Simple Swaps, Big Results: Upgrade Your Health with These Easy Choices
Article by: Daisy Moss
Feeling overwhelmed with the ever-growing list of things you should be doing?
From skincare to food, to activities to screen time, it’s literally gotten to the point that it’s physically impossible to do everything to be the ‘best version of yourself,’ and what does that even mean? The best version of yourself should be the one where you feel good inside, not the fact that you’ve checked a list every day and shared it all over social media because, god forbid, the whole world didn’t know that you went on a run this morning.
There is a fine line between needing to change areas of your life and changing your whole lifestyle to meet societal standards of success. This article isn’t meant to tell you to wake up at 5 a.m. work out and then work your ass off, run home and cook for the whole house. We are here to deliver realistic expectations and changes that can be incorporated into your life to make an actual change in your life.
Simple swaps are the first step towards feeling good mentally and then physically. You do not need to quit everything to be a good person. It’s all about balance, listening to your body, ignoring the noise and doing what you think is best for you because, at the end of the day, we could all benefit from self-love and kindness.
Here Are Our Simple Swaps
Food Swaps
It’s a ridiculous and nonsense notion that you need to make extreme changes to see a difference in your mental and physical health, it’s quite the opposite. Of course, the good needs to outweigh the bad but there are ways for you to do that seamlessly and not force it on you.
Building up new habits is hard so a simple way to do that is through simple swaps until you are ready to cut things out completely. For example, swapping your whole-fat foods to reduce fat or buying raw chicken to cook rather than already cooked chicken slices.
This means you are still eating the foods you like but in a different way. These simple changes are the path to a healthier mealtime.
This could also be applied to portion sizes in food groups; for example, if you want to lose weight but want to have filling meals, it’s all about altering how much you are having of particular foods. For example, you would increase the amount of vegetables and reduce your carbs. These are simple changes that anyone can make.
Lifestyle Swaps
There comes a time when you’ve got to reduce the amount of drinking, smoking and all kinds of other things that happen during social situations. It’s not good for your mind, body, or soul and a lot of people are deciding to become sober, but that’s a huge step and can take a while to get there.
A realistic lifestyle swap that you could take today is ditching the cigarettes and going for Velo pouches or maybe it’s drinking you want to cut back on. You could limit your drinking to events only or one day a week. A small change is still a step forward in the right direction.
Move Your Body
It can be so tempting to stay in bed all day, especially when you’ve been working all week but if I’ve learned anything in the past couple of months, movement is what is going to keep us feeling younger for longer. A lot of it is a mental battle and not a physical battle so you could try new methods such as the 3, 2, 1 method, where on the count of three, you get up and do what you need to do.
The movements can come in many forms, but an easy way to introduce them could be through daily walks, gym sessions or an at-home workout.
Moving your body is not only rewarding but essential, and the peace of mind it gives me means that my future self will thank me for it for it really motivates me. Swapping time spent scrolling through TikTok to do something productive will always have great mental and physical impacts on you.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few examples of small changes that you can add to your day-to-day life. The only way to unlock a healthier and happier version of yourself is if you refuse to change little things in your life.
About The Author: Daisy Moss, is a yoga loving writer who specialises in women’s health, nutrition, fitness wellness and lifestyle. She can be found often enjoying a spin class or even making her famous protein brownies.
