Yay, so you’re interested in how to start a healthy lifestyle. Let me start off by saying, starting a healthy lifestyle is exciting and nerve-racking all at the same time.
Pause for a moment, and express gratitude to yourself for embracing the possibility of changing your eating habits plus your overall lifestyle. This is not an easy task yet it is rewarding!
Here you will learn how to start a healthy lifestyle by incorporating my 5 beginner tips.
I personally started my health and wellness journey about 8 years ago, and it took some trial and error to learn how to get started and how to maintain my health.
It’s time to start treating your body right because YOU DESERVE IT, to practice self-love through food because YOU DESERVE IT, and for you to love the life you live WHILE feeling good on the inside.
These tips may seem preliminary, but trust me you need to start here. If you want to know more about how to start a healthy lifestyle, then grab a coffee or some tea, and let’s dive into this together.
I’m rooting for you!
This article is all about 5 tips on how to start a healthy lifestyle
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How To Start A Healthy Lifestyle: 5 Tips For Beginners
1. Renew your mind about food
It’s time to renew your mind! if you’ve decided that you want to learn how to start a healthy lifestyle, you must begin in the mind. It all starts in the mind, and you do that by transforming the way that you think about food.
A lot of us have grown up eating a western diet: fast food, eating out at restaurants for meals, eating lots of sugars, and eating a lot of processed foods.
Because of this, we have been conditioned to eat wrong and you need to take the time to relearn the proper way to eat. Interesting, right?
It’s almost like starting from scratch a little bit. You’ll essentially remove everything that you thought you knew about food and start incorporating a new truth about what food really is.
Start asking yourself questions like, “what is food really?” and “What was God’s intended purpose for food?”
For example, places like McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco Bell do not serve food. They serve a type of food, but not real nutritional food.
This may be alarming to some because I myself thought I was eating food. I mean, how could this not be food, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not and that’s why it’s so important for you to start renewing your mind about what food really is. Healthy eating takes time to learn, so be patient with yourself during your learning phase.
Ask yourself questions like, “By me intaking this, will it nourish my body, or hinder my body’s ability to thrive?”, “What did God intended for food to do for the human body. What was his purpose?”
Asking yourself these types of questions will help when it comes to learning how to start a healthy lifestyle.
If you just jump right into the journey and don’t renew your mind or take the time to transform your thinking, when the going gets tough, you’ll just revert back to your old habits.
It’s human nature. Change the mind, change the man….. or woman 😊
That’s like taking someone and putting them in a new place without that person’s mind being renewed.
That person will be in a new place but will still behave and experience the old because their mind was never transformed.
Your mind is the most powerful thing that you have! As you journey through renewing your mind for a healthy lifestyle, pray for grace and ask God to give you what you need for your journey.
Grace for sure helped me through because it’s more about a lifestyle change rather than a diet change.
Transform the way that you think about food, and your journey will be fueled by the information you receive.
2. Get educated
After you have renewed your mind, and have an understanding of what food truly is, it’s time to educated yourself on the following:
- Educate yourself on the why. Why is your health so important and why have you decided to take this journey? This step is so important because when the going gets tough your why will help you stay motivated.
- Get educated on the body, its functions, and how you can support those functions.
- Get educated on proper nutrition, different food groups, and the best types of foods to consume. i.e., grass-fed meats, organic produce, etc.
- Educate yourself on the best vitamins, supplements, and minerals. It’s also important to find a trusted source to get your supplements from.
If you need help on which supplements are the best, visit my health pantry to see some of the top recommend supplements that I use in my healthy lifestyle routine. 😊 Visit the health pantry here .
5. Educate yourself on what YOUR body does and does not like. Practice listening to your body. Your body will tell you when it doesn’t agree with certain foods. Practice self-love by listening to your body and omitting those food types.
One thing that definitely helped me in my journey was watching trusted food documentaries. I lived off food documentaries for a while to get a better understanding of why starting a healthy lifestyle was so important.
I also watched food documentaries on different subjects about sugar intake, juicing, etc.
The most popular ones are Food Inc, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, and What the Health. These are all great places to start!
Watching those targeted food documentaries can give you that second wind when you feel discouraged, unsure, or feel like quitting. They were a lifesaver for me and helped me stick to the commitment I made to myself.
It’s also important to understand that you don’t need to get educated all at once. Education will come as your travel along your journey.
The longer you do it the better educated you will become, and the more knowledge you will have to make healthier decisions.
This article is all about 5 tips on how to start a healthy lifestyle
RELATED:
15 Amazing Bible Verses On Health That Inspire Healthy Eating (Affirmations Included)
3. Start small: Cut out 1 thing at a time
I want you to take this step literally. Starting small will help you from burnout, confusion, and weariness of the journey.
By starting small, you can cut out one thing at a time instead of trying to eliminate a lot at once. Trust me, this will make the journey a lot easier on you and more tolerable.
Take a look at your diet and find 1 thing that you know you need to stop eating and cut that item out of your diet.
Once you’ve mastered that one thing and kicked the cravings, then you can move on to cutting out the next toxic thing from your diet.
For example, you could start with your liquids. For me, I use to love soda. I mean love it! I think I was addicted to the sugars in it to be completely honest.
What I did was cut the soda out and replaced it with sweet tea (no white sugars or high fructose corn syrup). Yes, I thought I was doing something because I was still learning.
The point here is to make adjustments and stick to them. You want to be moving in the right direction even if it’s small steps and not big leaps.
For my lifestyle at the time removing soda and replacing it with sweet tea was a win for me. Once I got more educated and kicked the sweet tea habit, I moved on to drinking only water and cold-pressed fruit juices.
Once I continued my education, I cut out store-bought fruit juices and only drank water plus I started making my own lemonade and green teas with local honey.
Check out this book for an educational resource. Eating Healthy: The Beginner’s Guide On How to Eat Healthy and Stick To It Without Depriving Yourself of The Foods You Love.
Your health decisions will grow as your education grows. And it’s okay for you to move at this pace.
However, if you feel like you can eliminate things cold turkey there is no harm in giving it a try. You have my full support!
Before we jump into the 4th tip on how to start a healthy lifestyle. I think it’s important for you to embrace the knowledge that you have.
A lot of us get the knowledge and we know what to do but we’re just not doing it. Honor your time and yourself and start implementing what you are learning and the nuggets that you pick up along the way.
4. Find healthy alternatives- they are out there!
This one is important! It’s so important for you to find healthy alternatives!
You will soon realize that there is a replacement for everything. What this means for you is that you can enjoy the foods that you eat.
Plus, you can still incorporate some of your favorite foods, just in a healthier way.
When I found this out on my journey, I was all in. Sign me up! Where do I sign?!
We all have foods that we just absolutely love, so be intentional about finding healthier versions of your favorite foods.
As I mentioned before, this is a very important step because it keeps you excited, motivated, and gives you momentum to keep going. If you’re anything like me, you might be big on sweets.
If so, take the time to find healthier alternatives to your favorite sweets.
You can also make your own versions at home to ensure the ingredients are up to your standards. There are so many recipe blogs out there to be used as a resource.
Find someone that resonates with you and take advantage of the information they provide.
When you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth in a healthier way look for things sweetened with honey, molasses, or coconut palm sugar. You’d be surprised at the offerings out there these days.
So don’t be afraid, find healthy alternatives to the foods you love while on your journey to a healthy lifestyle. You want to build a lifestyle that will last, and not something just temporary.
Remember, there are healthy alternatives out there for most of the things you enjoy. However, you must understand that certain things will be eliminated that won’t be re-introduced into your diet.
You will stumble upon certain things that your body doesn’t agree with, and things you may have a reaction to.
Once you start cleaning up your diet, you will be able to recognize the red flags your body sends you so choose wisely.
There have been certain foods that I cut out and tried to re-introduce that my body no longer agreed with.
I learned the hard way to listen to my body. It’s better to sacrifice now than feel horrible later because of a poor decision.
The best part about finding healthy alternatives, besides enjoying a version of the foods you love (sometimes better), is that once the work is done it’s done.
Doing the work to find healthier alternatives can be time-consuming and a bit more costly financially; however, once you find the proper stores and alternative brands you have that knowledge forever.
You’ll know where to shop, which brands you can trust, and what foods you like best. It’s a win-win for you!
5. Be patient with yourself
Whatever you do, please be patient with yourself and patient with the process.
When you start wondering how to start a healthy lifestyle, look at it as a marathon and not a sprint.
It took me 4-5 years before I was a fully well-rounded educated consumer. You’ll learn about how to eat properly, how to cleanse properly, how to listen to your body, what vitamins you need, how to heal certain ailments naturally etc.
It’s a process! I cannot stress this enough, so please be patient with YOU.
You are worth the time and the investment. One day you will look up and you’ll be helping others or your family start their healthy lifestyle journeys.
I encourage you to keep the pace when it gets hard, to stay on the journey when you want to quit, to get back up again if you fall, and to not do this alone.
It’s okay to ask for help, and most importantly ask God to give you the grace you need for the journey.
If you want a hamburger, have a hamburger! Yes, have that hamburger! This time you will have it differently.
You can use grass feed beef instead of factory-raised, you can use a gluten-free bun (or no bun), you can use ketchup without high fructose corn syrup, and use organic cheese from grass-fed cows (if you choose to keep dairy in your diet).
Of course, I wouldn’t encourage you to do this every day. The important thing is not to deprive yourself constantly.
Plus, it’s important that you rest if you need to BUT DON’T QUIT.
Final thoughts: How To Start A Healthy Lifestyle: 5 Tips For Beginners
You made it to the end with me. Thanks for sticking around! Now it’s your turn. I would love to hear from you. Pop me a comment below and let me know how your journey is going.
I pray you got something from my 5 tips on how to start a healthy lifestyle. Also, check out 15 Affirmations and Bible Verses on Health to Inspire Healthy Eating.
Remember this is a marathon and not a sprint, rest if you must but don’t quit, if you fall get back up again, and reach out for support if you need it.
You can always reach me at khrystal@holyappetite.com for more questions. I am rooting for you, and until next time, keep healing my friend!
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