We are all creatures of habit. For many, we wake up and go through the same routine like clockwork — it’s as if you’re living proof of the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. This is great if you already live a healthy lifestyle and have formed good habits. However, if you have poor health habits, it could be detrimental to your long-term health and longevity.
For that reason, this article will lay out some tips that you can implement into your life to help you change poor health habits into healthy ones.
Let’s dive into the tips!
Disclaimer: It is recommended that you speak with your doctor before starting an exercise program or making any changes to your current nutrition plan.
Helpful Tips to Help Change Poor Health Habits
Below are a few simple-to-implement tips that can cause dramatic results if you can start utilizing them to change poor health habits.
1. Schedule Time to Exercise
People like to use the excuse that they don’t have time to exercise, yet it’s a fairly accurate statement to say that they are also the same people who get enraged when they miss one of their favorite television shows at night. I’m all about getting proper rest and relaxation, but at the end of the day, I would prefer that individuals earn that right by pushing themselves and their bodies to improve their health rather than making excuses as to why they live an unhealthy lifestyle.
An easy way to change poor health habits is to make healthy activities like exercise a priority by scheduling them in your calendar. If you genuinely wanted to improve your health, you would put your workouts on your calendar so nothing would occupy your set time for exercise. It’s truly that simple. If you have an hour at night before watching all of your television shows, that would be the perfect time to crush a workout and get it done. Or better yet, start your day with a grueling workout so you can run through the rest of your day knowing your workout is already done and have a feeling of accomplishment.
As with anything in your life, you’ll find time for it during the day if it’s a priority. If you want to live a long and healthy life, it would be wise to ensure your fitness fits somewhere in your schedule each week. All you need in order to see health benefits is 150 minutes of exercise. That can easily be broken down into five days, where you engage in 30 minutes of activity. The activity per day can even be broken down into smaller segments, like a 10-minute walk here and there to achieve your full 30 minutes.
2. Meal Prep for the Week
This is an extremely important part of your success when it comes to vital ways to change poor health habits. The typical American diet is absolutely absurd. It’s the reason why over 60% of US adults are overweight, and over 40% of Americans are now considered obese (reaching the highest obesity rate EVER in US history). We “fuel” our bodies with junk that doesn’t really fuel us at all — in fact, it’s bogging us down and causing our bodies to not function optimally. This affects not only our body but also our mind.
Start by designating one day of the week as your “meal prep day” and stick with it. Use Sunday, for example. Make all of your meals for the week in that one day. Grill up some chicken or lean protein sources, steam your vegetables, prepare your salads, or whatever else you would want for the week. Either store the items in individual containers that you can pull from or make full meals in Tupperware containers for easy grab-and-go meals that don’t take any thought at all.
Many fail with their nutrition when they are looking for convenience and wind up grabbing an unhealthy, processed, and pre-packaged option. When you have healthy, real food meals already prepared, you don’t have that excuse anymore. In the morning, the only thing you need to remember is to grab your meal from the refrigerator to take with you to work or school, and you’re all set — no thinking involved.
3. Set an Alarm to Go to Bed
Your body needs a minimum of seven hours of sleep to properly recover — especially if you exercise and break down muscle fibers that need to be rebuilt. Get into a routine of going to bed at the same time each and every night. Doing this will not only allow you to get the proper rest you need, but it will help train your body to naturally start to shut down at the same time each night, which may help you fall asleep faster.
Related Article: 5 Ways You Can Get a Better Night’s Sleep Starting Tonight
If you know you need to wake up at 6am, you should go to bed at 10:30pm. This will allow your body 30 minutes to fall asleep and then a full seven hours of rest to follow. Set an alarm on your phone, similar to what you would do in the morning, but set it for the time you want to go to bed. So, if you want to be in bed at 10:30pm, set it for 10 or 10:15 to give yourself enough time to go through your pre-bed routine and then slip under the sheets.
4. Eliminate Unhealthy Liquid Calories
One of the best ways to change poor health habits is to eliminate liquid calories from your nutrition. Soda, juices, fruity beverages, sugary beverages, alcohol, etc., contain more calories than you would imagine per serving. And they all add up quickly — especially when you aren’t paying attention to them throughout the day. Get rid of them and replace those beverages with plain water.
If you need something with flavor, you can add some cut-up fruit to your water, like lemon, cucumber, or strawberries for natural flavoring, or go with a black coffee or some coffee with something like Stevia added to it. You want to skip the creamers, milk, and sugar that are full of calories. You can also opt for something like green tea, which also contains some weight management properties.
Liquid calories add up quickly if you aren’t paying attention and are among the leading factors as to why many people are battling the bulge. Set yourself up for success and eliminate liquid calories to help save your health and waistline. It’s not difficult, but it may take some adjustments to your lifestyle, which is precisely what this article is about.
Additionally, if you avoid water because you prefer something with flavor, MuscleSport BCAA Revolution solves this issue. With more than a dozen flavor options to choose from, you can utilize this delicious amino acid supplement (in a 10:1:1 instantized BCAA ratio of leucine, isoleucine, valine) to not only help stay hydrated throughout the day thanks to its ElectroREVô Hydration Matrix, but also take in some quality amino acids that help with muscle recovery.
MuscleSport BCAA Revolution not only contains high-quality BCAAs to boost mTOR and muscle recovery, but it also includes added HICA-DL (Alpha-Hydroxy-Isocaproic Acid) and L-Glutamine.
Related Article: The Benefits of High Dose Leucine for Increased mTOR
Best of all, you can utilize BCAA Revolution any time of day!
By merely substituting your mid-afternoon soda for a refreshing serving of MuscleSport BCAA Revolution mixed with some ice-cold water, you’re going to save a bunch of calories while also gaining some health and performance benefits.
Stay productive, save calories, enjoy the savory flavors, and finish the day strong with MuscleSport BCAA Revolution!