Looking to lead a healthy lifestyle in 2023? You’re not alone. With the new year approaching, many of us are thinking about our resolutions and realizing that our current lifestyles are lacking (or we’re simply engaging in too many bad habits!).
While there are so many areas we could focus on when it comes to resolutions, the best ones depend on your individual health goals and what will make the biggest, most positive difference for you as an individual. Here are a few suggestions that might tick your boxes and help you feel more confident this year:
Meal Planning and Prepping
A common reason that people eat poor diets is convenience! We all know that a healthy and balanced diet—with the food groups in moderation—is extremely important. But few of us properly fuel our bodies this way. We often opt for convenience foods instead: fast food, takeaways, premade and prepackaged snacks. . . which are often packed with unhealthy ingredients, saturated fats, high salt levels, and excess sugar.
Rather than defaulting for these poor choices, you can avoid these last-minute choices by meal planning and prepping. These two steps will make sure that you are able to eat healthy without taking too much time out of your day.
Meal planning simply involves deciding what meals you want for the week and hitting the store each week (or even longer, if you can!) to get all of your ingredients in. Not only does this save time (as you don’t have to head to the store each day for individual meal ingredients), but it can save you money, too, as meal-planning ensures every ingredient is used.
Meal prepping is the next step. It involves doing what you can to partially prepare your chosen meals in advance. You may be able to chop vegetables, marinate meat or fish, or even completely make meals, packing them away in Tupperware or freezing them for use at a later date.
Consuming Healthy Convenience Food
If you’re really strapped for time, you should look into healthy convenience foods that take the form of ready-to-eat-meals but are still packed with nutrients. These tend to be quite high cost, as you’re benefiting from convenience without compromising on your healthy lifestyle. . . However, it’s generally good to have a few options in the fridge or freezer if you find yourself in a sticky situation.
Add Supplements
Of course, you should do what you can to get as many of your vitamins and nutrients as possible from whole foods. This is a much healthier and more natural way to go about things. However, if you find that you’re experiencing occasional shortfalls in your diet—it’s impossible to eat everything beneficial every single day!
And in this case, you may find that supplements just make sense.
Supplements are especially beneficial for those who have limited diets, such as vegetarians, vegans, lactose-intolerant individuals, or those with allergies. For examples, vegans can often benefit from taking B12 supplements, as B12 is difficult to source naturally from plant-based foods. Take some time to look into your diet, identify any shortfalls and find supplements that can fill these gaps.
There are countless options out there, so check reviews and see what makes sense for your individual needs. And if you’re unsure, you can always check with a nutritionist or dietician for help and support on this subject.
Improve Your Skincare Routine
Skincare doesn’t always top the list of priorities when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle, but if you begin to suffer from skin problems or skin complaints, it will quickly become one of the things you think about the most.
Skin complaints can cause disruption in your day to day life for a variety of reasons. They can impact your appearance, causing you to feel self conscious or not your best. They can be painful or uncomfortable, causing sore, itching or burning sensations that are hard to ignore and negatively impact your quality of life.
In short, if you want to have a healthy lifestyle, it’s important to take care of your skin and to seek treatment wherever necessary. If you are already experiencing skin conditions, it’s a good idea to start your skin improvement journey by consulting a doctor or dermatologist who can figure out what’s wrong and guide you on the path to effective treatment.
One option may be eczema treatment from adbry or antibiotics for acne. If not, now is a good time to get to know your skin type and build a skincare routine around it. Determining whether you have dry, oily, combination or normal skin can impact everything from your choice of face wash to your choice of moisturizer, so take some time to consult a dermatologist or do some research online.
Improve Hydration
So few of us are properly hydrated. We often fail to hit our recommended fluid consumption each day. But drinking eight glasses—or two liters—of water really shouldn’t be a hard task!
Make it easy for yourself by investing in a large-size water bottle so that you can easily monitor your water. You can even get two liter bottles! Remember that water content in foods and other drinks can also contribute to your goal, so count things like soup, berries, melons, etc.
Increase Your Daily Steps
It’s recommended that you get 150 minutes of exercise each week. If you aren’t into your fitness classes, gym sessions, or other forms of exercise, you should at least try to reach your recommended 10,000 steps a day. Doing this many steps can make all the difference to your wellbeing!
These are just a few starter tips that can really help you on your journey towards a healthy lifestyle in the new year. Do you have others to share? Drop them in the comments!
Featured Image Credit: Ella Olsson
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