10 Steps to a Healthier You
Shaniyla Johnson
Use this guide to get your life in check and become a healthier person. These ten steps should help you get started.
1. Maintain a healthy diet.
Healthy eating plays a big part in your progress. You will see some results if you exercise regularly, but if you eat right too, you will see major results. Cut out the sugary and salty foods. You should be consuming less than 2,400 mg of salt each day. Don’t eat things that have more than 300 mg of salt, and your food should also have less than 20 g of sugar in it. Stay away from fast food and restaurants, because those meals contain a lot of salt. However, it’s perfectly okay to go out to eat once or twice a month; just don’t make it a habit.
Sample of a Day of Healthy Eating:
Breakfast: oatmeal with strawberries and bananas
Lunch: apple chicken walnut salad with a banana
Mid-Afternoon Snack: salted peanuts
Dinner: baked chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and string beans
2. Exercise.
Try to exercise 2 to 3 times a week. Working out will start out as a chore, but over time you will start to actually enjoy exercising. Each workout should range from 30 minutes to an hour. An ideal 60 minute workout consists of a 5-minute warm up, 40 minutes of vigorous activity, 10 minutes of a circuit type routine, and a 5-minute cool down.
3. Be patient.
You’re not going to lose 10 pounds overnight, so be patient.
4. Don’t starve yourself.
This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves. Do not starve yourself. You are just hurting your body. Your body needs nutrients to survive, and your body receives these nutrients from food. Working out and starving yourself is even more unhealthy. The more you workout, the more you will have to eat. After each workout it is recommended to eat a healthy snack to replenish your body with the nutrients that it has lost during the workout.
5. Take pictures.
Taking pictures will motivate you to keep going. You can take pictures weekly or even everyday if you want to. It’s good to keep track of your process. When you’re feeling down one day, you can look back at the pictures and see how far you have come.
6. Dont overdo it.
It can be frustrating when you are not seeing results, but don’t overdo it. Don’t workout twice a day. Try not to work on the same muscle groups two days in a row. For example, do an upper body workout on Monday and a lower body workout on Tuesday. I recommend working out your entire body in each workout. Doing a full body workout three times a week should be just fine.
7. Dont compare yourself to other people.
Comparing yourself to other people can have a negative impact on your process. Don’t go on social media platforms (such as Instagram) and get upset when you don’t look like a certain person. That person probably started just like you did. They probably have just been on their healthy journey longer than you. Other people should only motivate you. Think of it as, “If I keep on doing this, I may look like this one day.”
8. Set goals and achieve them.
Set goals! Setting goals and achieving them can be a huge morale booster. When you achieve your goals, you will feel like you can accomplish anything, so set goals and conquer them!
9. Switch it up.
Doing the same thing over can get really boring, so switch it up. Instead of going to the gym, exercise outside. Try eating a wrap instead of a salad. Downloading Pinterest can be very helpful, because the app/website offers lots of healthy recipes and different exercises.
10. Reward yourself.
You should reward yourself once in a while. Becoming healthier takes lots of self discipline. It is really hard to walk past pizza at lunchtime and go get a salad, so reward yourself once in a while. For example, whenever we have strombolis at school, I go and get one. If you are rewarding yourself with food, be sure to keep it to a minimum. You don’t want to be eating strombolis three or four times a week.
