Do these 20 things to make 2024 your Healthiest yet
Here are 6 General & 14 Specific Strategies you can use to make 2024 your Healthiest year yet.
As a Nutrition Professional who has been practicing for over 18 years, I’ve helped many people achieve their goals, and I’ve noticed some “trends” of habit and behavior strategies that people who reach their fitness & health goals utilize and practice. The goal of this post is to share them with you, so that you can implement them in your life in order to make 2024, your healthiest and fittest year ever!
If you enjoyed this post or got anything out of it, please subscribe to my email list to get the latest up to date strategies and topics of interest to help you improve your life. Also, I would appreciate it if you shared this post with any friends or family who you think might also enjoy or benefit from it. Thank you. Here my list of 6 general guidelines to and 14 specific strategies to help you make 2024 your best yet!
6 General Guidelines
Have a Plan for your health & fitness.
Just start with at least one positive change every day.
Give your strategy/behaviors a chance to work or not, don’t rush to change because you’re not seeing amazing results fast.
Remember that Hormesis is a True Phenomenon, and we must look at most behavior changes and health activities/strategies through this lens.
Share your goals with family & friends that will help you stay on track or even like-minded people via a support group.
Change your psychology to assess all choices in your life as Beneficial or Toxic – although it seems simple, this can be a huge benefit.
14 Specific Strategies
Consider Intermittent Fasting, even if just to jump start your behavior changes. Be sure to consult your personal health practitioner if you have any diet related conditions (i.e. Diabetes, etc.…).
Create a checklist for the behaviors that will move you towards your goal(s).
Make sure you are eating high protein throughout the day.
Drink adequate water/water-containing fluids.
Plan for and Stick with a hard “stop time” with your eating (i.e. Intermittent Fasting or modified Intermittent Fasting).
When you take a shower, be sure to use cold water for at least 1-3 mins at the end to see even more benefits from your shower vs. just getting clean.
Do both resistance training (i.e. weights/bodyweight) and cardio (either low intensity steady state or HIIT, etc.….).
Psychologically, we function better with a morning and an evening routine - be sure to create one that helps you get going in the morning and winds you down at night.
Be sure to eat protein portion of meals first and eat relatively slowly to allow for satiety hormones to signal the brain.
Don’t count calories per se but have a plan to eat more good fats and good carbohydrates. Also, limit or avoid sugar, since it is more addictive than cocaine. The addiction related craving will dissipate after 1 weeks or so of avoiding/limiting.
To help you cut off your eating at a predetermined time (i.e. intermittent fasting), you can focus on going to bed a bit earlier, as this makes the fasting easier.
A great strategy to help you stick with your eating cutoff time, is to brush your teeth immediately after your eating window finishes.
One of the best ways to track your progress is your performance in your chosen method of exercise. For example, with strength training, track your progressions and make sure that you are getting stronger.
Track the following measures to see how you are progressing towards your goals:
· Weight – daily to weekly (just to get a big picture of where you are) – DO NOT use in isolation.
· Waist circumference – monthly (better for metabolic risk).
· Progression in exercise especially strength training increases – regularly (great for determining if you are building muscle).
· DEXA or Body Fat analysis (usually at a University Lab or Private clinic) – Every 3-6 months or so.
Example: Let’s suppose that you are weight training and Intermittent Fasting. You are tracking your behaviors and know that you are eating relatively high protein of good quality and mostly real foods and have cut down on refined foods including sugars, refined carbs and seed oils. You are working out regularly and have been increasing your strength with weight training over the last few weeks. Your weight is not decreasing as you would like, or maybe even it has increased by a couple of pounds. Well, if you were only measuring your weight, you would miss the fact that you are clearly building muscle, which is heavier than your fat mass.
So, that’s it for today. If you got anything useful out of this post or found it interesting, then be sure to subscribe to this site for more.
Take care and all the best in your 2024!
Cheers.
Dan T