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The New Year is nearly here and with it comes the time to make resolutions for how you want to spend your next year. So many of us enjoy setting resolutions and having the deep hit as you imagine yourself completing all of those resolutions, however, we then never look at those resolutions for the rest of the year and make the same ones the following year. It can be a vicious cycle of getting motivated and then instantly forgetting what you’re planning to do. The reason why it’s important to introduce healthy habits is to look after ourselves. We only get one Body and it’s fine to have a treat different now and then but we want to make sure that we’re looking after ourselves, the best we can so we can live a long and healthy life with the ones we love. Rather than setting resolutions, try just setting new habits to form. You can introduce some slowly and do one at a time and if you attach that habit to another habit that you already do, you are more likely to do it. For example, if you want to start taking supplements and things like collagen tablets, or cod liver oil then if you have a morning coffee every morning without a doubt try taking all those supplements when you make your morning coffee, you have them at the same time. That will make it an easier habit to form and continue to do every day.

If you make healthy habits, a priority in your life, make sure you commit yourself to see how you’ve done at the end of the month, praise yourself if you’ve been able to do it, and also give yourself advice and tips for the following month on how to make it better, or how to introduce it if you haven’t already. If you picture yourself as a healthy person because you want to be a healthy person, you can add that to the process of making the habit stick. So when you have breakfast, you can think to yourself, what would a healthy person have, and then have that? It is as simple as that, but it can make a longer-lasting impression so that over time, all those healthy habits contribute towards things like getting fitter, weight loss and getting stronger towards a happier and healthier you.

Adding Exercise Into Your Routine

If you don’t exercise at all or do it very often then this is something you should certainly add to the healthy habits you want to introduce. It is so beneficial to your health, exercising regularly can make you fitter, stronger, and more flexible and also increase your life expectancy considerably. You can exercise in many forms and it doesn’t have to be extreme, it can be gentle movements like yoga or weightless like swimming. But regardless of what it is, you will still benefit from it. 

There are lots of different things you can try. If you haven’t exercised for a long time then you may want to ease yourself back into it and just do something like make sure you reach 10,000 steps a day. There are also so many different ways to exercise and you can always try out different ones until you find the right one for you. Gentle exercise like walking, yoga or pilates is great to start with and you can do it alone. If you want to do walking and try to meet your 10,000 steps but don’t think you can get it all in you can try a walking pad. They are simple to use under your standing desk while working from home and you can even just walk on them in the evening while watching your latest series to binge on Netflix. You could do an exercise which requires another person like tennis, badminton or squash that you can do with a friend or you can do something a bit more strenuous like going to the gym. If you like the idea of going to the gym but don’t want to be around all those people or have to wait your turn to use machines you can get some exercise equipment at home to use like an exercise bike, a barbell and titan cast iron plates to use with it. 

Eating Better But With Balance

Healthy eating is great and something we should all strive to do but it is also something which restricts people with fad diets and going cold turkey on things like chocolate. A better and more manageable way to eat better is to follow the 80/20 rule. This is simple and easy to follow as it lets you enjoy life and the things you love while also being healthy. It is perfect, you follow a healthy lifestyle and eating plan for 80% per cent of the week and then usually on the weekend, you spend 20% of your week having things you enjoy. Now that doesn’t mean you can ruin all your progress for the week and binge all weekend but you can do things like going out for pizza and a glass of wine with the girls. You can go to an event or party and enjoy the food and drink without having to count calories or watch what you are eating. You simply just enjoy life and your favourite foods. 

A good way to make sure you are eating right is by introducing new foods into your diet, it could be a new fruit or vegetable that you have never tried or maybe a new meal you have seen on a TikTok video and wanted to give a go. By experimenting with new foods you may find new healthier foods you love and want to make a part of your weekly meal planning. 

Don’t Forget To Look After Your Head

Looking after your body is important and something we all do but something we must do as well but sometimes neglect to look after our heads. Our mental health is something we do need to look after as when we have poor mental health it can lead to us making poor physical health decisions like drinking alcohol, doing drugs and bingeing on food. If you are really struggling mentally it is always best to ask for help. You can get guidance from mental health charities, your doctor and even a counsellor. They will help you learn new coping mechanisms and deal with the trauma so you can move on to a happier and healthier life. There are small things you can do every day to help keep yourself in a good place mentally and prevent big issues and anxiety from affecting you. You can try things like journaling, and writing a gratitude journal where you focus on things that you are grateful for and positives from your day. You can also try things like meditation which can help as well. Guided meditation is where you sit in a group and someone will guide you through a specific meditation, normally to help with specific things or you can try it at home with different apps available. Headspace is one of the most popular apps and has lots of advice on dealing with stress and anxiety in different situations like pregnancy, transitions in life and just generally. 

All these small changes can help you each day and be more attainable, you will also find after a long period it will equate to big changes in life.