5 Simple Steps for a Healthy Mind and Body

1. Be Conscious of What and When You are Eating

If you're reading this, chances are, you know a thing or two about diet and exercise. A basic rule for losing weight is to consume less calories than you are burning off and BOOM weight loss. Unfortunately, without knowing where to get these calories from, this becomes a lot harder of a task than it should be. First, lets take a look at weight loss itself. When losing weight to look and feel better, you don't just want the number on the scale to go down, you want your overall body composition to become leaner, meaning more muscle, less fat. There are a few healthy ways to go about protecting that pretty muscle and reducing that pesky fat, all of which require you to eat WHOLE FOODS.
The most effective and simple way to kick-start your fat loss is to follow a Paleo diet. The concept of a Paleo diet is basically kicking all the bad foods from your diet, like processed foods and simple sugars and keeping all the nutritious ones like lean proteins, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates. For sources of your protein, good options include Fish, Turkey Breast, Chicken Breast, and vegetable sourced proteins like kale, spinach and peas. For a source of fats you want to consume things like avocados, unsalted nuts and whole eggs (no vegetable oils, hydrogenated oils). Now, whats left is your carbs. Your ONLY source of carbs should be coming from complex carbohydrates in vegetables, fruits and nuts (no sugar, bread, pasta, ect.). The ratio of how many calories should come from each category is called your "macros". You should follow a rough macro estimate every meal that says about 60-70% of calories should come from fats, 20-30% from protein and around 10% from carbs. You are going to want to use a calculator to see how much calories you burn daily, to know how much to consume. Use one here: https://tinyurl.com/hl8v2lb . For healthy weight loss, you want to be in a calorie deficit NO MORE than 500 calories a day. Another tip is to try and eat first thing in the morning, before and after any physical exercise and never after 7pm. For a full list of approved foods and ones to avoid click here: https://tinyurl.com/ya2y85dx

2. Drink Water and ONLY WATER

That's right, you heard me, no pop/soda, no sugary juices, and no alcohol. These may seem hard to kick but I promise once you go about a week or two without them, you will not crave them ever again, you may even be disgusted by them. There are a couple things besides water that you can drink, unsweatened teas of any sort, black coffee, and fruit juice of your choice with NO ADDED sugar, in moderation and preferably first thing in the morning or after a workout. Just remember to stay within your macros.

3. Exercise Smarter NOT HARDER

We all are painfully aware that in today's society, finding time to fit new things in our busy schedule is tough. Luckily, there is no need to worry because of a great thing called High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT. Studies have shown that only 15-20 minutes of a proper HIIT workout routine can equal out to hours of traditional low/moderate intensity cardio also known as continuous endurance training. Thus, leading to greater fat loss with less time spent exercising.

Again, remember, our goal is not to just reduce so many calories and pounds so fast that we are losing more muscle than we need to. We want fat loss. If you are not exercising by doing low to moderate intensity cardio already, you do not need to worry about HIIT just yet, if you do not feel prepared. It is still EXTREMELY beneficial to do ANY type of cardio even just a half hour walk to start. HIIT is just an alternative and arguably better way to go about it for someone who is maybe stuck in a fat loss plateau. Another good idea is to incorporate weight lifting/training into your exercise routine. Doing this will not only help preserve that beautiful muscle during weight loss but also elevate your metabolism up to hours after your workout.

4. SLEEEEEEEEP

We all have probably heard that sleep is important but it absolutely essential for losing weight. For your mind and body to recover and maintain healthy function, you NEED to get 8 hours of sleep daily. You have a couple options to achieve this number, one you may have never heard of before. First, the most common and simplest, a monophasic sleep cycle.
This is the most common sleep cycle, monophasic, meaning you get all of your sleep in during one nights rest. Another option is a biphasic sleep cycle. A biphasic sleep cycle means that you get around 5-6 hours of sleep at night, then during the afternoon you take a 20 minute-2 hour nap. This form of sleep matches with our natural Circadian rhythm, and has been shown to be healthier than monophasic sleep, with the short nap increasing productivity and alertness during evening hours. There are a few more sleep cycles that exist, these are just the most popular two.

5. Probiotics

I wont go into depth here, but just know that you want to incorporate probiotics into your diet. You want to do this especially during weight loss because sometimes during a large stretch of caloric deficit, the body will slow down the production of enzymes that help breakdown food and keep your gut's microbiome at a healthy balance. The benefits don't stop there, these probiotics also help protect you from being sick and aid your immune system. New studies have also been looking at how a healthy microbiome can have a direct impact on reduction of anxiety and depression syptoms since the digestive tract is the center point for the nervous system, hormonal system and immune system. You can get these wonderful probiotics from sources like fermented foods, apple cider vinegar, yogurt and in supplement form.

EDITORS NOTE:

So why would you listen to me? Well, for many years I have struggled to manage my weight and cope with depression and anxiety until I started doing my own personal research. These methods are tried and true as I have lost over 70lbs or 32kgs. These steps have an almost synergistic effect to make an ultimately healthier and happier person. I have become more productive, confident and have set little to no limitations of what I can accomplish. My goal is to spread this information to others in the most basic way possible so we can all become better versions of ourselves. I hope that this Article reaches the right people and just know, YOU CAN DO THIS.