Making positive changes toward better health can occur a little at a time and be so minor, you may even doubt they help. However, when you add all these changes together, you start to see big differences in the way you look and feel. Bad habits creep in just as easily. Maybe you never bought soda pop or sugary treats, but one day picked up a package while shopping. The next thing you know, you’re buying them again and again. They now have become a habit. The same holds true for living a sedentary lifestyle. You can reverse all the negative changes you’ve made in your life and start heading towards the positive side of life.
Start moving
You may not be able to run 20 miles, but you probably can walk around the block. Becoming more active has to start somewhere, so do whatever you can to increase the activity in your life. Eventually, you’ll be surprised to find you have the stamina and energy to run the 20 miles, if that’s your goal.
Learn to eat healthier
In order to lose weight, you don’t have to diet. In fact, dieting doesn’t work. That’s because diets always end and you go back to eating the same way that put on the weight in the first place. Instead of dieting, learn to eat healthier. Here in Bergen County, NJ, personal trainers can help show you small changes you can make in your eating patterns that reap big rewards. Maybe the changes seem minor, such as substituting some unsweetened applesauce for some of the oil or sugar in baking, but each change makes the food you eat more nutritious and lower in calories. Individually these changes make only small differences in your caloric intake, but as a group, they make a dynamic difference that can help you take weight off and keep it off permanently.
Small changes build to big results
You need a long term goal to aim toward, but you also need to make short term achievements too. While your long term goal may be overall fitness and losing 30 pounds, exercising a half hour a day might be one short term goal you need to achieve first. Sometimes, keeping long term goals in mind can help you make simple changes in your life. For instance, rather than circling the parking lot looking for a spot close to the door of the store, you might park at a distance, saving gas and increasing the amount of exercise you get for the day. Taking the stairs, rather than the elevator, is another small change you can make that gives big dividends.
You’ll watch your blood pressure lower and improve your cholesterol without the benefit of medication when you eat healthier and get more exercise.
You’ll change your mind about difficult chores around the house when you consider just how much exercise you’re getting. In fact, some people find that when they consider these chores as exercise, they breeze through them faster and have more time for themselves.
You’ll start to feel changes within a few weeks. You’ll notice you can walk faster and further without needing to rest and start to see pounds slide off, revealing a new you.
You’ll start to feel happier and ready for the world when you increase the amount of exercise you get. Exercise stimulates the brain to create hormones that make you feel good. It also burns off the negative hormones created by stress.