2023 is on the horizon and with it plenty of new year resolutions. Most people, of course, won’t keep to their resolutions, but that’s because they focus on a single difficult-to-obtain goal rather than the steps it takes to get there. If you’re thinking of starting to work out every day once January 1st rolls around, stop and rethink. If you don’t currently work out, you aren’t likely going to go to the gym every day.
Most likely, exercise isn’t the most pressing concern in your health, either. By instead working on your health’s foundations, you can then build up your health to the point where you live well, and feel well, too. This requires a comprehensive approach that starts with your diet, and can then be built on from there.
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How to Boost Your Diet for the New Year
We are what we eat is a good thing to keep in mind when it comes to managing your weight and eating foods that provide more enrichment than you may currently consume. In most cases, you can achieve both by removing processed foods from your life. There are many ways you can prep food so that it tastes better without adding extra cooking time. Marinate a plain chicken breast, for example, and you can get all the lovely flavors without needing to use excessive amounts of sauces. Or you can slow-cook items to really bring out that boost in taste.
If you find that plain ingredients on their own don’t have a lot of flavors, try to visit a farmer’s market or shop free-range items instead. Where an animal comes from, what it eats, and what boosters or chemicals it’s subjected to when alive will drastically impact the taste. As for fruits and vegetables, taste and nutrients can actually fade if they’re transported over long distances. If farmer’s markets are out of your reach or budget, it’s actually better to shop frozen instead of fresh, since frozen veggies are flash-frozen on-site.
Don’t be afraid of supplements or boosters, either. An after-meal digestive enzyme mint can help your body break down food more efficiently, so you get more nutrients out of your meals while simultaneously curbing issues like bloating or gas. There are plenty of supplements or additions you can add to your meals to get more out of your food. You can add whole ingredients like chia seeds or nutritional yeast, for example, or you can use a vitamin supplement.
When it comes to supplements, do keep in mind that some vitamins or minerals should not be overdosed on. It is very hard to overdose on vitamins, yes, and some, like Vitamin C, are harmless, but too much could give you headaches. Just keep in mind which ones can pose a problem. It’s almost impossible to overdose on a single vitamin through diet alone, so this tip is mostly for those using vitamin supplements.
Tip: It can be beneficial to get tested to see if you have any specific nutrient deficiencies. If you’re constantly tired, for example, your body may not be able to absorb iron from food as well, or you may not eat enough iron-rich foods. Knowing where your health is lacking can help you make smarter diet decisions or, alternatively, can give you something to focus on when you go to the doctor. Some people, for example, need an iron booster shot on a regular basis.
How to Sleep Better Next Year
There are many ways that you can improve your quality of sleep. To start, consider the environment that you’re in. If your bed is too small, too hard, or the sheets are scratchy, these are all issues that can continually wake you up, particularly if you sleep with someone else in the bed.
Light, airflow, and temperature will also impact your quality of sleep. In general, you’ll want your bedroom to be slightly cooler than the rest of your home. In fact, cooler temperatures for sleeping are much preferred. Accomplish this by turning off your heat or opening up a window to get the room down to the right temperature. To stay warm, add more blankets or get a duvet that’s thicker. Not only will this help keep you in place, the heavier duvet can also act a bit like a weighted blanket, letting you sleep more deeply.
All of these tips, of course, just improve the room itself. If you still find it difficult to sleep well every night, then you’re going to have to take it to the next level. Don’t worry, this level is simply routine. Go to bed at the same time every single day and wake up at the same time every day with minimal variation. This helps your circadian rhythm get on track so you naturally feel tired around bedtime and can naturally wake up in the morning as well.
If you want to improve your rhythm even further, try to stay away from blue-white light after dark. Blue-white light, like the kind you see on electronic screens, can trick your brain into waking up since the only blue-white light found in nature is daylight. By at least switching on the night mode of your devices, you can help curb the issue.
Exercise – But Make it Fun
Most people cannot commit to their exercise resolutions because they’re boring. If you find that going to the gym is hard because there’s no stimulus or you just don’t have fun while you do it, it’s time to find something else. Some people can exercise for exercising sake, others cannot. If you can’t, it’s important to do something extra. Instead of going to the gym, take a dance class. Instead of running in the morning, try biking to work. If there’s a purpose or a way to combine activities (like exercising and making friends or exercising on your commute) you can more readily adopt it into your routine.
There are so many different ways that you can exercise. If you want to continue your efforts, you need to make it fun, or at least valuable enough to continue. Adding exercise to your existing routine (like your commute) can help you reach your fitness goals very quickly. Exercising for fun can not only help you get fit but can also open up a whole new world of friends and excitement.
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