Sunday, December 28, 2008

With A Few Small Changes, You Can Get Healthy

By Ferda Shinsky

How would you like to have a healthier you without taking a whole lot of time out of your day? Well you can! You have to start by setting your mind to reshape your body...and here is how. First you need to set forth good habits.

So many people just sit and eat without thinking about it at all when they are lonely or bored. When you eat for entertainment, you eat things you body doesn't need, and sometimes in dangerous amounts . Eating when you are bored or lonely also trains your body to think it is hungry when you're really just bored. If you sit around and eat, all you do isstore fat from the foods that you eat, a big cause of obesity. These signs and others, such as Diabetes, heart conditions, cholesterol problems, and breathing problems are distress signals from your body that indicate that it is high time you made a change in your life.

Lets get started with an important part of a healthier YOU. The BRAIN! Yes the brain. In order to become healthier, you have to overcome the obstacle that you see before you, and that is the rather large entity that has grown over the years. In becoming a different person you need to develop healthy thinking on top of your new habits. You need to keep up your self esteem, for a healthy self esteem will keep that inner self burning to reach your ultimate goal. You need to give yourself a pat on the back and good comments on a job well done. Treat yourself to a new pair of pants or a new top when you have reached a goal. Healthy living has its benefits in the endaextending your life!

The first change you need to make to find a healthier you is to reduce your consumption of high calorie food, and replace them low-calorie, nutrient dense foods. If you were going to have a cheeseburger and fries, you can skip the fries and have a garden salad with low-calorie dressing instead. If you like chicken nuggets with creamy pasta, try having chicken breast with vegetables and a high-fiber bread, or replace that creamy pasta with a low-fat marinara sauce. Instead of take out pizza, try some oven baked fish with rice and a small salad instead.

Somehow, you have to train yourself to exercise when you are bored, instead of eating. Give sports a shot. You need to go outside and get some fresh air; plan some physical activity with your best buds instead of sitting in front of the television or computer. If you're stuck inside, get a stationary bike and pedal like crazy while you watch your favorite shows. You can even try to explore your local mall, or if nothing else pace around the house; any kind of moving around is way better than sitting.

Change #3: This change will help the most of all. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING YOU EAT!!!! In doing this you can actually see everything you put into your mouth therefore keeping yourself accountable for either weight gain or loss. Itas important to remember that you are in charge of YOU and no one else. In order to change bad life habits into good life habits, retraining is a must.

Another good item to document is your activities. Keep a log of your activities that you work at daily or weekly. You can go online and access different websites that will tell you the approximate amount of calories that you burn during an activity. One such website is http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm. You can also find other websites to your liking as well.

One of the most important things to remember is not to fear failure; in fact, expect to fail multiple times before you reach your goal. Remember that those failures are small battles in an overall war for your health. Remember that you must stay the course to win the war. Everyone is going to have their bad days. If your boss yells at you, and you get sad and sit in front of the television and eat too much pizza or an entire tub of ice cream, this is no reason to give up or beat yourself up about it. If you slip, it's just a sign that you haven't reached your goal yet, and you need to pick yourself up and get back on track instead of falling back into the pattern. - 16004

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