Healthy lifestyle - where to start and how not to lose motivation?

The benefits of a healthy lifestyle are known to everyone, there is a lot of information about its necessity. But, despite this, the transition to it is usually not easy. How to start a healthy lifestyle so that it does not become torture, but the norm of life?

What is a healthy lifestyle?

Fashion for a healthy lifestyle, its propaganda both at the state level and in glossy publications have simplified this concept, turning it into a set of rules that are the same for all. To lead a healthy lifestyle, it is enough not to eat flour and sweets, not to smoke, to walk 10,000 steps daily, this is what a simplified understanding of a healthy lifestyle in popular culture looks like.

Meanwhile, its essence and main goal is not the fulfilment of general rules, but the constant feeling of being a healthy, beautiful, full of strength and energy person.

Basic principles that allow you to achieve this feeling:

• rejection of bad habits,
• healthy nutrition,
• physical activity,
• observance of the daily routine, work and rest regimen,
• healthy sleep,
• good mental state, positive emotions.

It is believed that it takes 21 days for any habit to stick. However, not everyone can stand even three weeks of a healthy lifestyle. The main reasons are lack of motivation, unwillingness to listen to your body and its needs, and burnout from the desire to abruptly adjust to a new lifestyle, which leads to stress.

Motivation

The basis for the success of any undertaking is motivation. A healthy lifestyle is no exception, but motivating yourself to give up bad habits, switch to proper nutrition and regular exercise is usually not easy if there are no obvious diseases. Long feedback from the body becomes an obstacle: the effect of proper nutrition and training will not appear immediately. The stimulus can be created artificially.

• Take a full-length photo, noting what flaws in the figure and appearance you would like to eliminate.
• Start keeping a self-control diary, writing down daily achievements and steps towards a healthy lifestyle.
• Print motivational slogans, stick them on a computer monitor, on a mirror or on a refrigerator.
• Get out your old jeans that are obviously too small and set a goal to wear them for New Year's Eve, for example.
• Announce your plans to a friend or friend. In this case, their violation will mean weakness, which is always a shame to admit.

At the first stage of the transition to a healthy lifestyle, each of these tricks will work effectively. And with the improvement of physical form, mood and well-being, which will definitely happen, the need for such tricks will disappear by itself, because the effect of introducing a healthy lifestyle will become obvious.

Motivation largely depends on gender and age. For example, for 25-year-old girls, the main incentive for going in for sports is external attractiveness, which allows them to be in demand in society. For women after 40, care for the internal state, charisma, and charm is added to this. Well, for the older generations, the desire to maintain health, vigour of body and spirit comes to the fore. It is very important to listen to your body and offer it a motivation that is adequate to its needs - only in this case it will work.

Proper nutrition

A balanced diet not only helps to lose weight but also reduces the risk of developing heart and vascular diseases, oncology, improves physical performance and cognitive functions of the brain. Proper nutrition involves counting calories, eating whole foods (and avoiding refined ones), a balanced combination of proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

It is not necessary to adhere to all the principles of proper nutrition from the very first day of the “new life”, you can start small:

• to begin with, exclude only the most harmful products - industrial baking, sugar;
• study the usual menu, highlight your favourite products in it that comply with the principles of PP, come up with or find recipes for new dishes based on them;
• between main meals, eat healthy foods - fruits and vegetables as snacks;
• replace regular rye bread with whole grain;
• find a substitute for mayonnaise and ketchup, find recipes for alternative sauces - for example, based on natural yoghourt;
• reduce the usual portions by 1/3.

No need to stress the body with strict diets. Evidence-based medicine doctors are sure that they help to lose weight, but at the same time undermine health, so there is no question of a healthy lifestyle in this case. It is enough to eliminate harmful foods from the diet, introduce useful ones into it, reduce portion sizes and shorten the intervals between their intakes. The effect in the form of improved well-being, the appearance of vivacity and energy can be felt after a few days.

Physical activity

One of the main rules, the observance of which will help not only start playing sports, but also not quit after a week, is to choose the right sport. This will activate the dopamine system, and physical activity will turn from a heavy duty into a source of pleasure and joy.

Playing sports is not necessarily going to the gym and strength training to the point of exhaustion. You can choose a less exhausting and much more enjoyable form of physical activity. For example, it could be:

• swimming in the pool,
• any water sports,
• team sports - basketball, volleyball, hockey,
• ice skating and skiing,
• table tennis,
• cycling,
• Nordic walking.

In sports, to maintain general tone and good mood, it is not so much its appearance that is important, but regularity. The habit of training will help to develop the presence of a schedule, and even better - the purchase of a subscription, because in this case the reluctance to lose the money already paid will also become an incentive.

A few more recommendations, following which will help not to quit classes soon after they start.

• The place in which classes will be held can both stimulate activity and extinguish it. It should be convenient, comfortable in everything, from equipment to the music that sounds. If training is carried out at home, you need to allocate a separate space for them - this is possible even in a small apartment.
• Equipment. It should be comfortable and beautiful, allowing you to enjoy your own appearance. Take the time to choose quality sportswear: breathable, made from special fabrics that provide comfort even during intense workouts.
• It is better not to start playing sports alone. A good company is both additional motivation, and an element of competition, and mutual assistance, an opportunity to discuss achievements. If you can't find a group of friends to go to training with, it makes sense to choose a group sport. An additional plus is that you can meet like-minded people who have a common hobby.
• No need to overstress. Too high a pace of training is one of the most common reasons why many quickly give up. To find the right rhythm, you should consult with an experienced trainer who will help you calculate the load. This is especially important for those who have led a sedentary lifestyle for a long time: intensive training in this case will harm the body.
• A great way to keep motivated is to monitor progress. It is worth recording any changes in body weight or volume in order to notice how they change with proper nutrition and exercise.

The training program needs to be changed from time to time. This is necessary not only in order to develop different muscle groups, but also in order not to get bored, so that sport does not cease to be a source of pleasure and joy.

Rational mode

The adaptive reactions of the body. They are responsible for the readiness to perceive changes in lifestyle - are largely determined by the workload of the brain. To make it easier for the body to rebuild in a new way, it is important to provide the brain and body with a good rest, including through compliance with the regimen.

• Healthy sleep 7-8 hours (the norm of an adult). Recovery of strength and energy during a night's sleep cannot be compensated by any other type of rest, so you need to take care of a sound, uninterrupted sleep at night, at a comfortable temperature, without industrial and traffic noise.
• Meals at the same time - 5-6 times in small portions. Thanks to this, the body develops a conditioned reflex and begins to spend as much energy as it receives, without putting aside in reserve in the form of fat.
• Alternation of work and rest. Restoration of forces to an organism is necessary not only at night, but also during the day. Workaholism is a sure way to nervous exhaustion and burnout.

The mode can be feasible only if it meets individual needs - health status, personal interests, performance level. Understanding your own circadian (daily) biorhythms, in accordance with which the nervous and hormonal systems function, will allow you to develop a convenient regimen that will be easy to follow.

A step-by-step plan to implement healthy lifestyle in your life

It is important to remember that a healthy lifestyle is an individual system. In its construction, you can be guided by some general principles, but the needs and capabilities of your own body are at the core. Based on the principles of a healthy lifestyle, you can draw up an individual plan for the transition to a new lifestyle that will allow you to maintain health and maintain energy.

1. Determine motivation by assessing the needs and capabilities of your body.
2. Change your diet. The main condition for proper nutrition is the rejection of sugar and refined foods, the inclusion of protein, fresh fruits and vegetables in the diet. Strict dietary restrictions, especially mono-diets, are just as harmful as the absence of any restrictions.
3. Quit smoking, reduce alcohol consumption.
4. Choose the right type of physical activity. Playing sports is not necessarily exhausting workouts in the gym. There are many types of physical activity that will keep the body in good shape without overexertion and give pleasure.
5. Contact a trainer who will help you correctly calculate the load, taking into account gender, age, level of physical fitness and other factors.
6. Plan the daily routine so that the duration of night sleep is at least 7 hours, so that periods of active work alternate with rest and walks or outdoor sports.
7. Taking care of physical health, it is important not to forget about mental health, especially in the conditions of constant stress in which there is a modern city dweller. Positive emotions brought by your favourite work, hobbies, meetings with friends, family are an indispensable element of a healthy lifestyle.
8. You should not start a healthy lifestyle during difficult periods - for example, emergency work at work or difficulties in the family. The best time for a gradual transition is the vacation period, when the rested body is ready for change.

No need to try to cover all aspects of a healthy lifestyle at once, overnight depriving the body of its usual existence and subjecting it to stress. You need to change your lifestyle gradually, starting with simple and enjoyable sports training, building a daily routine and changing your diet.

A healthy lifestyle is not a temporary measure when you need to strain all the resources of the body in order to lose the required number of kilograms over a certain period of time. This is a lifestyle that is based on love for yourself and your body, respect for health, the ability to take care of the body and spirit. This is a way to live long, actively, constantly supporting your energy and creativity and enjoying life.