Most people think that living a healthy lifestyle is a challenge.
When you look at the super fit and healthy people out there, it can seem almost impossible to get what they have. Six pack abs and a 100-year lifespan appear out of reach to normal" individuals.
But achieving those levels of health and fitness is really just about engaging in healthy behaviors on a routine basis.
Each of the habits in this post may seem small by itself, but over time they can have a snowball effect on your health.
The trick is to focus on making the healthy choice in any given moment, rather than looking at all the things you must do in the long term.
With that in mind, here is a list of habits and behaviors you can adopt that will add up to a healthy lifestyle. Where applicable, Ive linked to external tools and resources to help you get the most out of each entry. Oh, and this post is seriously long (over 16,000 words), so youll want to bookmark it for future reference. Perhaps on StumbleUpon, wink wink.
If you know of any resources that would make this guide more complete, shoot me an email.
Update: There are a ton of links on this post, and for one reason or another, many of them will become broken. Sometimes, they will become broken for a day or two and then the page will come back up again. Other times the site just goes away. Unfortunately, I dont have enough time to make sure all the links are always working or to find more resources to replace old ones. I sincerely apologize. But again, if you know of other resources to include, let me know.
Diet is often the most hated part of being healthy. Most people look at a diet as a temporary thing. After three months on some diet", you can return to the way you used to eat.
I challenge you to think of your diet as a lifestyle of healthy eating rather than a horrible ordeal you must go through for a period of time, only to return to fast food burgers and french fries. You will be far more successful that way.
1. Make dietary changes slowly.
If you try to change everything at once, you will have difficulty adjusting to the new lifestyle. When you eat new foods or in different proportions, it takes time for your digestive system to get used to it, if ya know what I mean.
A healthier diet starts even before any food enters your mouth. There are many new habits you can adopt that will make healthy eating easierfor example, heaving healthy food in your kitchen at home.
You need to buy your food before you eat it, right?
2. Plan healthy meals in advance.
Come up with a meal plan for your week, so you know exactly what to buy at the grocery store and you are more accountable to yourself (and less likely to eat out and unhealthy restaurants). Here is a template that you can use, but if you eat more than three meals a day you will need to adjust.
Its a good idea to know how many calories you are supposed to be consuming per day based on your goals and your lifestyle. Use this calculator to get an idea of this number. Everyone has different caloric needs and the formula is not 100% accurate, so dont be too concerned with matching this number exactly. Its just a good approximation for planning purposes.
You can write a plan down and post it to your refrigerator, but there are also plenty of free or paid online tools that can help in the process. First, lets look at the free ones:
If you want some added functionality, there are many paid services that are still quite affordable:
If you want to be very thorough with tracking what you eat, you should skip down to #36 for more information and tools that will make being accountable and sticking to your meal plan even easier.
3. Shop with a list based on your weekly meal plan.
Once you begin planning your meals in advance, food shopping becomes much easier. Make a list of ingredients you need in order to cook your meals, and only buy those items.
Old fashioned pen and paper lists work great, but there are free tools that deserves special mention here:
4. Go food shopping on a full stomach.
When you are hungry, you are inclined to buy far more food than you need, and you will likely buy unhealthy foods that you crave.
5. Spend most of your shopping time along the perimeter of the grocery store.
This is where the produce and healthier foods tend to be located. Dont just wander through the aisles aimlessly. Only venture inward if you need something specific and you know where it is.
6. Stop buying foods that are marketed as healthy.
Chances are, they are not. And if it says all natural, that doesnt mean its healthy either. You should spend time educating yourself about what makes a food healthy or not so you can spot the rampant BS in food advertising and packaging. In the meantime, a fantastic rule of thumb is to
7. Only buy real foods.
In other words, purchase foods that come directly from nature and are minimally processed. This includes plants, fruits, meats, nuts, etc. It excludes things like refined grains and sweeteners, or foods that have ingredients that you cant pronounce. Real foods are as close to their natural state as possible.
8. Buy wild caught fish, grass-fed meats, and free range eggs instead of their grain-fed counterparts.
Grain is not a part of these animals natural diets, and causes the animals themselves to be unhealthy. Not only that, but most of these animals will be given growth hormones and other chemicals to develop faster. This unhealthiness gets passed on to you when you eat them. Sadly, finding animal products that are fed a proper diet is both more expensive and more challenging. The following sites can help you find grass-fed meat near you:
If you cant find producers in your area, you can buy these products online. Because it is more expensive, feel free to only partly switch over to these healthier animal products. Even just one or two meals per week will provide you with substantially more nutrition value.
9. Buy more organic foods.
Normal produce is sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals that are harmful to eat. Organic foods are certainly more expensive than non-organic, but luckily not everything you eat needs to be organic. The research on whether organic foods are more nutritious or not is mixed, but if you can afford it, it certainly wont hurt. The Environmental Working Group publishes a list of the most important foods to buy organic each year, as well as foods with the fewest pesticides. And if you are really curious, here is a tool that lets you see how many and what pesticides are found in different foods. I cant decide if its really creepy or really cool .
Staying hydrated is one of the most important things you can do for your health, but it is under appreciated.
There are a few things you can do to make the most of this area, most of which are pretty easy.
10. Drink a minimum of eight cups of water every day.
Some people say you dont need to drink this much to stay hydrated, but it certainly doesnt hurt. You wont get water poisoning unless you drink a lot of water in a short period of time. The Institute for Medicine recommends that men drink about 13 cups of fluids and women drink 9 cups of fluids per day. This includes all fluids (including a substantial amount from food), but water is of course the best. If it is particularly hot and humid or
if you exercise (and you should), you need to drink more. Ive drank up to a gallon of water per day and I felt great doing it.
Try to keep water on hand at all times and sip it throughout the day. As a good rule of thumb, if you are drinking enough so that you never feel thirsty and your pee is clear or very light yellow, you are hydrated. Here is an online calculator that will tell you how many ounces of water you should drink today based on a number of factors.
11. Drink green tea.
Ive already written extensively (and I mean extensively) about the health benefits of green tea, so I wont repeat the reasons here. It is one of the most powerfully healthy things you can add to your lifestyle, plus its delicious. If you are extra sensitive to caffeine, are deficient in iron, have ulcers, or are taking certain medications, you shouldnt drink green tea.
12. Dont add cream or sugar to your tea and coffee.
That includes artificial sweeteners too. If you like your caffeinated beverages, drink them straight. Youll grow to appreciate the taste and its healthier for you.
13. Stop drinking soda.
Seriously. Soda is one of the worst things you can put in your body. They contain lots of calories from high fructose corn syrup, which is killing you. And dont drink diet soda either. The artificial sweeteners can be toxic, and they stimulate your appetite.
The way you prepare your meals is obviously a huge determinant of your health. By following some of these simple guidelines, you can have much healthier but still delicious meals all the time.
14. Cook meals in advance.
So many people resort to eating fast food or unhealthy snacks because they dont have the time to cook. This problem can be addressed very easily by cooking several portions at once. Especially if you have a weekly meal plan (but even if you dont), you can spend a little extra time on your Sunday afternoon cooking meals for the rest of the week. Then when you are hungry you just need to reheat them. BOOM! Problem solved.
If you failed to prepare your meals in advance and you find yourself stuck with a bunch of random ingredients, Supercook allows you to find recipes by typing in the ingredients you do have one at a time. This will help you improvise with whatever you have on hand instead of going out to a restaurant.
15. Eat at restaurants less frequently.
This is easier if you cook meals in advance, and it will save you a lot of money. You have no idea what they are putting in your food. Because most restaurants want to make the most tasty dish for the lowest cost, you can bet that there are all sorts of unhealthy things in your meal including food additives, unhealthy cooking oils, and loads of extra salt. Plus your own kitchen is probably cleaner.
If you do go out to eat, most restaurants will allow you to substitute a side of vegetables for the fries they would normally give you.
16. Dont add salt to your meals.
If you are already eating mostly real, whole foods, this isnt such a big deal. But until then, you should know that most packaged food already contains heinous amounts of sodium. According to the CDC, the average American consumes more than double the Adequate Intake of sodium (3436 mg vs. 1500 mg), and significantly more than the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (2300 mg). This raises blood pressure and could lead to heart disease and stroke.
17. Use healthier oils.
When cooking, you should look for oils that have a high smoke point, such as coconut and avocado oil. In general, saturated fats are the most stable under heat, so you should cook with those (I know, this goes against much of what you may have heard). Dont use heavily processed vegetable oils such as canola, safflower, soybean, grapeseed, and so on. Extra virgin olive oil is an incredibly healthy choice for adding to foods and for low temperature cooking. Dont use olive oil for high temperature cooking because it will oxidize and become very unhealthy.
18. Replace salad dressings with extra virgin olive oil or squeezed lemon or lime juice.
Most salad dressings are very high in calories, often from refined vegetable oils and sugars. Pretty much defeats the purpose of a salad, right? If you are opting for low calorie, use lemon or lime juice for some extra flavor. The best choice though is a small amount of extra virgin olive oil, because it drastically increases the absorption of the many fat-soluble nutrients in your salad.
19. Add a serving of vegetables to each meal.
Veggies are your best friend. They tend to be among the most nutrient dense of foods, meaning they have the most nutrition value per calorie. They fill you up faster and supply your body with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. What more could you want? Try to get a variety of veggies in your diet, and make sure to include leafy greens like spinach as well as cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli.
20. Have a balanced mix of carbohydrates, fats, and protein in each meal.
Many diets will demonize one of these macronutrients, but you need at least some of each. If you are eating real foods, the ratio probably doesnt matter as much. That being said, try to have one source of each macronutrient in every meal.
Carbs are the least important to focus on because they are the most common in many peoples diets. The other two are more likely to be neglected. Everyone is different, but Ive personally had great results with consuming about 40% of my calories from fat. That is more than youve probably heard, but results are results. If you hate doing math, you can use this calculator to find out how many grams of each macronutrient you should be consuming at each meal. If you are specifically trying to build muscle or burn fat, you may need to adjust your ratios according to your goal.
21. Eat your sandwiches open-faced.
You generally dont want to eat too much bread (or too many calories), and two slices per sandwich can really add up. Instead, focus on what is inside the sandwich, focusing on the protein and veggies.
22. Use mustard instead of mayo, BBQ sauce, or ketchup on your sandwiches.
Mayo contains deadly trans fats, and BBQ sauce and ketchup are loaded with high fructose corn syrup. Mustard, on the other hand, contains cancer-inhibiting phytonutrients and is a good source of several minerals and omega-3 fatty acids.
23. Substitute quinoa or whole wheat products for white carbohydrates.
White carbohydrates are those made from white flour or sugar. Food labels are VERY tricky here, so be careful. Unless the first ingredient on the label says whole wheat flour or 100% whole wheat flour, its a white carb. If it just says wheat flour, it is a white carb. Youll also want to avoid added sugars, which you can find a list of here. Honestly though, quinoa is delicious, extremely healthy, and easy to cook, so you should consider making that your primary source of carbs.
24. Add probiotics to your diet.
Probiotics are live microorganisms that reside in your gut and benefit the host, aka you. These organisms may improve digestion and help fight off the bad bacteria, improving immune function. Not only that, there is evidence that (at least in mice, but likely humans too) that probiotics play a role in relieving anxiety and depression (source)! Yogurt (make sure it isnt pasteurized) is probably the most convenient dietary source, but any fermented food contains probiotics. Kefir, sauerkraut, miso soup, pickles, tempeh, and kimchi are also good
sources.
25. Eat more omega-3 fatty acids.
This one is so so so so so important for both your health and your happiness. If you are interested in more details on why omega-3s are so important, check out that link. Some of the best sources include fatty fish such as salmon and sardines (wild caught, not farmed) as well as flax seeds and walnuts. Nosh on walnuts as a healthy snack and eat fatty fish at least twice per week.
26. Eat more spicy foods.
Hot peppers contain capsaicin, and the hotter the pepper, the more capsaicin it contains. This substance has numerous health benefits, such as fighting cancer, reducing inflammation, pain relief, congestion relief, improved intestinal health, cardio-protection, and increased fat burning. The Scoville scale is a measure of the quantity of capsaicin in a pepper, and you can use it to find the best sources. Jalapenos are good, but if you have the cojones for it you should try habanero peppers. That stuff is intense. By the way, you build up a tolerance to spicy food over time, so if you dont like it now, try adding small amounts until you feel comfortable with it.
27. Season your food with healthy spices.
Besides adding flavor to your meals, some spices are among the most nutrient dense substances known to man. Of special mention are cinnamon, turmeric, and ginger. Cinnamon helps control blood sugar, and has been shown to reduce it by 20-30%. Turmeric is a potent anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic. Ginger has many antioxidants and is a strong anti-inflammatory, but is most known for its soothing effects on your stomach. Mike Geary wrote a great article about 10 of the healthiest spices, and I highly suggest you read it.
28. Stop frying your foods, and use healthier cooking methods.
The high temperatures of frying causes starches to form advanced glycation end products, or AGEs, which are incredibly toxic and linked to both cancer and diabetes. Fried foods absorb a lot of fat in the cooking process (often unhealthy fats, depending on the cooking oil), and fried vegetables lose a lot of their nutrition value. Here are some resources on healthier ways of cooking:
29. Soak meat in a special marinade before grilling.
We all love barbecue, but grilling meat leads to a buildup of heterocyclic amines, benzopyrene, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. What the hell are those!, you ask? They are all highly carcinogenic chemicals that you dont want to consume.
Luckily, you can prevent the formation of a lot of these carcinogens. Soaking meat in a marinade of alcohol (from wine or beer) and herbs (including rosemary, thyme, garlic, ginger, and chili pepper) for four hours decreased the formation of these substances by up to 90% (Source 1, Source 2, Source 3). A marinade including both alcohol and herbs will be most effective, but including just one or the other will still have a strong effect.
30. Start your day with a healthy breakfast.
By eating a healthy breakfast, you set a positive tone for the day by having made a good health decision right away. You wouldnt want to spoil that by eating junk food the rest of the day, would you? Secondly, this will give you more energy for whatever you need to do later. Good deal overall.
A lot of people will screw up a day of healthy eating by scarfing down a pint of ice cream or a few donuts. Other people will think they ate healthy all day, but forget about the random small bits of junk food they ate between meals.
With a little bit of preparation, you can eat healthy while still satisfying your sweet tooth.
31. Replace the unhealthy snacks in your house with nuts, fruits, and veggies.
Wherever you go, keep a baggy full of dried fruit and nuts with you so you arent tempted to go to the vending machine. Chances are you like at least some of these healthy snacks, so just pick whatever your favorites are and keep them well stocked.
32. Replace your night time dessert with a piece of fresh fruit.
An apple is still sweet, and is a much better choice than ice cream. I know, this tip isnt rocket science, but a lot of people forget that there are healthy options just as delicious as a bag of chips.
33. Learn to love dark chocolate as your primary indulgence food.
Dark chocolate is one of my favorite things in the universe. Almost everyone has heard that dark chocolate is healthier than milk chocolate by now. Aim for the highest percentage cacao as you can tolerate, and it should be at least 70% to get the health benefits. The bitterness of dark chocolate is an acquired taste. My brother used to dislike dark chocolate but recently he has built up a tolerance and now enjoys it!
Excerpt from:
107 Healthy Habits And Behaviors For A Healthier Lifestyle ...
