Have you ever asked yourself how to begin a healthy lifestyle? If the answer is yes, it means you’ve felt the need to change and improve your lifestyle and eating habits. Whether it is for the sake of your physical and mental health, or just your self-esteem and self-control, I’m glad you did. There is no ideal time to start a change. The important thing is to take the first step!

To begin a healthy lifestyle you need willpower, psychological preparation and focus on health as a greater good. After all, there are no short cuts! As Mahatma Gandhi rightly said: “You never know what results will come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results.” Change is within you, in your choices, in your self-love and in what is good for you! And I’m not talking about temporary change. It’s the adoption of a new lifestyle, a new philosophy.

I often say that when we embrace a healthy lifestyle, health becomes the focus and weight loss becomes a mere, but permanent, consequence. In this article “How To Begin A Healthy Lifestyle” my intention is to help you make better choices and feel good about yourself. Therefore, I will be sharing with you 11 Valuable Tips I consider important for a lasting, effective, and beneficial change that you could easily and happily practice in your day to day. Come on! Make peace with the food. Make peace with the mirror. Make peace with yourself!

Tip #1 Do Not Abandon The Kitchen! Prepare Your Own Food!

You can even say you don’t like to cook, that you don’t have time, that you don’t have the skills. I used to give the same excuses not to go into the kitchen. The only thing I ask is that you TRY! After all, there is nothing healthier than preparing your own food!

Do you know why?

Because you’ll have full control of the quality of the ingredients used and the proper method of preparation and in the end making healthy dishes that you like to eat! Cooking is an act of nutrition and love! Love for you, for others, for your health.

Cooking is an act of fraternization and celebration. It’s the perfect time to gather family and friends around the table. It is to taste affection and care in the form of food. Start by preparing something for yourself or for those you love. Do nothing out of obligation but give yourself more opportunities to cook. Take time to take care of yourself and your health.

Tip #2 Break The Myth That Being Healthy Is Expensive

Being healthy is not expensive! Expensive is having to treat diseases, expensive is eating out, living on takeaways without knowing what ingredients are being used, their origin and the method of preparation. Start preparing your own food and you’ll see that what you spend on food will reduce.

Take pack lunches with healthy snacks to work, freeze your food. Practicality is the key to success!

Do you want to save money? Buy your fruit and vegetable from your local market

Consume eggs, fruits, and vegetables, vary the cuts and types of meat and fish, make substitutions and new combinations. Allow yourself to try new flavours. Invent, use imagination, create! Healthy food is simple food! Less is more!

Tip #3 Don’t Go On A Fad Diets! Eat Real Food!

The word “DIET” is associated with something negative, such as deprivation, suffering or monotony. I don’t believe in miracle diets, crazy and with many restrictions. They are not sustainable in the long run. People starve, do not have the freedom to choose the foods they enjoy, have no pleasure in eating, feel unhappy and everything becomes difficult to access and continue.

The tendency is for people to give up the diet after a while and return to eating the same things that made them fat, regaining all the weight lost. Did you know that more than 80% of people who lose weight on restrictive diets get fat again, gaining more weight than they had before they started?

After all, they lose weight in an unhealthy way, counting only calories, and forgetting to nourish the body. The change must be from the root, that is, in the quality of what is consumed and not in quantity. Opt for a correct and conscious diet – focus on health as a greater good. Eat real food!

Tip #4 Love Yourself, Admire Yourself And Respect Yourself!

If you don’t change your habits out of love for you, surely your body will pay the price for it in the future. This price will come in form of pain, inflammation, diseases, bad quality of life, etc. No one’s going to take better care of you than you are. Treat your body with affection, really nourish it and it will accompany you well in life. After all, genetics is not fate! It is strongly influenced by factors in the environment in which we are inserted.

What we are, how we live and who we’ll become tomorrow is the fruit of our daily choices. Our body is our responsibility! Therefore, take care of your health as your most precious asset. Loving oneself does not imply accepting one’s obesity, much less imposing on oneself an unattainable and dangerously demanded aesthetic standard by today’s society. Free yourself!

Tip #5 Open Fewer Exceptions. Don’t Wait For Miracles!

If you aim to lose weight or stay healthy and with long-term quality of life, you can’t keep making exceptions at all times. We live surrounded by edible substances, highly processed and industrialized, refined, full of sugar, bad fats and chemical additives. It’s an abundance of cheap, empty and addictive calories. If you eat improperly, keep in mind the consequences – this can compromise your goal.

Often, to restart is a little more painful and difficult – learn to eat better and be aware of what a food for your health means. Special occasions exist, but need to be treated as exceptions. When they occur eventually, there is no harm to a body already adapted, besides being healthy for the soul. After all, “you’re what you do/eat most of the time.” Eating is not just an act of nutrition – it is also an act of socialization, pleasure, and celebration. But balance and common sense are key!

Tip #6 Have A Love Relationship With Food

Food is not just to satisfy hunger or provide the calories necessary for our survival. Learn how to use it to your advantage! Start to see food as a precious medicine, something that will nourish your body, offering greater protection against diseases, greater stimulation to health and better quality of life. Feel happy and satisfied to eat something healthy and nutritious.

Don’t eat out of guilt, anxiety, or gluttony. Eat thinking about the benefits of food for your long-term health. Try to create a relationship of love with real food, with natural foods. They are the ones who will give you the foundations necessary to build a healthy, light, and happy life. “True happiness is impossible without true health, and true health is impossible without strict control of gluttony” (Mahatma Gandhi).

Tip #7 You Are What You Buy!

You’re not just what you eat. You’re what you buy! If you buy foods that are not healthy, you will have it at home. If you’re home, you’ll eat it – so close, so available and so easy, these foods will be the first to be consumed. So choose what’s good for you. Do not buy and do not have at home edible substances (highly processed and refined industrialized products, full of sugar, bad fats and additives) that are not nutritious, make you fat and can compromise your focus on quality food.

Plan and be organized!

Prepare your menu for the week and make a shopping list. In addition to being more efficient, spending less time on the supermarket, it helps you to stay focused on your  healthy foods list and prevents you from choosing what is not planned. Learn how to read food labels, nutritional table, and ingredient list. Real food is simple and natural food, it does not come in a package, canned, with shelf life and with a long list of unpronounceable ingredients.

Run from DIET, LIGHT, FIT, LOW-FAT products!

Run from those food products with commercial appeals and promises of healthy properties or dubious nutritional information.

When shopping, avoid going hungry!

The trend is to buy everything we see ahead, losing the ability to analyse what is really necessary and nutritious. Make good shopping and good choices!

Tip #8 Create Good Habits And Everything Will Become Natural!

Changing our habits is not easy. An important step in this process is to have more positive attitudes.

• Start exchanging the word hard for ‘little easy’.

• Prepare yourself psychologically. It takes willpower and determination to get out of the comfort zone, fight against an unfavourable environment and accept a new life proposal.

• Take it one step at a time. Build health on daily permanent changes.

When your behaviour becomes a habit and you realize how beneficial this change is to you, everything becomes much easier and natural. New habits will become part of your life and you will become an example and source of inspiration for the people around you, encouraging them to change as well. “Our beliefs turn into thoughts, thoughts into words, words become actions, and these repeated actions become habits. And these habits form our values, and our values determine our destiny” (Mahatma Gandhi).

Tip #9 Respect And Value Your Individuality!

Each person is different from the other and has different goals. What works for me may not work for you. Each body works in a certain way, digests, and absorbs food in a peculiar way, responds differently to the stimuli applied and has specific nutritional needs. So don’t compare yourself to anyone. Respect your condition and do not try to match your results with those obtained by another person. We are unique and singular! That’s the beauty of life!

Tip #10 Practice A Physical Activity!

Physical activity is not the best strategy for those looking for weight loss. It will work only as a good supporting role.  However, the regular practice of physical exercises is considered one of the 4 major pillars of good health by the WHO, alongside food/hydration, stress management and good sleep hygiene.

Physical activity is very good for physical and mental health and promotes several benefits, including reducing the risk of developing diseases, improves mood and anxiety, aids in mobility and quality of life in the long term.

Tip #11 Cultivate Healthy Relationships

People who really care about you will accept, respect, and encourage you on your search for a healthier lifestyle. However, you need to tell them about your change, your needs and difficulties. Show how essential their help is in this process and that you need their support and encouragement. Get them involved.

• Those who love you, don’t sabotage, don’t criticize, and don’t put you down.

• Build healthy, stable, and reliable relationships.

• Create quality connections.

• Choose to stay with people who mean you well, who value you and can add and multiply. According to studies, good relationships keep us happier and healthier, physically and mentally, and make us live longer and with more quality and well-being. It is not the quantity that matters, what matters is the quality of these relationships.

I hope you find these tips helpful and if you have any question about “How To Begin A Healthy Lifestyle” or want to leave your own personal opinion, leave me a comment below. And if you liked the tips, share this article with your friends and family. Encourage change and engage with the people around you!