5 Simple Steps to Follow to Improve Your Overall Health

This list is just a little reminder of the points you need to prioritize when you want to live a healthy and fulfilling life. Way too often, I see many people trying to overcomplicate their health and fitness journey, and what happens is that their approach becomes so convoluted that they get into a state where they don't know what they are doing because they are switching up the plan way too often.

Incorporate all 5 steps if you are truly looking to become the best version of yourself. As you can see from below, your dietary choices will mainly dictate your overall health. You can potentially switch up some steps below depending on your goals.

For example, you could easily swap cardio and lifting weights and there is nothing wrong with that. This layout is more catered for the people who aren’t enchanted by the thoughts of weight lifting but may potentially do it to take their overall health and appearance over the top. That aside, I do hope that you enjoy the following list.

Step 1 — Get Diet on Track

You can’t out train a bad diet. Even if you do work out, you can’t perform optimally on a daily basis. Consuming excessive processed food will make you feel sluggish in the long run, not to mention the likelihood of adding extra pounds in the form of fat, and excess weight can lead to all kinds of health issues.

You truly need to monitor what you eat, at least initially, until you get into a routine. Figure out how many cals you need daily, this figure will be based off your activity levels - total daily energy expenditure. Use an online calculator, you just need to enter your details.

When it comes to distributing the cals between the different macros, start with protein. Aim for a high protein diet, regardless of your goal. What is considered high? Well, anywhere between .6 and 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. Closer to 1 gram when muscle building is the goal.

As to how you divide the rest of your cals out between fats and carbs? That is down to you and your individual preferences. Some people do better on low-carb and high fat, while the inverse of that is true for others.

In regard to the food sources of yours cals, the majority of your cals should come from whole, nutrient dense foods. Limit the intake of processed cals as those cals don’t add any real value, furthermore, don’t let cheat meals turn into cheat days!

Step 2 — Do Regular Cardio

On the exercises front, you should be doing some form of cardio at the very least. Low intensity steady state (LISS) cardio is a great option that can be done daily. It’s possible for you to take daily walks, even 30 minutes daily of walking will make a difference to your overall health. Walking is low intensity in nature, and you will recover fast, so daily walks are very doable.

On the other end of the spectrum is high intensity interval training (HIIT), with this modality, you push all out for the allotted time. These workouts are shorter in nature due to the higher intensity, you can burn a lot of cals in a short period of time.

It’s possible to do HIIT workouts, 2 or 3 times per week, with a duration of 20 minutes of maximal output. I highly recommend an assault bike as it works both upper and lower body.

Step 3 — Enough Nightly Sleep

Ideally, you should be looking to get at least 7 hours of restorative sleep every night. I know that this isn’t always possible due to many variables. I also know that some people can function on less sleep and still be super productive.

Whatever that number is for you, you need to ensure that you are getting it as often as possible. It’s only a matter of time before this constant lack of sleep will catch up with you, plus your body needs time to rest and recover. While you sleep, your body is still working, carrying out essential tasks.

You deprive your body of being able to perform this work when you are a night owl and as I say, it will compound over time, you can only power through for so long before it catches up.

As for me, I’m in the 7-hour boat, I know I don’t perform at my best when I don’t get those hours. Being in a relaxed state prior to sleeping is critical to getting a good night's sleep, do what works for you to get you in that relaxed mindset.

Step 4 — Reduce Stress Levels

Easier said than done, but need to figure out how you can change your habits if you get stressed a lot. Stress creates a tremendous amount of havoc to your body. Lack of sleep and causes an imbalance in hormone production are 2 that immediately come to mind, and you want to avoid both of these scenarios from occurring repeatedly.

Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness are all options for reducing stress. Caveat being, you have to work consistently at them to reap their benefits. It’s not like you just do them once and expect to be over it. You need to commit, be willing to create new habits, to look at situations differently, to let thoughts just float on by.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of laughing and the language you use. Laughing on a regular basis creates a certain amount of internal happiness, by leading to a release of the good hormones.

The language you use to describe situations is sometimes overlooked. Try to turn negatives into positives and use positive language as often as possible. Constant bad language will keep you in a negative place.

Step 5 — Lift Weights Twice a Week

Now you have made it to the final step of the process, congratulations on getting this far. You have to decided to push the boat out beyond the cardio option, and let me tell you that lifting weights has worthwhile upside.

That upside being building muscle and building a little muscle is beneficial for everyone! Muscle is metabolically active, that means that it will burn cals constantly throughout the day to maintain itself. Yes, that is correct, 24/7!

Muscle also gives legit shape to your body. That toned looked you keep hearing about? Well, that simply is muscle in absence of fat. Muscle gives the body that firm feel and solid look. You should be trying to avoid the skinny fat look — that is a loose look and soft feel, with zero muscle!

Even 2 full body workouts per week will make a difference. Duration of the workouts can even be 40 minutes, maybe even less when you know what you are doing.

Another thing about building muscle is that you don’t have to restrict extremely on cals. That whole calorie restriction and overdoing cardio isn’t sustainable for the average person in the long run.

The reason being is that it will slow your metabolism with the restriction. Also, you will have no muscle because you exclusively do cardio, and if you veer off track for even a short period of time, you are bound to add on weight in the form of fat.

Closing Thought

As I mentioned above, it all starts with diet, if you only choose to start with 1 step, then it’s paramount that you start with making adjustments to your diet. You can then branch off into other steps that are of the most importance to you. If you get to a place where you are consistent with all 5 steps, then you are truly putting in play the best version of you!