Spring Cleaning Your Health
Spring Cleaning our health is the last post in our spring cleaning series. During our spring cleaning series, we’ve purged expired beauty products from our makeup bags, made eco-friendly cleaning supplies to help with the dreaded spring cleaning, and now we’re going to spring clean our health.
I feel like spring is a better time for health and diet changes than January; for the simple fact that spring weather makes it easier to get outside for exercise and a variety of fresh produce is available.
Spring cleaning our health isn’t about major radical changes. Spring cleaning our health is about looking at the places that need cleaned up, need a little help. These 6 health topics are areas where many of us are deficient. When we do not we eat as we should, hydrate, sleep, or exercise our bodies make it harder to lose weight, our skin dulls, our health suffers, inflammation builds, and we can become depressed.
I personally have experience all of those negative effects from not caring for myself, but I thought I was. I thought I drank enough water. I’m a person who likes food. I thought I was informed when it came to nutrition. Even though I wasn’t get enough sleep, but I was exercising, so why couldn’t I lose the extra weight? I thought I knew what I was doing, but I was wrong. My dietitian recommended that I not only write in a food journal, but daily note my water, sleep, and activities. All of this opened my eyes to where there were deficits in my “healthy lifestyle”. I know I’m not alone. The Mayo Clinic found that only 3% of Americans meet the criteria for a healthy lifestyle.
As you can tell, I am passionate about spring cleaning health. I’ve seen it change my life. I know it can change yours too! I have more energy, my skin is better, my digestion is better, and I fit back into my jeans! Spring cleaning our health is about pin pointing places where we can tweak our lifestyle. These small changes are easy to do and will have your body feeling it’s best in no time!
1.Drink Enough Water
Water is responsible for nourishing our cells, joints, it helps us to eliminate waste. When we are well hydrated our skin’s tone is improved and dry skin is minimized.
How much water we should drink depends on our sex, environment, and activity level. On average a man should drink 15.5 cups of fluids a day, where as a woman should drink 11.5 cups.
Most liquids can help hydrate you, including coffee and tea. However, in order to hydrate well, we should be consuming liquids without caffeine, sugars, high fructose corn syrup, low/no calories, and no sodium. A good rule of thumb is, the more natural the better.
If drinking plain water is a challenge for you; try infusing your water with fruit, herbs, or cucumber. Infused water is easy to do and is so refreshing. Organic Life has a very informative infographic to inspire your infusion combinations.
If simply remembering how much water to drink is the issue, there are water bottles that can help you track your intake. They range from high tech and sync with your phone to low tech with a clicking cap. A friend of mine has had the sleekly designed, low tech Joseph Joseph for about a year and she loves it. To track your water consumption, after you have finished drinking 20 oz, you twist the Joseph Joseph’s cap, it clicks and reveals 1 or 3 dots. The Joseph Joseph is reasonably priced and can be found on amazon.
I personally have a plain, stainless-steel water bottle that I love. I know I need to drink 3 a day. That works for me.
2. Food Diary
As I said earlier, a food diary changed my life. I know it sounds silly. I thought I was eating well and moving enough. Once I journaled everyday for a month I was able to see that I was missing the mark by a long shot. Honestly one week into journaling, I could see I was as great at being healthy as I had thought.
First rule of the food diary, pick out something you will use. $1 note book, gorgeous journal, it doesn’t matter. It just has to be something you will use. I suggest something that will fit in a purse too for those occasions you eat out or at the office.
Secondly, put the journal where it is easy to grab and use. Convenience is key. If you think you will write it down later, later may never come. My best place is on the counter. I find it utterly annoying to have it cluttering the counter, so it makes me use it.
If you are like One in ten Americans your journal probably revealed that you are not enough fruits or vegetables. For women between the ages of 19-50, 2.5 cups of veggies a day is adequate. The fruit serving recommendation are 2Cups for women ages 19-30; 1.5 a day for ages 31- 50.
Upping the intake of fruits and vegetable needn’t be stressful. The great thing about spring and summer is the variety of produce available. Smoothies and Salads are a delicious, convenient way to increase our consumption of produce.
Salads can be made ahead and it’s a great way to get the daily recommendation of veggies. Salads do not have to be boring. Hello Glow has a great No-Fail No-Boring Salad post complete with a How to Make the Perfect Salad info-graphic that will up your salad game. For a salad that screams warm weather and sunshine, check out Yay! For Food’s Berry Orange Spinach Salad with Citrus Balsamic Vinaigrette. One word. Amazing!
Smoothies are a great way to sneak in your daily servings of both fruits and vegetable, the trick is to watch those calories. Keep your smoothies all natural too.
Smoothies can be a little intimidating, especially if you are trying to add vegetable to the mix. We’ve compiled a list of smoothies to help get you started. All have easy to find ingredients. As a bonus, add 1 tsp of Chia seeds to increase the protein, fiber, anti-oxidants, omega-3’s, vitamins and minerals of the smoothie.
Well Plate’s Blueberry Banana Avocado Smoothie
Hello Glow has a Fool Proof Smoothie Formula to help you DIY your own healthy smoothie. How fun is that?!
Emilie Eat’s Banana Mango Avocado Green Smoothie
3. Healthy snacks
While we are on the subject of food, let’s talk about snacking. Eating more frequently helps to stabilize blood sugar, reduce cravings, reduce BMI’s, and supports a healthy metabolism. BUT for snacking to be a beneficial, we need to make sure the snacks are healthy, preferably high in fiber and protein. Foods high in fiber and protein help us feel full longer making us less likely to binge on the donuts left in the conference room.
Laura Catalusci, MA ,a certified health specialist interviewed by Everyday Health, suggests limiting a snack to no more than 300 calories. For many of us a 200-calorie snack will suffice.
So that we don’t grab the first thing we see when snack time hunger strikes, having a plan is key. Purchase or package your snack ahead of time.
Prepackage packaged snacks:
Kind Bars, which I personally adore. Easy to put in a purse or bag and sooooo yummy.
Clif Bars
Greek yogurt
String cheese
Unsalted nuts, pistachio, cashews, walnuts, almonds, ect
Dark Chocolate
1 tall skim latte
Grab and go hummus and pretzels
Homemade snacks:
Apple with 1 TBSP of Almond or Peanut Butter.
Veggies-carrots, broccoli, snow peas, cauliflower, ect, 2 TBSP of Hummus runs about 80 calories
Air Popped Popcorn, plain, has about 31 calories per cup.
Apple and string cheese
Nuts, pistachios, cashews, walnuts, almonds, ect. NO salt
Hard boiled eggs, lots of protein
Smoothie, watch your measurements.
Fresh berries, 1 Cup with Plain Greek Yogurt
Whole grain crackers and cheese. Kashi several makes a great whole grain cracker.
Kale chips
Cottage cheese, 1/2c with mandarin oranges or cantaloupe
Banana and peanut butter or almond butter
Edamame
Avocado toast with whole grain or gluten free bread
- Gimme Delicious has a delicious 5 minute toast recipe.
4. Exercise
What I love about spring, is the good weather encourages us to get outside. Getting outside makes exercise easy. Exercise does not have to be an aerobics class, or yoga. It can be a walk around the block, gardening in the yard, even cleaning the house can be considered exercise!
Since we are spring cleaning our health, it is important to know that the American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes, or 30 minutes a day, of moderate exercise. 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise is enough to lower the risk of stroke and heart disease. That 30 minutes does not need to be all at once. A better fit may be to divide the 30 minutes up thought out your day. Whatever it takes to get to 30 minutes.
Breaking up your exercise minutes may make it challenging to keep track of. If you have an IPhone there is a health app with a pedometer built in. Wear it all day and it will help you to count the steps you’ve taken throughout the day. The ideal is 10,000 steps a day, however most American’s take under 5,000 daily. Since we are attempting to make health changes that stick, wear it for several days and see what your average is and then go about increasing it every day.
I Phones tracking tend to be on the low side, in my opinion but if it’s what you have on hand, then it’s a great way to get started. If you have a little extra cash investing in a pedometer might be a better option for you. I have a refurbished Garmin Vivosmart from Amazon and I love it! It is accurate. I haven’t had any problems with it and it has more bells and whistles, like a sleep tracker.
Tom’s Guide has a great comparison review of Fitbit, Garmin, and Polar fitness trackers.
5. Sleep
When we talk about cleaning up our health we cannot forget our sleeping habits. Sleep is often an over looked culprit for many of our health issues. When we are not well rested we cannot think as clearly, function at our full potential, our productivity drops, it effects our skin, health, it can contribute to inflammation, contribute to mental distress and obesity.
For most adults the Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours of sleep a night. However, 1 in 3 Americans do not get enough sleep. Technology in our bedrooms, not having a steady schedule, drinking caffeine too late in the day, working out too late, and even our bedrooms being too warm can contribute to our loss of sleep.
How do we get more or better sleep?
- Do not consuming any caffeine or nicotine 4 to 6 hours before we head to bed.
- Cool, dark bedroom. Heavy curtains, lower temp between 60-75 F
- Make sure the mattress and pillow are comfortable
- Computer, T.V., and Cell phones out of the bedroom. The back lighting delays our melatonin Melatonin helps us to sleep. Even when we are not using them, the presence of a cell phone keeps our brain alert, inhibiting it from fully resting.
- Read paper books instead of e-readers.
- Use a fan or other soothing white noise like rain to help sooth your body and brain to a restful slumber
- Have a bedtime schedule. Make a point to go to sleep and rise at the same time every day. This will create a rhythm for your body.
- Exercise no later than 3 hours before bed. Exercise stimulates the hormone cortisol which contribute to our bodies being more alert.
Spring Cleaning Our Health
Cleaning up our health does not have to be about huge changes. Our goal is to make positive changes that we can keep up with. Changes that don’t over whelm but encourage us.
When we make positive changes, that we can manage, it creates a positive snowball effect. Instead of feeling discouraged we feel encouraged and empowered.
This spring is the start of a healthier, happier, more empowered you.
