Healthy Habits to Start the New Year
It has become a tradition that millions of people make resolutions at the beginning of a new year. In the nutrition sphere, these resolutions can be “I will eat healthy this year,” “I am going sugar-free,” and perennial “I will lose weight this year. ”
You Are Enough
We want to begin this year by stating that as much as you think social media tells you otherwise, You. Are. Enough. As you are today, you do not need to change a thing; you are already perfect. One does not have to transform to deserve respect and affection from other people.
However, it’s essential to know that incorporating good habits is useful not only for the physical but also for the psychological aspect of a person’s health. At Curated Wellness, we do not make New Year's resolutions; instead, we seek to create new goals. Why is that? A resolution is often an intention or an open-ended declaration of an intent that one will achieve a specific result with little or no consideration of how it will be achieved; in contrast, a goal may be more of a pledge, and it may also contain the steps that shall be followed to achieve the intended result.
Why Do You Need to Have Healthy Habits?
It is okay to set some habits as goals; however, we normally recommend that one or two are enough. This means that when the set goals can be achieved, there is a higher chance of the habit being maintained. Experiment with a different behavior change for one month, then review your progress. How did it go? Were you able to meet the goal? What were the challenges? And what were the successes? Once one has gone through an evaluation, they can then determine whether they would like to progress towards other, better-healthy habits or if they need more time to master the previous ones.
When it comes to resolutions, we tend to say them negatively; for example, we say, I will stop consuming alcohol, I will not take any carbohydrates after 2 pm, or even I will not take breakfast since I need to lose some weight. It is for this reason that we prefer to set healthy habit goals since we can incorporate new things into our daily lives instead of making ourselves feel deprived.
Goals must be realistic to be achievable; otherwise, you’re only lying to yourself for the most part. If you are satisfied with the results of your goals, you will be able to pursue them further and will feel prepared to take on more. For instance, the following communicates the healthy habit goal of taking more water,
If you plan to drink that much water (whatever the particular quantity is for you), then drink water in smaller portions throughout the day. If a numerical goal isn’t helpful, try another structure like, ‘I will have two sips of water as soon as I wake up – that’s all. ’
These small healthy behaviors can even be powerful when compiled for one whole year and instantly affect the well-being of a human being. If one of the goals was to incorporate 15 minutes of walking after lunch on weekdays outdoors, for example, That was more than 60 hours of walking for the year – a truly remarkable achievement, especially because it was an upshot of a goal as basic as 15 minutes of regular walking daily. Not only would you benefit from the exercise but from getting some fresh air every day and having a few minutes to yourself, which is going to be a considerable stress relief technique.
List of Healthy Habits
Here are some examples of healthy-habit goals: Below is the list; have a look and see if any of them match your plans for 2022.
Drink More Water
On this one, we must apologise for the redundancy—yet, water intake is essential to one’s well-being and does not require much effort at all. Water is involved in digestion and the elimination of solid wastes from the body. Some of the symptoms of dehydration include; headaches, dry mouth, extensive taste, fatigue, muscle cramps, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating.
Setting a goal to force yourself to drink a certain amount of water is a good way to start developing healthy behavior. The general guideline should be to take, in ounces, half the body weight in water per day, the limit being 100 ounces. For instance, it is recommended that a 180-pound individual should drink 90 ounces of water per day. Some factors do change while some remain constant but all in all, it is correct to start with it.
If you have a large amount of ounces, it may be best to set a more realistic goal to begin with. It is recommended that you should drink not less than 48 ounces of water per day. When you have been consistent with this for a month, try to increase the ounces a little. Once a person is used to the routine of drinking water, it should be easier to increase the amount the person drinks. If that goal does not work for you, there is another alternative you may want to try, which includes switching your afternoon soda to flavored sparkling water.
Consume More Fruits and vegetables.
Most American adults do not consume even half the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables. Increasing the portions of fruits and vegetables consumed throughout the day can be an excellent new resolution. More fruits and vegetables to the diet will introduce more vitamin and mineral values, fibre, and antioxidants as well.
It can be challenging and a little bit tough for the stomach, if one is not accustomed to it, to go directly into the nine portions of fruits and vegetables. It‘s advised that people start with small portions and gradually increase it to one serving size at a time. When you have achieved this, you can gradually build on it, for instance, by having one serving of fruits or vegetables in each meal and in between meals.
When first getting started, choose one meal or snack for the first week that we would like to incorporate a portion of fruit or veggies. This may mean adding a handful of berries to oats or yogurt in the morning, making a better sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes in between, having a few carrots and cucumber with hummus or an apple with peanut butter during the day, and having a side salad with the evening meal.
Include these in what we are already consuming, and it would not be hard to gradually get used to eating more fruits and vegetables. Remember, every bit counts. Thus, salsa on scrambled eggs – works. A few extra pickles on a sandwich? Yes, I think that counts as well. And topping pasta with tomato sauce—yes, please – it is not OPTIONAL!
Consume More Greens
Perhaps your healthy habit goal is a little different when it comes to vegetables. Many of us have been told that green leafy vegetables are among the most beneficial food products known, and perhaps it would be to our advantage to use all this information. Still, it is crucial to understand that the content density of the vegetables is different, but most of them have a high amount of fiber, folate, manganese, vitamin K1, and antioxidants.
Just like with the goal of trying to consume more fruits and vegetables, start your goal of consuming more greens in a small quantity. Try to select one meal and then gradually introduce some greens into the process.
Include baby spinach into a glass of juice or scrambled eggs for breakfast. For lunch, you may include a few servings of the arugula in your sandwich or wrap. Consume soup where you have chopped kale incorporated into the preparation process. You can include a small salad to dinner or have cabbage or bok choy with your dinner in packs or as a stir-fry.
You can also introduce some powdered greens into your system to improve your healthy habits. For more information, read this review about Super Green Powder.
Eat Breakfast
Consuming breakfast within an hour after waking up, helps us to stabilise our energy levels throughout the day and might also help regulate hormones. Who would not like to make that a practice?
The first meal is also the most important one and should contain carbohydrates, protein, And fat so that you do not get hungry again in the morning. Except for that, if this healthy habit is your goal, there are no other rules there are to follow. Regarding the choice of food, it is not mandatory to eat breakfast foods. Suppose you prefer smoothies, oatmeal, or eggs in the morning – great. However, if you are interested in having some of last night's taqueria, that is quite right as well.
Healthy Snacks
Perhaps your goal for the start of the year was to make your snacks healthier. As much as snacking has become a normal practice, some of us don’t even take time to plan for it, and most of the time, we end up having a snack that is usually either sweet or salty from the vending machine or pantry. And sometimes, it’s just a coffee to look forward to an energetic blast.
Taking a small amount of food in between meals can also be a good approach to maintaining a healthy balance of blood sugar levels as well as pressing a check on the hormones. For that, snacks are also a chance to add a little extra nutrients into our diets.
Balance snacks properly to ensure you have taken a source of protein or fat with the carbohydrate. Fruit and nut butter are the best snacks, but people can add fruit to all types of meals. Consider the foods that you normally prefer to take during snack time and try to achieve a balance. When you feel like you need some salty food, then go for crackers, jerky or sliced deli meat, olives, and cheese. And if a good crunch is something that floats your boat, here are Crackers – crisp vegetables with homemade hummus or low-fat guacamole. One can try peeling some fruit – this is a delicious way to cope with the sweet craving; add nuts, cheese, or a hard-boiled egg, and this fruit will keep one full for several hours.
Selecting a well-balanced snack takes us to the next healthy habits that one has to embrace.
Meal Plan
Meal planning and meal prepping are often paired with each other, but we can definitely differentiate between them and start the process gradually. Meal planning is not a unique process, and there are many approaches to meal planning, so one has to find out which one is most suitable for him or her. The first thing that one should know about the planning of the meals is that it is simply a general guide. Commitment in a relationship does not mean that you are bound somehow by some rule that you cannot escape, regardless of the circumstances.
A simple approach towards the program is to decide in advance, which meal or which meals you will plan and then spare a few minutes and look at the calendar of the week ahead to see how much time you would be able to devote to preparing the meals.
When it comes to meal planning, it is often easiest to begin with dinner. Before going shopping, have a glance at your refrigerator and the store cupboard to determine what is already available at home, and then shop around this to try to reduce waste and the cost of food bills.
Consider your family’s favorite foods. Does everyone enjoy spaghetti? It should be a part of the meal plan. Looking for sauce inspiration? Here is the simple ragu recipe.
Some people prefer to divide their meals, or food choices, into different days of the week, like Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, or Soup and Sammies Sunday. Some people prefer just taking five minutes and writing down a set of favorite dishes and then spending a few weeks cycling through the list. It may also be quite beneficial and enlightening to have the family involved in creating this list. You might not remember that your daughter was so fond of the chicken stir-fry that you made a few weeks ago.
Remember, not every dinner must be prepared like a 5-star restaurant meal. Are you a family with a tight schedule with lots of sports practices and music lessons? Prepare something as simple as getting a roast chicken from the supermarket besides a bag of salad leaves and a bowl of microwave rice.
Since one of the habits you are acquiring is to have healthy snacks, meal planning is a good way of making the right foods available to snack on. That is, you can start with meal planning with snacks first, thus ensuring that your grocery list includes your favorite vegetables, hummus, fruits, and nuts.
Meal Prep
Just as with meal planning, meal prepping can be as unique as there are grains of sand on the beach. But once you’ve discovered what strategies are best for you, then that morning’s meal could be a godsend. Others discover that if they make a conscious effort to wash and chop all of the veggies for the week, it is enough to serve dinners more quickly. Some prefer to marinate whole dishes that only require cooking at the time when they want to serve them. Still, others prefer prepping a little bit of everything to make the option of mix-and-match easy meals to prepare. Stocking is another preparation technique; it means if you are grilling chicken to put it into easy salads this week, grill the quantity, which would also be sufficient for the coming weeks, and put that in the freezer for use. Batch cooking may come in handy when preparing foods like soups and chili, for they are very flexible when frozen.
Another preferred approach to meal prepping is to set aside an hour or two on a day when you have time to prepare some of the items you plan to eat for the week and get a head start on the cooking process. For instance, on Sunday, dedicate one hour in preparation for the workweek by washing and prepping veggies for salad and other dishes, boiling eggs, preparing oats for the next day, and checking on the frozen goods for the rest of the week.
One does not have to begin with leaping into preparing all meals for the week to come up with a plan. Begin with something such as preparing lunch with a big pot of soup for the week or chopping vegetables and toppings for a big salad. Or, more accurately, ensure that you have everything needed for your best sandwiches prepared and easily accessible.
Breakfast has got to be one of the simplest things to prepare for a whole week with a large pot of oatmeal that can be reheated in portions throughout the week with some slices of toast, a plate of waffles that can be toasted or frozen, and then reheated, or baked egg casserole that you just have to warm up in the morning.
Get Enough Sleep
In simpler terms, the majority of people are not getting enough hours of good night's sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has it that most adults require more than seven hours of sleep per night, and most would benefit from a nine-hour sleep cycle. Sleep is one of the primary aspects that are a necessity in our lives. In this manner, people’s bodies and brains can recuperate from day-to-day hustles and bustles through sleep.
Saying that one gets enough sleep may be challenging as a society; most of the time, we are proud of the general lack of sleep. To make this a healthy habit, start with easy goals when it comes to sleep. A good sleeping environment can be achieved by sleeping in a room that is cool and off any source of light. Good sleep hygiene begins by picking an adult sleep timetable, using a paradigm such as taking a warm bath or shower before you retire to bed and avoiding the use of electronics for about an hour or two before bedtime. Replace the habit of going through social networks after work with reading a book or doing meditation.
This means starting the first week and going to bed fifteen minutes earlier than we used to and in the second week we increase the duration of sleep by another fifteen minutes and so on to the extent of providing ourselves with 7-9 hours sleep in a night consistently.
Such issues as the inability to fall asleep or night wake-ups are not very surprising, and our NTP team can offer you many treatments.
Take Some Time to Socialize
All of us have probably been quarantined from other people for the past year and a half. Perhaps we shall have to look at ourselves and establish a mission of getting ourselves out to social again. Interacting with others is not only good for the mind but also for the body. Past studies have pointed out that social activity is related to well-being and resistance to afflictions such as flu and depressive outlook.
To achieve the goal of an improved social life, begin with small steps that will pave the way for improvement. Perhaps the task of the week is to spend 20 minutes in the day and call at least one friend with whom you have not talked in a long time. Or perhaps go for a coffee meeting with the new parent at your children’s school. Sometimes, it can be just a walk around the block just to say hi to the neighbors. This, therefore, points to the fact that if you add social interactions to your goal-setting plan, then you’ll help build the support network.
What targets can we have at the start of this year?
As we strive to keep up with New Year resolutions, it is important to learn how to balance being realistic and ambitious when setting achievable goals that we should meet all year round to develop healthy behaviors. When you get through one or two sets of goals at the start of the new month, you can pause for a while and then contemplate whether you wish to include another healthy habit goal set for February. It is much more productive to spend, for example, five or ten minutes every month discussing how we are getting along with our goals and deciding what action we can take to move forward.
Deciding on which healthy habits are most suitable for your lifestyle and the kind of lifestyle change you intend to embrace can be challenging. Luckily, Curated practitioners are here to assist you with selecting the right healthy habit targets at the beginning of the year 2022. Make an appointment to have an accountability partner to monitor your progress and ensure you stay on course.
