You work hard, you play hard, and you try to eat healthily. You want health strategies that are easy to incorporate into your everyday life. The tips here should fit into your life in a jiffy.
Breathing Easy
Experts recommend changing your air filter twice a year if you don’t have pets. With pets in the house, you should change your filter every eight weeks. If you have allergies, be sure to use a filter with a high MERV rating. MERV, or Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value, ratings go from 1 to 16. The higher the value, the more particles the filter traps — a good MERV filter (such as the filters offered by companies such as Aprilaire) can trap smoke, mold, dust, pollen, and dander. Be sure to use a filter with at least a rating of 8; a filter with a rating of 11 to 13 will trap up to 80 percent of particles as small as 3 microns.
Stepping Out
Getting regular exercise is essential to good health. Walking, running, and hiking are easy to do in most locations and don’t require special equipment, except for shoes. Running and walking can be more fun if you have music to listen to, and if you’re taking an all-day hike, you definitely want to carry a pack with snacks and water. In hot weather, you want to wear clothing that wicks away moisture to keep you comfortable; in cool weather, you want clothing that’s warm but not bulky; check out fitnessgearusa.com for all kinds of fitness gear.
What’s more, you can find great home gym equipment through many websites and traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. Take time to try out machines by different manufacturers. They may look the same at first glance, but you might get 10 different workouts on 10 different treadmills. Be sure the treadmill fits the stride of everyone in your household who will be using it; one treadmill might be comfortable for one person but not another.
If you have the space, consider getting different machines for the people who will be using them. You may love your treadmill, but your spouse may really want an elliptical. After all, the elliptical lover will never be satisfied with your treadmill.
Eating Right
Your parents probably told you to clean your plate and eat your veggies. When life gets busy, it’s easy to forget the healthy choices and go for the junk. Instead of unhealthy snacks, keep a basket of fruit on the counter. Also, wash and chop veggies as soon as you get home from the grocery store and store them in the front of the fridge so they are easy to grab.
Spend some weekend time doing meal prep for the week. Bake chicken breasts and slice them for quick additions to salads or soups. Cook a roast in the slow cooker to use for two or more meals later in the week. You might serve chicken tacos one night and chicken with rice the next. Boil a dozen eggs for quick breakfast meals or for a protein choice on salads.
Prepare individual servings of veggies and dip to grab for lunch or snack. Buy prepackaged cookies or snack crackers, and limit yourself to one serving. Individual yogurt cups are handy for snacks too. Preparing these things in advance will make it easy to put together a healthy meal after a long day at work or throw a healthy lunch into a bag when you’re rushed in the morning.
By adding exercise to your daily routine, using MERV filters to keep your household air clean, and doing weekend food prep for quick, healthy meals, you can improve your life and health.
Head-to-Toe Health Strategies
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Head-to-Toe Health Strategies
