3 Steps to Developing Your Healthy Routine

The reality is that we are all given the same amount of hours in a day to exercise, eat healthy, and go about the rest of our lives, it just takes a bit of planning to make everything fit into one week. Once you overcome creating your new routine for living a healthy lifestyle, it becomes easier to stick to it.

1. Exercise Routine
The first step to incorporating healthier choices into your schedule is to analyze your current commitments. Planning around work, running errands, and making appointments is important.

Early Riser
You have to ask yourself if it make sense to exercise early in the morning or in the evening? There are other factors to consider other than knowing whether you’re a night owl or an early riser. The time of the year will affect your desire to work out either earlier in the morning or later in the evening, especially if you’re choosing to exercise outdoors. During the summer months it’s almost a necessity to make sure you get your run in before 8:00am rolls around because otherwise you’ll face battling the heat.

Midday
Many people in the work force choose to clock in early at work or stay later in the day so that they can hit the gym during their lunch hour. Lunchtime could be the perfect time for you to let out some steam on the treadmill. It could offer a way to reenergize the second half of your day.

Night Owl
Exercising during the winter poses an issue with lack of daylight if you choose to run after 5:00pm. If you are a runner there are many options to staying safe including reflective clothing or opting to stay off the roads and run on an outdoor track. Though considering that some of the best classes offered at gyms are in the evening, you could implement a class into your schedule even if you are a runner by nature.

2. Food Prep
Taking the time to plan out healthy meals is one of the most important things you can do. You don’t want to fall victim to not having any groceries without the time to prepare a meal and wind up in a fast food drive thru. You’ll want to plan time to plan what you need from the store, go shopping, and have time afterwards to prep your meals for the week. Meal prepping is essential to sticking to your diet because it helps you avoid moments of weakness. Having all of your meals and snack planned out a week at a time may take several hours out of your day but it will save you time in the long run.

3. Taking Time Off
Give yourself a little bit of love. Live a healthy life because you want to, not because you have to. It’s your life, don’t disparage your hard work by blowing the rest of the day after a single cheat meal. Taking a day off to recuperate or enjoying a meal that’s off plan could benefit your overall success by keeping you from giving up entirely.