A New You in the New Year

Making a New Year’s Resolution has been part of a ritual that goes back centuries, what started as new beginnings and promises have now for some become more superficial and appearance-orientated than in previous times.

People often talk of changing their lifestyles to healthier ways of living, however, few people actually commit to making lasting changes. Regardless of your goals, healthy living involves understanding and practicing effective exercise, eating healthily and reducing stress.

We all know that eating, drinking and smoking too much is bad for you, countless magazines and news articles tell us this daily, but now with so many fad ideas, wacky diets, powered products etc. making your lifestyle change can be dramatically challenging and misleading.

So instead of following familiar New Year’s patterns, this year try something completely different and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get results. Here’s what I suggest:

• Exercise: Exercise is the number one way to start living a healthy lifestyle. During exercise, your body releases endorphins, which are hormones responsible for the sense of euphoria or well-being during exercise. In addition to making you feel good, exercise strengthens your heart, helps you lose weight and builds muscle.
• Eat Healthy Food: The food you eat has a direct effect on the quality of your life. It is important that you eat a balanced diet with foods from each of the five major food groups. Eating a variety of foods can help prevent diseases such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
• Cut down cut out: Dramatically cutting out things you enjoy i.e. alcohol and smoking, can lead to stress, also inadvertently putting a stop to your lifestyle change, so instead of cutting out cut down instead, you will notice that the combination of exercise and changing your eating habits will undoubtedly have an impact on this anyway.
• Manage your stress: Life is very stressful, if you don´t do anything to alleviate your stress, then it could lead to longer lasting damaging health issues. What can you do about it? Exercise, eat healthy food, get at least 8 hours sleep, eat a curry once in a while, drink a glass of red wine and most importantly laugh until you cry!

Happy New Year!

Mitch

Elle Draper

Elle, along with Alan, is the owner of Spain Buddy and the busy web design business - Gandy-Draper. Born a "Norverner", she then spent most of her life "Dann Saff" before moving to Spain in 2006. Elle's loves are Alan, the internet, their three bouncing dogs, good food, and dry white wine - although not necessarily in that order.