12 good things you can do for your body in a month
1. Set some goals. What do you want to achieve? Weight loss? Improved fitness? Lower blood pressure? To start exercising?
2. Make a plan – how are you going to reach your goals?
3. Drink less alcohol. A little bit is okay, but too much can do serious damage to your liver, brain, intestines and pancreas. Alcohol is also a risk factor in some types of cancer, stroke, and heart disease. Ministry of Health recommends that women and men drink no more than four and six standard drinks, respectively, on any one occasion.
4. Add an extra serving of fruit and vegetables to your daily food
intake. Additionally, try eating a variety of different coloured fruit and vegetables. This is a great way to get in most of the vitamins and minerals, which are essential for good health.
5. Swap fizzy for juice, water, or milk – fizzy drinks are normally full of sugar and nothing much else. Some fruit juices are also quite high in sugar too, so I recommend watering them down a little, just to reduce the sugar content of each serving. Eating too much sugar can lead to weight gain since sugary foods tend to be quite high in energy, and it can also lead to tooth decay.
6. Have one less take away per week/month. Typically, takeaways are high in fat and salt. Too much fat and salt can be harmful to your health. If you must have takeaways, avoid battered, deep fried, salty and creamy dishes. Instead, go for something which is low fat and something with plenty of vegetables. For example, doner kebabs, salads, and Subway sandwiches.
7. Eat more whole grains – swap white rice for brown rice, and white bread for whole meal bread.
8. Eat less salt. Avoid adding salt to your food, but if you absolutely have to have salt, use iodised salt. Additionally, when choosing food, pick the lower sodium (salt) options.
9. Do at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days of the week. You don’t have to do it all at once. Instead, you could break up your exercise routine into three ten minute blocks, if you find it easier to do so. Exercise can help control your weight, blood sugar levels and blood pressure, it can make you feel good, it strengthen your bones, decrease your chance of developing cancer and it can enhance your immune system. If you haven’t done exercise in a while, I recommend talking to your doctor or personal trainer about the best exercise routine for you.
10. Relax! Too much stress is not good for your body; it can elevate your blood pressure and hinder your immune system. Try reading a book, talking to friends, listening to music, meditating, or doing whatever else you find relaxing.
11. Reduce saturated fat intake. For example, when cooking mince, drain off the excess fat, swap whole milk for low fat milk, swap butter for vegetable oil, trim visible fat off meat.
12. Drink six to eight glasses of water each day.