7 Habits of Highly Effective Healthy People

I thought I would list the 7 habits of highly effective healthy people - the ones that work for me.

7. Exercise (and you know how much I love that word!) Move more.

6. Track your progress - Eating (calories, fat, protein, fiber, if you can), weight (weekly is good so you don't get obsessed with a stinkin' number), exercise and water intake.  I use Spark People - it's an app for smart phones so you can just plug in your stuff as you go. I find I lose more if I track. It's crazy, but I swear it works.

5. Stop drinking soda. Period. Not one more sip - not even diet. The carbonation eats at your bones, and the chemicals in soda (especially diet) are designed to make you want more - so you'll tend to drink more soda AND eat more food. This is mostly subconscious. I swear, soda is the enemy of weight RELEASE.

4. Reduce your dairy intake. Dairy naturally has growth hormones (even if you were to get it straight from the cow, let alone what is added in processing) and that doesn't serve your weight release plan.

3. Don't eat carbs after lunch. It's okay to have carbs (the ones I'm talking about here are the ones found in bread, pasta, rice, etc. - all food has some sort of carb - it's one of our energy sources) but have them early enough in the day so you're body has time to process them and use them as energy instead of store them as fat.

2. Get good quality sleep every night. And don't eat 3 hours before bedtime.

1. DRINK WATER. And a ton of it. Okay, maybe not a ton. The rule of thumb is 1/2 your body weight in ounces. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you should drink 100 ounces of water per day.  In my opinion, this is the most important of the habits. What habits work for you?

 

And my last piece of unsolicited advice: HAVE FUN. Enjoy life. It's too short not to see the joy and wonder in every single day.

Love and Prayers, Laura