Healthy Lifestyle Makeover: Bite-sized Workouts & Other Easy Strategies to Help You Get Fit by Wendie Pett

Bite-sized workouts and other easy strategies are fun, effective and affordable. Here are some ideas to start today:

• Change your mindset. This year, the focus is on using a holistic mind/body/spirit approach to move past brokenness from past hurts. It’s amazing how the mind can lock us into complacency and stop you from seeing yourself for who you really are and deserve to be. Plus, negative thoughts can trigger inflammatory responses in the body. The first step is to forgive yourself for not taking better care of your body. Then you can move out of feeling like a failure and into a better space. We can’t be productive otherwise.

• Fix your sleep issues. Poor sleep is the new smoking. Lack of sleep is linked to stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease. It’s linked to depression, anxiety, inflammation, compromises your immune system and affects cognitive skills. Dim the lights in your home early in the evening so that the hormone melatonin will be released. Melatonin helps regulate your sleep schedule. Get better rest and reduce the stress of the day by deep breathing.

• Do shorter workouts using your body as your gym. Movement heals. But we’re a 140-character society. We want the same for our workouts. The 2019 trend is also to spend less time and money at the gym. Just walking can reduce inflammation, clear your mind, build bone density, and improve balance and coordination. Or, use your body as your gym with what I call moving isometrics. These don’t put extra pressure on your joints and can even be done at the office while wearing high heels! Something as simple as 30- to 60-second punch outs can change your metabolism.

• Think of food as medicine. People are turning to whole foods and a plant-based lifestyle. They’re getting away from foods that have multiple ingredients and choosing foods that don’t need a food label because there’s just one ingredient. Greens are in! I’m a big fan of green drinks and having a salad at every meal. And in 2019, watch for drinking pure water to become even more trendy. An estimated 75 percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated and wonder why they are tired. Water also helps to detoxify the body which is essential because a toxic body is primed for disease.

• Use technology to your advantage. Apps make it easy to have a fitness program or a recipe at your fingertips. They support fitness on-the-go and reinforce consistency. Apps are so important in today’s world that my Visibly Fit app is free to everyone.

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