5 Steps Toward a Healthier Lifestyle

So, I’ve been mak­ing some changes this year that will hope­fully result in a health­ier mama! I shared a few things about some post-baby body strug­gles and try­ing to make some changes a few months ago. But, I’ve really stepped up my game in the new year. The changes I’ve been mak­ing have resulted in a 5 pound weight loss in just the week alone! None of these are new or earth-shattering, but here are 5 sim­ple steps that I’m tak­ing toward a health­ier lifestyle:

1. Drink more water! When I was teach­ing, I used to be really good with this. I was talk­ing all day & so drank a lot of water. But, since stay­ing at home a cou­ple of years ago, I find that I don’t drink nearly as much any­more. To lose weight, every­thing I read says that I should be drink­ing around 100 ounces of water each day! I still have a ways to go, but I’ve been doing MUCH better!

2. Eat health­ier food. Duh! This is a no-brainer when it comes to weight-loss and over all health. But, it’s so easy to fall into the processed, con­ve­nient, “fake-healthy” trap. To com­bat this, we’ve cut down on the processed food that we’ve been buy­ing. I’ve had a green smoothie every sin­gle morn­ing for a week (recipes com­ing soon). I’m try­ing to make sure that I have a veg­etable and/or a fruit at every meal. For con­ve­nient snacks, we’re choos­ing lower calo­rie and less processed options. One thing we’ve tried that we really like is the Quaker Popped Rice Snacks. They are SO good! The apple-cinnamon and vanilla creme brulee even sat­is­fied my sweet tooth! The savory fla­vors are a great alter­na­tive to things like potato chips! So, the changes are noth­ing extreme. No new eat­ing plan (paleo, gluten-free, carb-free, etc). Just sim­ple, health­ier changes that are adding up to a big difference!

3. Keep­ing a food jour­nal. Before I got mar­ried, I was pretty suc­cess­ful at los­ing weight and get­ting in shape. One of the things I did was keep a food jour­nal. It really helped me. Now, almost 10 years later, I’m using our fancy new tech­nol­ogy to help with this. I down­loaded My Fit­ness Pal (a free app) and have been using it to track every­thing I’m eat­ing! It’s amaz­ing how help­ful see­ing it all in writ­ing is for me! Obvi­ously, I knew before that there were WAY more calo­ries in a slice of pizza than a chicken breast with cel­ery. But, when you’re track­ing it and try­ing to stay within a goal (and the app does all the orga­niz­ing, math, etc for you), it is really eye-opening. The app is really help­ing to keep me accountable!

4. Move more. I know, another no brainer. But, it’s key and so it had to make the list. I was doing great with the Couch-to-5k train­ing, but fell off the wagon a bit with the hol­i­days and sick­nesses. We’ve been hav­ing fun with fam­ily walks and play­ing Just Dance! And, this week, I was back at things and in a BIG way! I com­pleted my first 5k over the week­end–the Color Run! And, it was so fun some of us are already plan­ning our next event!

5. Get orga­nized. Now, that might seem like a strange thing to put on a health­ier lifestyle list. But, when I’m more orga­nized, I’m less stressed. That right there is key for a healthy lifestyle. It really is a whole chain reac­tion. When I’m more orga­nized & the house is cleaner, I’m more pro­duc­tive. I feel bet­ter about things and less over­whelmed. When I feel bet­ter about things, I tend to make health­ier choices. We eat out less. We have more time for fun things. I’m less stressed and less crabby. So, orga­niz­ing has been high on the pri­or­ity list! In the past two weeks, we’ve tack­led two BIG projects and it feels SO good!

So, what steps do you think are key for a health­ier lifestyle? Keep read­ing & share below for a chance to win $1,000!!!…

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This is a spon­sored con­ver­sa­tion writ­ten by me on behalf of Quaker. I received prod­uct in con­junc­tion with this post. The opin­ions and text are all mine. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. See Offi­cial Sweep­stakes Rules