If you want a healthier, happier lifestyle, it is imperative to find a balance in your life. This article will provide you with five easy steps to apply to many parts of your life. Follow this advice, and you will be on the path to restoring balance into your life.
When making any life changes, it is essential to start slow. These steps are meant to become part of your life over time gradually, so you do not feel overwhelmed.
Eat Healthy Foods
The first step to restoring balance into your life is to eat healthy foods. No matter what type of diet you choose, whether vegan, paleo, or vegetarian, it is essential that you eat plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit, and healthy proteins. Some examples of good sources for protein include lean chicken breast or thigh meat, fish, beans, soy products like tofu or tempeh. For the vegetarians out there, lentils and eggs are a great source of protein that can be combined with vegetables to make a healthy meal. Try to avoid processed sugar as much as possible, though, because this type of sugar does not provide any nutritional value and can lead to many problems, including obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. Remember that drinking more water can help you lose weight.
Exercise Daily
The second step to restoring balance into your life is daily exercise. Some easy activities are walking, swimming, yoga, or lightweight lifting. As your fitness level increases, you can gradually increase the difficulty of your exercise by adding weights for weight lifting, increasing the speed on a treadmill or elliptical machine, taking longer walks/runs, doing more repetitions of yoga poses, etc. Exercising does not have to be strenuous as long as you get your heart rate up and move around for at least 10-15 minutes per day. You don’t need a lot of time; you have to make time. When I created Mother Trucker Yoga, it was all on the premise of moves you can do in 5 minutes or less.
Get Plenty Of Sleep
The third step to restoring balance in your life is getting plenty of sleep each night. Most adults need between 7-8 hours of sleep each night. If you are not getting enough sleep regularly, this can lead to many health problems, including obesity, high blood pressure, and an increased risk for heart disease and diabetes. Those who do not get enough sleep often complain about feeling tired throughout the day, making it difficult to focus or adequately function at work or school.
Meditate
The fourth step to restore balance into your life is meditation. Meditation is a great way to relax the mind and relieve stress. There are many forms of meditation to practice, coming from all sorts of traditions and approaches. But this article will explain a simple form, which requires only 15-20 minutes each day for maximum benefit. Sit or lie down in a location where you will not be disturbed and close your eyes. Visualize a light above your head and imagine all negative thoughts, emotions, stress, etc., being pushed out of your body as you exhale.
Be Grateful
The fifth step to restore balance into your life is to practice gratitude. Many studies show linking the practice of gratitude to improvements in health, happiness, stress levels, and a reduction in depression. A practice of gratitude is often suggested to do every day because it has cumulative benefits, which means each day, you will feel increasingly better about yourself and your life as a whole. A grateful heart can change your entire life if you let it. When was the last time you practiced gratitude?
We all appreciate the benefits of regular exercise for our bodies. Staying fit supports your body image, organ health, posture, and more. However, the rewards are not limited to physical wellness and can have a telling influence on your mental health too.
Given our increased understanding of mental health, this is a massive incentive to invest in a better fitness strategy. Here are 10 simple steps to ensure that fitness feeds the mind.
All exercises will release endorphins and dopamine. However, there’s no greater sense of satisfaction than hitting your goals. Working with experts like Conte Health & Fitness to set defined objectives and milestones is key. When workouts are tailored towards them, the momentum gained with each success will work wonders. Aside from boosting your confidence in relation to workouts, it should inspire you in other areas.
2| Focus On Fun
Exercise can be a great way to reduce your stress levels. Those benefits are greatly increased when you actually enjoy the workouts. They can become the thing you look forward to during a tough day of work. Whether it’s playing team sports or working on the gym actions you enjoy most doesn’t matter. When getting fit no longer feels like a chore you’ll be far more likely to keep up the good work too.
3| Add Social Aspects
Getting fit is a self-centered and personal task. However, surrounding yourself with the right people can enhance your relationship with exercise. As well as personal trainers, you should look to form new friendships and try working out with friends. Trading a midweek trip to the pub for a workout class, for example, will boost your mindset. Better still, it will make you feel less guilty about the weekend drinking sessions.
4| Include Bucket List Items
We all have a bucket list of things we’d like to achieve in our lives. Most of us include something fitness-related. Whether it’s running the London Marathon, completing a mini-triathlon, or winning the local netball league doesn’t matter. The aspirations will provide a huge source of motivation and can be the driving force behind your workouts. The emotional rewards of getting it right will stay with you forever.
If regular exercise is going to play a truly positive role in all aspects of your life, it needs to be integrated into your schedule. Other commitments cannot be ignored. However, if you leave fitness as an afterthought, you will continue to neglect it and skip sessions. Make sure that your daily and weekly schedules have dedicated times for fitness and you won’t go wrong.
6| Focus On Your Comfort
While the idea of setting goals is a priority, you should not forget that the purpose of getting fit is to boost your quality of life. Therefore, you should always keep a close eye on personal comfort levels. Exercise can actively help you get a better quality of sleep. When supported by the right recovery tips to fight muscle fatigue, you will feel better in daily life. In turn, your mind will remain in a better place at all times.
7| Make Nutrition Exciting
If you are planning to exercise more, it’s likely that nutrition will be on your list of priorities too. It’s important to eat healthily and enjoy balance. However, the great news about the increased activity is that your daily calorie limit will increase too. So, you’ll be able to enjoy a few extra traits. When you use online recipes like BBC Good Food, you can enjoy beautiful meals and tasty treats without any guilt.
8| Use Fitness To Help Others
Are you conscious of living an eco-friendly life? Or maybe you want to support communities that aren’t as fortunate as yours? You can use fitness to make this happen. One option is to raise money for charity when completing your bike ride or half marathon. Alternatively, cycling to work will reduce your carbon footprint compared to driving. The emotional rewards gained from supporting others are huge.
9| Take Time To Reflect On Progress
The ambition to keep improving is a wonderful thing. Nonetheless, if you always focus on the fact that you are not quite where you want to be, confidence may fall. So, taking time to reflect on your progress and how far you’ve come can be a pivotal step to gaining a better relationship with fitness. Just be sure to avoid resting on your laurels or thinking that the job is complete. Otherwise, sustainability won’t follow.
10| Celebrate With Treats
As mentioned, your improved fitness routines should be linked to achieving a better quality of life. With this in mind, it’s vital that you learn to actually let yourself enjoy the improved body and mindset. New clothes that show off your new and improved physique are a good option. Days out, homely products, healthy snacks, and a host of additional items can be used too. They will all highlight the fact that exercise makes your life better. Perfect.
Muscle cramps can seriously cramp your workout. One minute everything is fine and then suddenly, out of nowhere, a muscle cramp rears its ugly head.
A cramp is a sudden, involuntary muscle contraction that sharply tightens and shortens a muscle. It’s usually temporary and non-damaging, but can be very painful. Cramps are a nightmare – but they’re common, especially during exercise.
But, why do muscle cramps happen anyways?
Although the exact cause can be a challenge to pinpoint, cramping is often the result of muscle overuse or strain from exercise, dehydration, mineral depletion within the body, and heat. Despite the various reasons these pesky cramps happen, the million-dollar question is: Are they preventable?
The answer is yes, there are things that you can do to help lessen your chances of suffering from muscle cramps. Prevention is key!
Muscle Overuse or Strain
If you are going from no movement to sudden, extreme movement, your body may not be happy to go along for the ride–especially if you are expecting it to go from zero to sixty in an instant. When it comes to exercise, consider the value of a warm-up. Yes, something to help bridge the gap between your sedentary life and the point at which your body to get moving. Foam rolling and gentle, dynamic movements let your body’s tissues know that there is going to be a more, intense movement to come. This may not eliminate that pesky pain but it can greatly reduce its chances of occurring.
Dehydration
Water makes up about 60% of your body weight. Your body needs water to survive. A lack of water in your body can lead to dehydration. Dehydration is a condition that occurs when you don’t have enough water in your body to carry out normal functions which can make you tired, have less energy, and cause muscle cramps.
To prevent dehydration, you need to drink an adequate amount of water each day. There are many different opinions on how much water you should be drinking every day.
The rule of thumb is you NEED to be consuming6 x your body weight in ounces of water per day, or roughly half your body weight in ounces. The more active you are, the more water your body is going to need. Consider adding a drop of lemon essential oil, fresh strawberries, or cucumbers to your water to help your body absorb the hydration more effectively. So, drink up–water that is–to keep those muscle cramps at bay.
Diet
One way to stop cramps is to eat enough of these key nutrients: potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium.
Potassium Potassium is a critical mineral for muscle contraction. It’s often a go-to fuel for those who like to hit the gym. Other sources of potassium include apricots, oranges, lentils, salmon and sweet or baked potatoes with the skin.
Magnesium Magnesium is a key mineral for relaxation. Foods containing magnesium include avocado, nuts and seeds, bananas, whole grains (brown rice, cereal), dark chocolate, and dried fruit. Who doesn’t love a good excuse to buy some chocolate?
Sodium All too often we are worried about getting too much sodium. However, in all honesty, your body needs sodium. And, if you exercise, you are most likely losing quite a bit of that essential mineral. So, it is important to consider replenishing your lost sodium with a healthy post-workout drink, a vegetable juice drink, a few carrots, or even some pretzels.
Calcium Calcium is critical when it comes to developing and maintaining strong bones and muscles. Although milk is often the go-to for people when they think calcium, consider selecting yogurt, kale, broccoli, tofu, or almonds instead. They will also provide with you a great source of calcium and have less sugar when compared to milk!
If you do find yourself suddenly under attack from a muscle cramp, the following exercises might provide you with some relief.
Stretch — Engage in light stretches that are focused around the muscle groups that are cramping.
Massage — Lengthening the cramping muscle by using gentle massage techniques may help reduce the duration and severity of the cramp. A foam roller is also another great option to use!
For more information on how to maintain your health with exercise through diet,send us an email or scroll down and send us a message!
Have you ever met someone in your life and felt like you connected, had a TON in common, and could do great things together? But maybe the timing wasn’t exactly right???
That’s my good friend Karen Urbanek and I. We met several years ago when she had just started her small natural food store in my local area. Over the years we did a few things together and her life eventually took her to Utah and I continued to grow my journey here in Wisconsin.
We both joke we are the perfect match. She’s the inside of the body, and I’m the outside of the body. And together we help people start that journey to becoming “whole” again.
And that is EXACTLY what we are on a quest to do. Karen and I and several other amazing doctors and practitioners have all come together to promote wellness through I2H2E– International Institute of Holistic Health and Education.
A place where people like you can go to get the BEST of the BEST in education, training and information.
What does this mean?
This means that YOU have yet another resource in your back pocket!
You get access to training on:
Nutrition
Detox
Energy
Cooking in the Kitchen
Healthy Children
Gut Health
Essential Oils
Going Gluten Free
Holistic Athletic Training
Core
Chakras
and YES!!! A Yoga Teacher Training just for you…. all ONLINE!
And you can take advantage of the BEST of the BEST trainings and courses directly though me and I2H2E!
And there is STILL time to join Hope, Karen and Dr. Essen at the FIRSTI2H2E conference in Utah, November 2,3 2018>>>>>>DETAILS
Or get our next one on the books for October 19th – 20th in St. George Utah!
DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this website is to provide community support and knowledge of various lifestyle topics. This website is for informational purposes and should not be seen as any kind of professional advice unless stated otherwise. We are not physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. All our advice is based on our own experiences. This website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions or concerns you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new diet or exercise program.
ssium
