Favorite Tips for Living Healthy

Care to share your favorite tips for living healthy?

I recently (in the last two weeks) decided to get serious about my health. All my life it's been about my weight, but since my recent illness I decided I needed to get serious about more than my weight and start making myself the healthiest that I can be. So I've started making little changes here and there and I can already see and feel a difference in my overall health.

Some of the changes I've made are:

• Giving up soda and switching to water (LOTS of water! lol)
• Eating more veggies (I slice my favorites up and make a HUGE stir fry then keep it in the fridge and grab a bowl anytime I feel snacky)
• Exercise with my husband - it keeps us both motivated as we are both pretty competitive!
• Alternate days of weight lifting with walking on the treadmill (keeps me from getting bored and makes me feel empowered!)
• Getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night

I would definitely love to hear what you all do to stay healthy. I can use all the ideas I can get!

That's awesome Ellie! I need to start too! Not drinking soda makes a HUGE difference

Those are great tips Ellie. I really need to start exercising. I have stopped drinking soda and I drink a ton of water. I am doing weight watchers but I'm not really losing much and it is making me crazy so I could use all the tips I can get as well.

Great tips! One tip I will share that has really helped me is to make a meal plan. I'm not a big fan of cooking so about once a week I sit down and plan out our dinners and sometimes lunches then make my shopping list from that. It sounds so simple but it has really cut down the grabbing of fast-food for our family, plus it's cheaper and healthier! Also DH has to cook on my work days and it helps him stick to the meal plan if it's all written out for him.

Thanks, girls!

Char, that is an excellent idea! I don't really enjoy cooking either, but I am much more likely to do it if I have it planned out ahead of time. I really need to get into the habit of doing that. I actually just bought a program a couple of months ago called the Dinner Solution. It's a menu planning program and is AMAZING, I've just been super lazy about using it. Guess I need to break it out!

After starting and stopping and starting and stopping (notice a pattern here?) I've decided I have to start and not stop. I'm sick, yet again (allergies? sinus infection? cold?) and I'm wondering if my weight has anything to do with it. My mom (a RN) says no, but I'm still not sure. Plus I have a feeling I'm going to need to have surgery this summer (real small, nothing major at all) and really I don't want to go into it as heavy as I am.

What my plans are -- no carbs. I'll start being strict with South Beach again -- It worked for me real well last time. I also find I drink more water when I mix it with Crystal Light (actually Walmart's brand of it because it is cheaper...lol). I also have the Kinect for the 360 and have started exercising with that.

Enough is enough

yay Shannon! I'm glad you are getting motivated! no carbs is essentially what is working for me right now, you can do it!

I honestly don't think I could cut out carbs, everything has it in them, what do you eat if you don't eat carbs? Just curious. I agree, I always add crystal light to my water, the peach iced tea crystal light is awesome if you haven't tried it. The only one I like in that flavor is the real crystal light but it is so worth it.

I'm doing Take Shape for Life Lisa, it cuts the carbs for you hehe otherwise, you eat a lot of protein and veggies!

Lunch is salad with the night before's meat cut up into it. Dinner is either salad with tonight's meat or tonight's meat with lots and lots of veggies. BTW - take green beans - fry in the a pan until they are burned....i add garlic salt/onion salt and OMG are they good.

South Beach says plain yogurt for breakfast, or plain cottage cheese. They both have carbs in them though. I have a real hard time with breakfast to be honest and that is what sets me off. Good Breakfast = Good rest of the day. Bad Breakfast = well why bother being good. I know I could do bacon and eggs but there are some mornings I just don't want to cook. I think I'm going to just let myself have flavored yogurt (strawberry), or bananas with cottage cheese (something I've had since I was a baby and just love). It isn't 100% carb free, but it isn't bread....

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you sure do need a lot of patience Astrid, its hard to stay motivated! but good for you for making those changes for your health!
I must have missed the thread about your surgery, that's awful! I hope you are recovering ok!

I struggled with my weight for a couple years,but in January had awake up call with high Cholesterol thrown in. So as a nurse I knew what to do I just needed the motivation,so 4 sm. meals a day, high grain toast w/PB and fruit for breakfast,yogurtw/walnuts for snack,salad w/chickec or turkey on it for lunch,carrots or celery sticksfor snack,sensible dinner.But I had to omit high amounts of potatos & pasta,watch the sugar content and salt,nothing but water to drink and I'm happy to say i'm down from 178 to 150 !!

It'a all mind over matter !! I make this salad called Tabulli,it's very healthy and filling !! Good luck too all !!

My most recent diet fix is switching to whole wheat/grain bread/pasta/tortillas etc. Breads are really bad for you because of how processed they all are. Whole grain/wheat, though, keeps the parts of the plant that are very healthy, and eating that instead significantly reduces risks of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, etc. It also helps lower your cholesterol. We've switched our breads, tortillas, and cereals (surprising how hard it is in cereal!) and pasta and I think all we have left to switch is going from regular rice to wild rice.

I've also cut most of the dairy out of my diet (except for the occasional treat) and I use Almond milk in my cereal or to dunk cookies when i make them (not too often, too much effort). Oh, I only eat cookies if i make them from scratch. First, it eliminates a TON of random chemicals and weirdness they throw in there to make them last forever (which food shouldn't!) and also because I know how lazy I am and I rarely get around to actually making them.

And I'm a vegetarian so I already don't eat meat. My main thing is getting away from the super processed food and to a mostly natural diet.

Good luck Shannon.

Hubby and I made some major eating changes [started Aug 1]. I've lost just over 30 and he has lost 35.
Main changes- half your body weight in water each day [weigh 128 then 64 oz]
Nothing with processed sugar in it or fake sugars [only sweetner Truvia-from stevia plant] -there are so many hidden sugars in processed foods.
Nothing diet or low fat
No soda
Organic as much as possible
Avoid wheat [and any other glutens]

We feel great! [and I still have wine < >
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When I was trying to lose weight, what really helped me was first I looked to see what my weakness was... where am I adding extra calories I don't need...
I was a HUGE lover of sauces, creams, gravies, etc... mmm yum!
So I did three things...
One - I drank ONLY water. Water with sliced lemon is still my favorite. (Since lemon is a natural detoxifier)
Two - I stopped adding dressing to my salad, and creamy/cheesy/buttery sauces to my vegetable dishes.
Three - I stopped eating meat.

I noticed that when I ate meat I wanted the buttery mashed potatoes with gravy (my ultimate weakness)... So by eliminating that from my diet I was forced to find and try different foods... I learned to cook with different spices... I have a much broader palette now and I went from a size 22 to a size 14 in only 6 months.

I didn't do any extra exercise, but I did make sure that I walked to the post office everyday (about a block away) to get my mail. I didn't take any "diet supplements" either. It was great to have minimal effort and maximum results from something as simple as letting go of meat! (I did eat eggs & milk sparingly and made sure I had a protein source... all things in moderation)

Oh... I've also found that growing a garden really helps curb how much I eat... Fully understanding just how much time, work and effort it takes to grow a tomato makes me appreciate using it so much more than just knowing I can just go to the store and get another one... I also bake my own bread (which kneading by hand sure works off a few calories!)... Totally unexpected side effect, but one I'm now very grateful for!

Very nice tips..I glad to find your post..You did fantastic job by sharing this healthy living tips.

I started dieting on August 6 with some folks in my forum (we set up a private area and share our weigh-ins and other things and give each other accountability. Accountability is the only thing that seems to work for me.

We also log on MFP (MyFitnessPal) our calories and exercise and just being aware of of my calories helps.

I have one person on standby on Twitter private message (via smart phone) to help me through those tempting moments when I want to snack in front of the tv. (when I mostly fail)

The big difference is that I decided to stop cooking what my men like and start cooking the things I like. They have very limited taste palettes, mostly things higher in calories and no good foods, like veggies.

We are also cooking for two, so every lunch hour I go home and hubby and I cook together and we make the same thing, but in different ways. Our plates are the same, yet different. I blogged some of it here.

For example, if we make spaghetti, I cut up fresh tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and use just a little bit of noodles and sauce and add lots of veggies to it. We brown the meat and I add a small portion to mine and he adds most of it to his. He smothers his with lots of spaghetti sauce and cheese.

Check out how different our homemade pizzas are on that post, and my soup was yummy too.

Bottom line is that my diet has changed and I am eating the things I love to eat for the first time in my life and the things I love to eat are healthier things than what my men ate and I always conformed to them.

I'm learning to do things for "me" for a change.

I also jump start my metabolism by switching up when I eat my bigger meals, so just when my body begins to expect big lunches, I give it big dinner or breakfast instead. Change of what I eat and when I eat it seems to be the biggest factor to weight loss for me.

As of today, I've lost 19.4 pounds in 106 days.

I've never really been on a diet before so this is a new experience!

Awesome Hummie! Good for you I will go check out your blog too

Woohoo, grats on the weight loss Hummie! My boyfriend LOVES pasta and yes, he also eats more like 3/4 servings at a time with lots of sauce and smothered in mozzarella. I combat that by simply never making pasta. It's become a rarity since carbs = fat/sugar.

Thanks Ginger! Oh, but these holiday parties are ruining this week!

Ack! People need holiday party support!

Congratulations Hummie! Keep up the good work.
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I've found that if I log everything on My Fitness Pal I hold myself more accountable!