Having good health starts with making small changes and letting them become part of your daily life. No change is too small or too insignificant. When it comes to nutrition, learn small changes in meals that will decrease consumption of added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium in alignment with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Making choices that incorporate these changes in your everyday life can help you achieve a healthy eating style now and into the future.
Where to Start
The best place to start with good health is to set some goals! You can’t get anywhere without some sort of vision in mind. However, you don’t just want to say a goal and expect it to happen. You want to plan out your course of action for having good health. Want to exercise more? Great! How often? When will you do it? What exercises will be done? How will you motivate yourself? There are many questions to each goal you want to answer.
A good rule of thumb is to create SMART goals when you want to have good health or achieve a dream. This means your goals are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
Make a goal to lose weight, eat better, be active, get therapy you need, etc. Be very specific with the goal. Put it into numbers and dates you want to achieve your goal by (measurable). Make sure it’s not too lofty of a goal. An example would be to train for a marathon in one week when you’ve never run a day in your life. Have the goal be relative to what you want to accomplish and set a day you must achieve it by so you don’t want until the end of the year.
Get Active
The American Heart Association recommends that every person get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week to have good health. This is a baseline recommendation to avoid chronic disease, obesity and other health issues. Break that down and it’s only 30 minutes of exercise, 5 days a week. If you’re new to exercise, try splitting up your 30 minutes into 5 or 10 minute intervals throughout the day.
Exercise is proven to boost metabolism, circulation and your mood. Improved circulation helps nutrients from your food get to all the tissues and organs that need them to be healthy. More exercise can help you lose weight faster and it can even improve your sleep each day. Get up and get going and see how positively your body responds!
Focus on Nutrition
Many people will exercise to their heart’s content and still not lose weight like they want to. What gives? The nutrition aspect of their goals may be lacking. Some studies report that losing weight and getting in shape is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise. That may be true for some people, and it’s a great change to incorporate into your day. You may see good health and changes in your physique by simply making a few changes to your nutrition.
To have good health, lose weight or reach fitness goals, you need at least 6 essential nutrients in your diet each day. Those include protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats (like from nuts and grains), water, vitamins and minerals. Your body must get vitamins and minerals through healthy foods, as you can’t naturally make them on your own. Most like calcium, zinc, potassium, Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K will help you rebuild cells and have normal body processes. With your nutrition, start switching out sugary foods or heavy-carb foods (breads, pastas, cake) with fruits, veggies, and a protein shake. Then, we can help you build upon that depending on your health problems and goals.
Sugar, Sugar, Sugar
Sugar, Sugar, SugarWe mention sugary foods specifically because sugar can be very detrimental to good health. The American Heart Association recommends sugar guidelines for people of all ages to have good health. Men shouldn’t have more than 9 teaspoons (36 grams) of sugar each day. Women should have no more than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) a day, children should be less than 6 teaspoons and infants should have none.
However, studies show that the average young adult is having about 32 teaspoons of sugar a day. It’s no wonder that nutrient deficiencies and chronic conditions run rampant when the average person is having that much sugar, which has no nutritional value. If you do nothing else to your diet in 2020, cut out sugary foods and drinks, or significantly limit them to have good health.
Other Goals for Good Health
There are so many aspects of having good health that you can incorporate into your life in 2020! Here are a few more to consider:
- Keeping a clean home. Sometimes clutter can get in the way of you working on a goal if cleaning the house seems more fun.
- Quit smoking. Tobacco products will significantly hinder you from reaching health goals and having good health overall.
- Limit or cut out alcohol. This also contributes to bad health, much like tobacco.
- Be social. Studies show that being social in some way each day can help boost your mood and motivation to achieve.
- De-stress. Take a few minutes or more each day to relax and do something you love.
Let Us Help You
Do you want good health but you don’t know where to start? Maybe you know all the points we’ve covered, but it’s just hard to implement them into your daily life. Studies show that people are actually much more successful in their health and wellness goals when they are accountable to another person. We have many rehabilitative therapies that can kick-start your fitness goals. Many of our therapies will also provide suggestions for changes in nutrition and lifestyle that will go along with many of your goals for good health. To get started on your health plan today, call Spine Correction Center of the Rockies at (970) 658-5115!
