1.Drink more water.
2.Get enough sleep. When you don’t rest well, you compensate by eating more. Usually, it’s junk food. Get enough rest and you don’t need to snack to stay awake. Also, lack of sleep causes premature aging.
3.Meditate. Meditation quietens your mind and calms your soul.
4.Exercise. Movement is life. Research has shown that exercising daily brings tremendous benefits to our health, including an increase in lifespan, lowering of risk of diseases, higher bone density, and weight loss. Increase the activity in your life. Choose walking over transport for close distances. Climb the stairs instead of taking the lift. Join an aerobics class or a dance class.
5.Pick exercises that you enjoy. When you enjoy a sport, you naturally want to do it. Its about being healthy and having fun at the same time. Adding variation in your exercises will keep them interesting. Work out different parts of your body. Don’t just do cardio (like jogging). Give your body a proper workout. The easiest way is to engage in sports since they work out different muscle groups. Popular activities where you can get a good body workout are trekking, hiking, swimming, basketball, tennis, squash, badminton, yoga, and frisbee.
6. Eat fruits. Fruits have a load of vitamins and minerals. As much as possible, consume your vitamins and minerals through your diet rather than through pills. Eat a variety of fruits every morning and they energize us. Satisfy your palate with these nutritious fruits: Banana, Papaya, Kiwi, Strawberries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Watermelon, Honeydew, Peach, Apple, Grapefruit, Pomelo, Mango, Orange.
7. Eat vegetables. Vegetables are the source of many nutrients and minerals like folate, vitamin K, folate, vitamin A, manganese, and potassium, not to mention dietary fiber which is important for good gut health. There are two types of vegetables: Starchy vegetables like potato, sweet potato, yam, and pumpkin; and non-starchy vegetables like kale, arugula, spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, long beans, tomato, cucumber, and mushroom . Some vegetables are slightly starchy and hence fall in the middle: Corn, green peas, carrot, artichoke, beetroot, cauliflower, and beans.
8.Pick different-colored fruits/vegs. Always consume a wide variety of fruits and vegetables of different colors. Firstly, fruits and vegetables with different colors represent different anti-oxidant content, which removes free radicals that damage our cells and fights inflammation in our body. Secondly, when we eat a large diversity of fruits/vegetables, it creates a wide variety of good bacteria in our gut, which creates a strong defense line between us and the environment, improves our immune system, and strengthens our long-term health.
Eat fruits/vegetables of different colors: White (Bananas), Yellow (Pineapples, Mango), Orange (Orange, Papaya), Red (Apple, Strawberries, Raspberries, Tomatoes, Watermelon), Green (Avocado, Kale, Lettuce, Cucumber), Purple/Blue (Blackberries, Prunes). Here’s a full list under the color wheel.
9.Cut down on processed food. Processed food is not good because (a) most of the nutritional value is lost in the creation of these foods, and (b) the added preservatives are bad for our health. Many processed foods contain a high amount of salt which leads to higher blood pressure and heart disease. In general, the more ingredients a food has on the label (ending with ‘ite’ or ‘ate’), the more processed it is. Go for less processed food such as a baked potato over chips, fresh fruit over canned fruit, and intact grains over white bread.Choose intact grains over refined grains.
10.Breathe. Deeply. Oxygen is vital for life. You may know how to breathe, but are you breathing properly? Most of us aren’t breathing properly — we take shallow breaths and breathe to 1/3 of our lung capacity. Athletes are taught proper breathing techniques to get their best performance. A full breath is one where your lungs are fully filled, your abdomen expands, and there’s minimum movement in your shoulders.
11.Improve your posture. Having a good posture improves your breathing and makes you look smarter and more attractive.Address emotional eating issues. Do you eat when you feel stressed, bored, or frustrated? Emotional eating is eating to fill an emotion rather than real hunger. However, emotional eating will never make you feel happy because you’re trying to fill a void that has nothing to do with food. Food doesn’t give you love or happiness; it’s just food. Get to the root of the issue and address it.
12. Eat small meals. Choose several small meals over huge meals as it evens out your energy distribution. It’s also better for your stomach as it doesn’t over-stretch from digesting a huge volume of food at one go.
13. Live a life of purpose.
14.Cut down on deep-fried food. Deep-fried food contains acrylamide, a potentially cancer-causing chemical. , An ordinary bag of crisps may contain up to 500 times more of the substance than the top level allowed in drinking water by the World Health Organisation (WHO)! When I consume oily foods, I feel sluggish. Go for food prepared using healthier methods instead, such as grilling, steaming, stir-fry, or even raw food. Reduce your intake of fast food, fries, doughnuts, chips, wedges, and deep-fried food.
15.Cut down on sugary food/drinks. Sugary food consists of your candy bars, pastries, chocolate, cookies, cakes, and jelly donuts. Not only do they not fill you, but they trigger you to eat more due to the sugar rush. Eating once in a while is okay, but not daily. Go for healthy snacks instead. Sugary drinks are unfortunately sold everywhere today, namely in the form of soda and sweet drinks. These drinks are unhealthy and cause weight gain. Go for plain water, green tea, or vegetable juices instead!
16.Don’t drink alcohol. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it drains water from your body. Not only that, but alcohol is repeatedly proven to have negative effects on our body and health — impacting the proper functioning of our brain, liver, lungs, and other major organs. If you drink alcohol regularly, it’s time to cut it out, or at the very least, reduce your consumption.
17.Go organic (where possible). Organic food is food produced without synthetic inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers; that does not contain genetically modified organisms; and that is not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.
18. Eat what you need. It is better to eat less and in line with your energy needs, rather than eat excessively and work off excess calorie intake through exercise. When you eat excessively, you strain your digestive system by making it digest more food than you need, and when you exercise excessively, you strain your body.
19.Stop smoking. Smoking is detrimental to health, severely increases the risk of lung cancer, kidney cancer, esophageal cancer (of our gullet), heart attack, and more. Smoking “lite” cigarettes do not decrease health risks either.
20.Try juicing/blending. Juicing/Blending is a great way to get vitamins and nutrients from fruits/vegetables quickly.
21.Get regular checkups.
22.Try a vegetarian diet.
23.Hang out with healthy people.