name in the middle of the night, then don't save it at all. If you have a yard, feed it to the birds. If not, give it to a neighbor or throw it out.
- Don't buy what you should not be eating. If you have a problem with fattening snack foods like chips, cookies, ice cream, crackers, and nuts, leave them in the supermarket. If others in the family must eat those foods, let them buy the snacks and store them in a concealed place.
- Do not cook complicated meals when you are ravenous. You will find yourself eating your dinner before it is ready and then eating again when it is ready. Try to make some part of the meal ahead of time or if you are really stuck, settle for something quick.
- Bored with health clubs and home exercise equipment? Vary your exercise life by trying something different like Yoga, kick boxing, karate, or learning a new dance step, how to swim really well, or snowshoeing.
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