5 healthy habits you can start today
The one question that I was asked a lot while I was attending nutrition school, was “Have you changed your lifestyle and diet since you started school?”. Now, little changes I made here and there is a whole other story in itself and there will be a blog post in the future, but I think it is important to understand that everybody can start their own healthy habits at any point in life. Just because someone in your life started eating vegan or using collagen powder every day in their smoothie or shake, doesn’t mean that the same needs to work for you today at this time in your life. You can start as small (or big) as you want to, this is your life and changes don’t happen overnight, so make them work for you.
The four foundations of health
Early on in nutrition school, you learn about the four foundations of health: sleep, nutrition, exercise and stress. These are pillars your health is built on. This is where everything starts. If these four pillars are not strong and healthy, your health – your foundation – will not be able to hold everything up and keep it running. It will collapse. It is critical that we all work on building strong foundations to be able to deal with any incoming stressors and challenges to our bodies and health.
Based on these four foundations, I put together a list of healthy habits that you can start today:
1. Foundation: Sleep – who doesn’t like sleep? It’s definitely one of my favourite activities or non-activities I should say. And it’s so good for you! But as good as sleeping is, ‘sleep hygiene’ is as important. A healthy sleep hygiene involves many things: the time you go to sleep, how dark your room is, any electronics around you, the lighting on your night table, your routine around bed time and much more. There is so much to say about sleep but if you want to just make one minor change, how about this: let’s say you go to bed at 11pm, now make it 30 minutes earlier than that. Set an alarm to 10pm which gives you another 30 minutes to finish what you are doing, stop reading on your devices, stop scrolling endlessly on Instagram, stop watching tv (shows/movies usually end around 10pm anyway)… stop whatever you rare doing and shut off your lights at 10:30pm. Shhh!
2. Foundation: Nutrition – how much water do you really drink per day? Think about it. We often think that we drink enough, but do we really drink enough plain water? Not coffee, not (caffeinated) tea, not juice. My water intake is something that I have always struggled with and I am constantly looking for ideas to help me drink more. I’m sure my fellow students remember my “Drink water” alarm going off in the middle of class all the time. Not good when you are writing an exam, let me tell ya.
I’m sure you’ll ask how much water should you drink. There are different theories around that and I will get into them in another post but for now, just do this: figure out how many glasses of water you currently drink and add one more extra glass of water to your daily intake. Just one. But make it a conscious decision. If you need to flavor it, do it. I personally love adding a fresh slice of lemon to my water and I do it all the time.
3. Foundation: Exercise – exercise can be an intimidating, stressful word for many people. A lot of people associate exercise with having to go to the gym. Yikes, right? There are so many other options for exercise though. Start with replacing the word ‘exercise’ with the words ‘activity’ or ‘movement’. Notice if this changes anything for you. Movement can be many things, they can be different things to different people but you can start moving today. Pick one day a week and schedule into your calendar today that you will use 30 minutes for yourself to exercise. And no, running after your children does not count. Maybe there are stairs close to you that you can walk up and down, maybe there is a hiking or walking trail in your city, maybe you can finally take that yoga class that you looked into, pick one of the million free exercise videos if you really don’t want to leave the house. Whatever it is for you, can you pick a day?
4. Foundation: Stress – stress is a big one. It can show up in many ways: emotionally, mentally or physically. It can get us out of balance any second. Do you know your daily stressors? Thinking beyond the obvious, like your job situation, your children (oh yes!) or dealing with sickness in your life, what stresses you out? One thing that you can do today is to be more aware of what stress means to you. Write down situations when you feel stressed, think small here. I am now very aware of what triggers me to feel stressed out. But in these situations, I stop, I realize what’s happening and I think about how much of a difference whatever bugs me really makes. Usually, I can turn it around and let it go. A lot of the times it’s not worth stressing out about. Can you identify these situations in your own life? By naming the stressors and being aware of what your triggers are, you learn how to divert them and prevent them to become harmful in your life.
5. And one extra for fun: Comfort food – are there any meals that you make every week? Maybe there is something that you make for your kids regularly as you know they will eat it. Mind you, cooking for your kids is a whole other ballgame… I hear you. For example, Mac & Cheese. Most kids enjoy Kraft Dinner, right? Let’s face it though, it’s not the most nutritious food or rather food-like substance. Making your own doesn’t take a whole lot of time and there are so many recipes of healthier versions out there. Can you sit down, think about a recipe that you know is not the healthiest or is a packaged food, then search for a healthier version (Pinterest is great for that!) and take one day when you try it? You have one month from now. Go!
Habits don’t change from one day to another. Sometimes it’s harder than other times. It also depends on whether or not you like the new habit that you are trying to start, does it really make a difference in your life, how does it affect your family’s life, what is everybody else doing around you, how much time does it take, is it affecting anybody else, how bad do you really want it… There is a lot of things that can influence your success with changing your habits.
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
- Warren Buffett
I’m sure you’ve heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit, correct? I personally don’t believe that’s nearly enough. Sorry. Other studies[i] suggest it takes on average 66 days to change a habit. Now that’s more like it. Of course, this depends on how easy or hard of a habit it is to break.
However, the most important thing to remember is that it is ok to fall back into old habits, be gentle with yourself. Be aware of what’s going on and then get back into it. Don’t be discouraged when it takes you longer. Don’t judge yourself, give yourself permission to fall off the wagon. It happens. All that matters is that you commit to it and embrace the journey. One step at a time.
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If you want to learn more about healthy habits, please drop me a line at hello@cabbageandbeets.com!
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Tell me some of your healthy habits that you started to incorporate into your life below in the comments!
[i] Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J. How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. Euro J Soc Psychol. 2010;40:998–1009.
