Being busy and working long, tiring days can force you to put health on the back burner. No matter how much you want to make healthy choices, it can feel like there simply isn’t enough time to do so.
However, no matter how busy your life gets or how crazy your schedule is, it is still possible to be both the busiest and the healthiest version of yourself. In fact, a few simple changes can lead you to a healthier life.
These 11 tips will guide you to a healthier lifestyle.
1) Drink water throughout the day.
Proper hydration is critical to health and vitality. We may all know how important it is to drink water, but when you are always busy, it’s easy to forget to stay hydrated. Drinking water acts as an appetite suppressant, which helps you lose weight. This means that you will feel fuller, but eat less – all with zero-calorie addition to your diet.
Drinking plenty of water also prevents headaches and fatigue. A lack of fluids can cause tiredness, head pains, and sluggishness. Studies recommend that you drink at least 84 ounces of water each day.
2) Skip the sugary drinks.
Sugary drinks are really bad, and they’re a major contributor to the obesity epidemic in the United States. When you ingest sugary drinks, you do not feel as full as you would from the same amount of solid-food calories. Skip juices, soda, coffee, and any juices with added sugar. Instead, drink lots of water, tea, or plain black coffee. The added sugar in drinks can truly have disastrous effects on your health.
3) Prep your meals.
When you’re busy, your diet can suffer, and you may regularly consume fast food. You may not have time to cook every day, but you likely do have a couple hours to prepare some meals for the upcoming week in advance. When you meal prep, you are making sure that you’re getting the right nutrition with foods that deliver the maximum health benefits. You can cook healthy options like steak, chicken, fish, brown rice, and veggies, then just keep it all in ready-to-go containers inside your fridge.
4) Stock up on healthy snacks.
It’s hard to get through a whole day of work without getting a little hungry in between meals. Snacking is good for you… if you choose healthy foods in the right proportions. Some tasty snacks that are perfect for work breaks are apples and peanut butter, yogurt and fruit, rice cakes, fresh fruit and nuts, protein bars, dark chocolate, and string cheese.
5) Work out early in the morning.
A lot of busy adults work jobs that don’t give them a time to be “off.” Plan on going for a run or getting to the gym early in the morning, so you can get your workout out of the way. Set out your workout clothes the night before and set up your alarm, so you don’t miss that early morning jog.
6) Do “Commercial Break Workouts.”
You can even be active while you are at home watching TV. When you are watching a program, use every commercial break to rotate between sit-ups, push-ups, jump roping, pull ups, lunges, squats, and wall sits.
7) Exercise with supersets.
When you can manage to carve time out of your busy schedule to work out, make sure you do supersets in order to make the most of your workout. Supersets can cut your exercise time in half. Instead of having rest periods between sets, you do an alternative exercise that rests the muscles you just trained and exercises the opposite ones before you begin your next set. For example, once you’ve worked on your legs, work out your upper body next, and alternate until you’re finished.
8) Try interval training.
You don’t need to spend hours exercising to get a great workout. In fact, doing 20-minute bursts of high-intensity exercises can actually be more effective. HIIT sessions involve pushing yourself nearly to your peak heart rate for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, then cooling down for a few minutes before picking up the pace again and repeating for a few cycles. You can get a on the treadmill, do some sprints, rest, then do sprints again. This way, you can get a quick, effective workout in under 30 minutes.
9) Give work exercise a shot.
I have an office job. As I sit in front of a computer most of the day, I notice that I occasionally get back pain. Therefore, I try to move around and stretch throughout the day. Though it may feel awkward at first, doing exercises at your desk is a great way to sneak fitness into your day. You can do air squats, walking lunges, jumping jacks and basic stretching every few hours, just get your body moving.
10) Walk it out.
Walking is the easiest form of exercise, but it can definitely help you reach your fitness and weight-loss goals. Walking improves circulation, alleviates fatigue, improves cardiac health, reduces joint stress and pain, and improves endurance and posture. Try to sneak in a quick walk during your lunch break, run some errands on foot, take the stairs, park further away from the entrance, or walk around in the office. All those extra steps add up, so just walk it out.
11) Take time to relax for your health.
When you have a busy schedule, your stress levels are sky-high, but stress has a terrible impact on your health and well-being. Therefore, one of the best things you can do to stay healthy is to learn how to relax. Take time for yourself to unwind from your busy schedule. Take time to meditate, take a hot bath, take a nap, have a glass of wine, or do any activity that can help you unwind.
We are all busy, but we need to take care of our health and well-being, too. As you implement some of these tips, you’ll be more fit, more productive, healthier, and happier than you’d ever expect. Small changes in your lifestyle can bring big changes to your entire life.
Featured image vie S’well on Unsplash
Contrary to the misinformation here, beverages are not driving obesity, or obesity related conditions. The latest data from the CDC shows that obesity rates have been going up steadily even though soda consumption has been going down. If the two were connected obesity rates should have gone down as consumption went down. They haven’t because soft drinks make up only 6 percent of the calories we consume every day. Data from the USDA shows that the vast majority of calories added to the U.S. diet in the past 40 years has come from fats and oils and starches; very few are from sugar.
Nonetheless, America’s beverage companies are helping support American’s efforts to cut back on sugar and calories by offering more products with less sugar or zero sugar, smaller portion sizes and calorie labels on the front of all of our products. Learn more at: BalanceUS.org