7 Ways to Kickstart a Healthy Lifestyle Right Now

Disclaimer: This post contains sponsored links. As always, all opinions expressed are genuinely my own. 

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Happy February friends!

How have you been keeping up with healthy habits in 2019 so far? An upper respiratory thing kind of bogged me down for a lot of January (It kept coming and going and I couldn’t shake it for weeks – so annoying!), and even though I was feeling under the weather, I was still determined to make mostly healthy choices.

I’m looking forward to February being a month with lots of good sweat sessions, healthy, delicious food and positive vibes. I have a busy month on my weekend social calendar, with plans to have a girls’ day in NYC, have friends from Boston visit one weekend, and to take my mom to a play in Jersey one night.  I’m also in the process of buying a new home, so come next month, my husband and I will be packing up and moving (yes, again).

My point is to illustrate that life keeps moving and sometimes thing can get hectic, but a healthy lifestyle is a journey that you have to continuously put effort into.

If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut (it happens) and are looking for ways to kickstart a healthier lifestyle, there’s no better time than the present to do so. Today I’m sharing 7 ideas on how to light a fire in your belly with healthier habits. From a commitment to daily walks to trying an online fitness program, I hope that you find an idea that resonates with you… and then go for it!

Join a challenge at a fitness studio. If there’s a studio where you’ve enjoyed taking classes at, jumping into a 30 or 60 day challenge could be a great way to motivate you – especially if you tend to get competitive when pushed to challenge yourself. Check out the studio’s website and/or social media to see if they’re hosting any upcoming challenges. If the challenge includes tests of strength, endurance, and cardio at the beginning and end, it also could be a way to not only focus on the scale or the measurements (which can be frustrating and slow-going), but additionally, the improvements you’re making in your physical fitness.

As a health coach, I helped to host some month-long challenges a few years back at a HIIT studio, and they were so fun and community-oriented. I participated myself and saw not only positive changes in my body, but also an increase in overall strength. The challenge included timed tests of how many push-ups, TRX crunches, and anti-gravity machine pull-ups we could do, along with how long we could hold planks and wall squats, and I improved in every single category! It made me feel accomplished, and I would love to do another challenge sometime.

Make ONE daily healthy change in your life. Feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of changing so many of your habits all at once? Good news: There’s no need to. Start with just one thing that you know you could improve on on a daily basis. Commit to doing it for at least a given period, such as 60 days. Chances are, once you experience the feeling of knowing that you are in control and have the power to make a positive change in your life, you’ll want to keep it going and add more things to work on. Some examples of what your change might be include:

• Make it a goal to exercise X amount of times a week. Make it a realistic amount, like 3-4x every week, and treat your workouts like an appointment you can’t miss.
• Do you routinely eat a bagel, sugary cereal, or a donut for breakfast? Swap out those simple carbs in the morning and replace it with something more nutritious, such as a bowl of oatmeal, a banana with a yogurt, or a produce-packed smoothie.
• Work or live on the 4th floor? Take the stairs instead of the elevator every time moving forward.
• Start every morning with 20 minutes of yoga. There are plenty of free videos online and inexpensive yoga class memberships you can try.

Join an online program. If you’re looking for some guidance in kickstarting a healthier lifestyle, an online program might be a good fit for you. There are plenty of options out there to choose from, such as this 30 Day Weight Loss Guide For Women, which provides a road map of workout and diet suggestions that serve as guidelines – while emphasizing that small wins lead to big changes (I couldn’t agree more!).

Commit to going on frequent walks with a loved one. So many of us don’t get in enough steps most of the time, so a great change to make is to invest in some sort of pedometer (or use your iPhone’s Health app as a steps reference) and commit to walking a certain number of steps every day. Aiming for 10,000 would be ideal, but anywhere around 7,000 and up is great too. You’re more likely to keep up with it if you have a partner in crime, so get your partner, friend, or family friend in on the walking action too, and motivate each other to get the job done.

My dog and her puppy-like energy forces me to get in my steps on the daily, which can be a pain in the winter, but I’m grateful that I have a walk partner in her. I also find that meeting friends for walks is a great active way to catch up while at the same time getting exercise in.

Become a member at a new fitness studio. Have you always wanted to try Pilates? Or is there a studio right near your work that you have been curious about? Put any fear you have about trying something out of your comfort zone aside, and just go for it. Many studios have new client specials, and at the very least, you’ll try something new that’s good for your health. Who knows, you may fall in love with the studio and it could become your favorite way to be active!

Eat at least 1 serving of fruit or veggie at every meal and snack. As reported by the CDC, only 1 in 10 Americans eat enough produce. It’s recommended that adults eat 1½-2 cups of fruit per day and 2-3 cups of veggies per day. Eating enough produce is linked with decreases in obesity, therefore also decreases in things like diabetes and heart disease.

Are you eating enough produce? If not, this habit change is a goodie!

At every meal or snack, commit to eating some sort of fruit or veggie. Think of it more as adding in fruits and veggies vs taking anything out of your diet, but what you’ll likely find is that by filling up more on produce, you’ll wind up eating less processed food. Here’s an example day of my eats:

• Breakfast: a slice of avocado toast + a sliced apple with sprinkled cinnamon
• Lunch: a protein smoothie that includes frozen banana
• Snack: hummus with crackers
• Dinner: a big bowl of veggie-packed soup (like this lentil soup, which I just made last week) with fresh bread for dipping
• Snack: a serving of pistachios + a clementine

Do what you can to get a better night’s rest. We all know that sleep is important to our overall health, but we might not realize just how much a lack of sleep can affect us. Not getting enough sleep could not only make us cranky and unfocused, but it could also mess with our blood sugar levels and cause us to overeat due to hormone imbalances.

While we sometimes don’t have control over how many hours of sleep we get (hello, workaholics and parents to young kiddos!), most of us can do a better job at maximizing our rest time. Here are some ways to do so:

• Ditch the phone – Unplug before bed by not looking at your phone an hour before bedtime
• Don’t watch media that will keep you wide awake (murder mysteries, I’m talking about you guys)
• Partake in relaxing activities, like reading a book or taking a bath
• Diffuse essential oils like lavender to calm your body and mind

Tell me… Which of these ideas are you going to try? How do you get back into a healthier lifestyle if you’ve “fallen off the wagon?”