Here are nine simple changes you can make on the road to a healthy life

On the road to fitness, it’s all about being practical

Here are nine simple changes you can make on the road to a healthy life

Fat loss and health are a big deal today. We read about nutrition research, are introduced to new super-foods every other day, trust major companies on their supposedly magic supplements and spend hours arguing about the most effective types of exercise.

All this is great, but at the end of the day, practicality wins.

If you can implement what you have learnt in a manner that is practical, they remain a part of your life and serve you in the long term. If not, they just end up becoming things you chat about. So, here are nine practical changes you can implement into your life right away.

Don’t weigh yourself every day.

No good comes from being obsessed with your weight. You lose and gain weight every second of the day and that’s how your body functions. Fluctuations are totally acceptable but unsubstantiated frustrations are not.

Walk and walk as much as you can.

Walking is the most underrated of exercises. It is one activity you can do any time of the day, even when you’re at work.

So make it a point to walk 10,000 or more steps every day or brisk walk for 90 minutes every day.

It doesn’t have to be all at once. Break it up, walk with a friend or play with a puppy, but make it happen.

Be greedy for activity.

The way we have built our lives today, we don’t really get opportunities to move. But the body needs movement, so create these opportunities. Take the stairs always, walk to the store, park a little far away. You get the idea.

Get your veggies in somehow.

What we lack the most today are micro-nutrients (vitamins and minerals), and vegetables are an incredible source of the same. Cook them, juice them, blend them or eat them raw. But get them in.

Watch the fried stuff.

Fried or oily foods are calorie-dense, nutrient-sparse, unhealthy and delicious. So eat it rarely. It’s really that simple.

Be sensible about sugar. 

Sugar is fine but not in the quantities you prefer. The couple of spoons of sugar in your coffee won’t kill you. But the other couple dozen you consume in the form of cereals, health drinks, fruit juices, candy, cakes and biscuits will.

When it comes to fixing health, pick the lowest hanging fruit — severely limit consuming processed foods.

Sleep.

So simple yet so hard to do. Most adults today are sleep-deprived, and that’s one of the major causes of lifestyle diseases that we suffer from today.

In fact, just adding an hour of sleep will improve your health markers and accelerate fat loss. I know it’s hard, but make an effort to sleep more. You’ll be happy you did.

Lift some weights.

It doesn't matter how old, unfit, heavy or inexperienced you are.

Strength training helps improve bone density, preserves muscle tissue, helps improve your metabolic rate so you burn fat throughout the day, helps posture, prevents aches, pains and niggles and makes you more useful in general. I know you’re new to this. But so was I and everyone else who has ever strength-trained.

There’s a first time for everything and everyone.

Don’t go on diets or try anything extreme.

Health and fitness are skills that you need for the rest of your life. The idea is to learn to live a healthy and fit life and not to just shed a few kilos and gain them back. So, find a professional and make an effort to learn about what suits you best based on where you live, what you do, what you like and how often you eat. You can do a lot more with knowledge than you can with a chart.

Source | The Hindu | 29 July 2015