Top 10 Health & Weight Loss Tips
Today I'm going to share ten simple tips to help you get closer to becoming the healthy person that you want to be.
1-Setting goals
Oftentimes we can actually be our own biggest obstacle to reaching our health goals and what I mean by that is that our mindset can actually set us back rather than pulling us forward so for instance if we are seeing our health journey right or are our journey to improving our health as something that's overwhelming really difficult something that we don't have the discipline for well suddenly you've created actually a much bigger challenge then this journey is in the first place so what I propose is that you start observing your thought process and catching yourself when you have these thoughts like this is too hard this is too confusing this is overwhelming and try to replace those thoughts with a more positive mindset and this takes a little bit of practice okay but it will make a tremendous difference so when you catch yourself thinking those kind of judgmental thoughts right that are actually setting you back and making it more difficult replace them with a thought like this is simple there are hundreds of different ways that I can improve my health and every little thing that I do makes a big improvement in the big picture so as we transition our mindset from seeing this as something difficult and overwhelming to seeing it as something simple and maybe even something fun and exciting suddenly we've made this entire process much more enjoyable and you've increased your chances of actually meeting those different health goals.
2-Have some fun
Tip number 2 is to have some freaking fun already so maybe you're thinking geez Karina how is having fun going to make me healthier let me see if I can't explain so first of all you need to understand that stress is more than just a mental phenomenon even though we mostly experience stress as something in our minds understand that stress causes physical changes in the body so stress hormones like cortisol are released when we start feeling stress and feeling overwhelmed in our minds and the physical effects of cortisol actually do prevent us from being healthy or make us less healthy so it's going to affect the quality of our sleep it's actually going to affect our blood sugar metabolism okay if we're coursing if we have lots of cortisol coursing through our bodies throughout the day it's going to affect our digestion our immune system the list really goes on and on so the more that we can have fun do something that makes you smile something that brings you enjoyment that is literally going to help reduce the levels of stress hormones in your body and help you to be more healthy so we not only have these stress reducing benefits when we're doing things that bring us enjoyment but they've also found that when we're smiling and laughing this has other profound benefits on our health not to mention our overall outlook on things so if you can do activities that also put you in situations where you are getting fresh air getting sunshine or doing things that help you be physically active like running around or playing sports then now you're actually adding even more benefits on in terms of your health so when we think about getting fresh air breathing more deeply these are all things that are going to help improve our energy levels and improve our detoxification even clear up our skin if we are getting good sun exposure then our bodies are able to create vitamin D which is known to have profound physical and mental health benefits so do things that are going to get you outside do things that are going to bring you enjoyment and what you'll find is that as you make time for yourself and you make time for doing things that bring you joy it's going to be a lot easier to start doing those other things on your health and wellness journey.
3-Healthy Fats
So now let's dive into some of those simple things you can do to start improving your health one of my favorite recommendations is to eat more healthy fats now this has several different benefits okay several different reasons that I make this recommendation one of the first things to understand is that your brain and your nervous system is largely made out of fat so when we eat more healthy fats like omega-3 fats I have some chia seeds here as an example of a source of good healthy fats as we put more of these good healthy fats into our body it's literally going to improve the health of our brain you could say alright and it's going to improve our nervous system health overall because all of the nerve cells throughout our body are actually lined in something called a myelin sheath which is made out of fat and that's how the electrical signal is conducted that helps our brain communicate with the rest of our body so we have those benefits all right some kind of physical health benefits when we think about an idea of weight loss and satisfying our hunger which is at least for me one of the most important things for me to be able to do all right because if I'm walking around feeling hungry it's just going to make me not feel as happy not being as good of a mood so satisfying hunger is a huge huge aspect and whether you're trying to lose weight or not we all want to satisfy our hunger in the healthiest way possible so again that brings us back to fats and understanding that eating healthy fats is one of the key ways that we help to satisfy our body's hunger and get rid of those hangry feelings that can just nag at us all day long especially for people who are trying to get healthy one of the things I often see is that they're reducing fat in their diet they're eating fat free foods they're avoiding fats more than anything else so this tip is to actually eat more healthy fats so nuts seeds these are all great examples avocados fish these are all excellent sources of good healthy fats and you know the other great thing about fats is that they're really fun to eat it tastes really good.
4-Spice it up
So tip number four is to spice it up and I'm literally talking about eating more spices so whether you cook at home or not all right now obviously cooking at home is something we're going to want to try and do more of if we want to improve our health but even if you're someone who's not cooking at home yet I encourage you to maybe try out buying some spices and you can even carry these along with you and add them to the healthier foods that you're eating in restaurants because when we're talking about processed foods one of the big reasons that we like those foods so much is that they have a whole lot of flavor right so as we're transitioning to healthier foods which don't use things like msg and you know all of these different food chemicals that I've talked about and many of my other lists we're going to want to probably have some spices to add to those healthier foods to help transition ourselves into eating them also understand that most of the spices pretty much all of them for that matter give you a lot of health benefits in and of themselves alright so turmeric okay this may be one of the most well-known spices at least at this point because it's known to have a lot of health benefits it's really high in antioxidants, it has very good immune building functions and it can also, serve as a natural antibacterial agent in the body okay so for me this is just a huge double win because you have something that improves the flavor of the food and is also improving your health in the process another great example is sea salt so what I have here is what's called Himalayan pink sea salt but it's actually the iron that gives it that pink color so when you're using a sea salt as opposed to a conventional table salt the regular iodized salt that we're usually using you're going to have something that contains a lot more minerals and in the case of this salt contains a lot of trace minerals as well when we're craving certain foods those cravings while they could just be you know kind of a random craving for something oftentimes those cravings can also, be signals so salt cravings are usually a signal that you're deficient in minerals so what most of us are doing if we're eating the average diet is that we're eating huge amounts of iodized salt which is just sodium and we're actually becoming more and more deficient in the other minerals like potassium iron magnesium etc so transitioning to using a sea salt instead of a regular table salt is going to be a great way to get more minerals in your diet and it's actually going to reduce your salt cravings and who doesn't want that so one of the recommendations I actually make to a lot of my family members is to carry some of sea salt along with you when you go to restaurants and then order your food with no salt or at least ask them to use less salt and then you can add to taste however much salt you need of your good much healthier salt so this is twofold because now you're going to be having less sodium by having them put less salt in the food and you're going to be having more minerals because you're using this really great sea salt so again it's kind of a double win.
5-Step by step
Tip number five remember that Rome was not built in a day now granted you are not trying to build your own civilization but sometimes the thought of getting healthier and changing our diet can seem just as overwhelming so this tip is to look for small incremental steps of improvement that you can make again if you're someone who's eating the typical diet of candy bars and sodas and things like that it's going to be pretty difficult for you to overnight just stop eating sugar altogether so what I propose is looking for small incremental improvements you can make so I have a couple examples here so this first one is a jojo's chocolate bar so this is a dark chocolate all right now but the basic thing to understand is that replacing a regular candy bar with dark chocolate is going to have several benefits number one dark chocolate is going to contain less sugar than a milk chocolate bar and then also consider that a bar like this which also contains nuts is going to have a couple of different benefits so number one that added healthy fat and added fiber is going to make it more likely that a bar like this can satisfy your hunger a little bit alright it's going to be more satisfying to your body to eat it and then again the added health benefits of the fats which we talked about earlier then we can also look at a KIND bar and you may be familiar with this brand it's becoming more and more easy to find but essentially this is what I would call an alternative to like a nutrigrain bar or an energy bar so what we have in this one is something that contains a lot of different whole grains so quinoa amaranth millet buckwheat not only do we get a lot of fiber from these whole grains so again fiber that's going to satisfy our hunger right but we also get a lot of other nutrients as well so we get minerals we get some protein replacing your typical energy bar or nutrigrain bar with something like this is such a vast improvement and then consider that if you're using a bar like this to replace a candy bar you know so this one is eight grams of sugar you know literally, these bars contain about anywhere from a fifth to a tenth as much sugar as your typical candies so these are great examples of making small incremental improvements that are going to make it a lot easier to make these changes than if you tried to just give up sugar overnight.
6-Reduce our exposure to toxins
So tip number six along the same lines of looking for small incremental improvements that we can make in our diet and in our lifestyle is to also consider ways that we can reduce our exposure to toxins so we get exposed to toxins when we eat processed dudes when we eat junk foods and fast foods we also expose ourselves to toxins with some of the different skin care products that we may be using and but then another area where we are exposing ourselves to a lot of unnecessary toxicity is when we are drinking from plastic water bottles or microwaving our food in plastic containers and it's because the chemicals in plastic will actually leach into the food or into the water again especially when the plastic is heated up or when you've left a plastic water bottle in the backseat of your car for instance so one simple recommendation is to just replace your plastic water bottles with glass so you can just reuse glass bottles that you've bought for another purpose obviously or you can actually, invest in a reusable glass bottle and another additional benefit of replacing your plastic with reusable glass as you're also reducing your environmental footprint all right so hopefully most of the plastic water bottles are being recycled but we're just also have to understand that a lot of that plastic is ending up in landfills it's ending up in the ocean and of itself so reducing your plastic with reusable glass just has so many benefits again not only to your health but to the world as a whole so that's a great simple thing you can do to start improving your health and reducing your exposure to toxins.
7-Supplements
One of the most common questions that I get is about supplements Karina do I need to take supplements what supplements should I take and the reason that this is such a hard question to answer is that that's really going to vary person to person and really the only way to know for sure what things you should be supplementing is actually to have your blood work done and take a look at you know what are you deficient in what are you not getting enough of so as far as making an overall recommendation of a supplement that I really think could help anyone the primary thing I would recommend is probiotics so probiotics actually feed the good bacteria in your gut so you have all of this different bacteria and your digestive tract but it's what they call good bacteria because it's actually responsible for helping you digest your food for helping your immune system so probiotics actually feed that good bacteria so to speak so what I have here are some hyper biotics and what I want you to notice is that they are multiple strain blends so I think this one contains five strains and this one contains 15 different strains or different varieties of probiotics so what you get when you're taking a probiotic is something that's going to literally, improve your body's ability to digest your food it's going to improve your immune system and it can also, help to improve things like digestive discomfort or other digestive tract issues that people may be having and again those are kind of increasingly common when we're eating a lot of processed foods so probiotics I'm going to be a great supplement you can start taking even if you're not changing your diet at all adding probiotics into your daily health regimen is definitely something that can bring you a lot of benefits.
8-Eating more vegetables
Tip number eight now I know that you don't need me to tell you that eating more vegetables will improve your health so I'm not going to tell you that but what I want to show you is something that can again kind of give you a little step in the right direction so a really good way to add a lot more nutrients into your diet is by drinking some kind of a green drink and one of the simplest things is using a green mix powder like this one so this one's called formula 95 greens this is probably the best tasting green powder that I've ever tried and what's really cool about this is it contains 95 different ingredients so we have a lot of different vegetables different greens we have chlorella spirulina spinach broccoli we have super fruits so we actually get a whole lot of antioxidants and stuff from this drink as well so what you want to look for if you are going to take some kind of a green powder or supplement powder like this is number one that the ingredients are foods because what that tells you is that these are not synthetic vitamins or nutrients because if you're taking vitamin A or vitamin B or whatever it may be in some cases those are actually synthetically made vitamins so what you want is something that comes for food right because when you have the different food sources you're much more insured of actually getting a nutritionally complete source of those nutrients so something like this is a great very simple way to add more nutrients into your diet again the healthiest way to go is actually getting your nutrients from the healthy foods themselves but if you're looking for a simple easy way kind of to step you in the right direction definitely recommend maybe trying out a green drink like this.
9-lit’s start
Tip number nine is to just start somewhere anywhere remember that there are hundreds if not thousands of different things that we can do to start improving our health and getting closer to reaching those health and weight loss goals so just pick something and know that that is a wonderful step in the right direction so one little guideline that I like to use for myself is to implement either one new habit or one new food a week so each week I'm either going to try a new food or I'm going to try and implement a new healthy habit and again the smaller the better alright so maybe it's something like drinking a glass of water in the morning or replacing your plastic water bottles with reusable glass maybe it's just something like getting more physical activity throughout the day so rather than trying to set aside a big chunk of time to work out which a lot of us have a hard time doing right we're just busy we don't have time to set aside all right so maybe our new habit is going to be just getting up from our desks throughout the day and moving around a little bit walking around the office or maybe even putting on a little stretching video throughout the day recognize that you can break your physical activity up into smaller little time chunks if that makes it easier than aside a big chunk of time other examples would be trying a new food like chia seeds maybe you're looking at me like I'm crazy with my chia seeds so try something new implement a new habit one of my favorite things is drinking coconut water instead of sports drinks we get electrolytes we get minerals this is something that is also going to be a little bit sweet because of that natural sugar in the coconut water so just trying something new and understanding that every step no matter how small is a huge step in your health journey.
10-Creative expression
Tip number ten so this is kind of similar to what we talked about earlier about doing things that bring you enjoyment that get you outside or get you having fun and laughing but this tip is to find a means of creative expression so when we are expressing ourselves when we are confronting our emotions in a way that is therapeutic and cathartic this is going to actually have once again many mental and physical health benefits so a lot of us you know I hear this all the time people say oh I'm just not artistic at all or I wish I was creative I wish it was as creative as you write so again this is kind of harkening back to that judgmental side of ourselves that's telling us that we're not talented and we're not creative but actually the truth is that every single person has that creative expression inside of them so this tip is to look for a way to crew to creatively express yourself so maybe it's something like coloring or drawing there's all of these amazing adult coloring books now with these beautiful flowers and animals and all kinds of beautiful things there's so much benefit that comes from doing an activity even just coloring in a coloring book maybe it's doing something muse goal or creative maybe you're the building type and you actually want to get out in the shop and do metalworking or sculpting or you know the the whole idea here is just that it could be anything and so I encourage you to really ask yourself you know what creative thing would I have fun doing and remember that it's not about creating amazing works of art it's about doing something for yourself and what you'll find is that when you're doing something just for your own benefit just for your own enjoyment oftentimes you end up creating something really beautiful that other people end up enjoying as well.
Thank you so much for joining me for this list I truly hope that it gave you some good simple ideas of things that you can do be sure to let me know if you have a health topic or health obstacle that you would like, leave it in comments.
