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A healthy lifestyle is something that everyone should aspire to achieve. Whether you can afford to spend a lot of time towards exercising and diet or not, you can always do something small every day to help your body experience a better lifestyle. 

Living a healthy lifestyle will also help your mental health, your self-esteem, confidence and your outlook on life will see an overall change; you will be happier and feel ready to fight any situation that comes your way. Aside from this, any feelings of sluggishness will quickly fade away as your body adjusts to being in its top form. 

What comes into play when looking to undertake such a lifestyle adjustment? Determination, motivation and patience. When setting out to lower your BMI or Body Mass Index, you will need to be patient. Nothing is ever going to happen overnight, so you will need to wait. Be motivated and proactive, always strive to find new ways of making your life more exciting and this also counts if you are exercising and dieting. This is an amazing time in your life, where you are at the cornerstone of change, and becoming more and more healthy over time. Eventually, you will end up running out of motivation, and some days will seem harder than others, so always make sure to reward yourself. Be wary not to be overly ambitious. Do not set unrealistic goals because you will drain out easily, be smart and be determined!

Track Your Weight Loss

If you are looking to lose weight and be consistent, a good way is to keep a form of a journal or something to help you remind yourself of the progress you have done. Keep track of your weight, and monitor regularly for increases or decreases. Everyone slips up once or twice, nobody is truly perfect; but not being honest to yourself is the biggest harm you can do to yourself. Be true to your body and admit mistakes so you can better yourself and improve upon what you have done wrong, and don’t beat yourself up too much for slipping. The important thing is to remember why you’ve embarked on this journey, and to stick to it even in the hardest of times.

Exercise

Although you do not need to exercise to lose weight, it will be extremely beneficial if you move your body rather than sticking to restrictive diets. Getting your heart pumping and the blood moving will be a massive plus to your body. You can go to the gym, swimming, jogging even going for a bit of a fast-paced walk, anything to get you to work-out a bit. Always remember, that different workouts work for different people, so do not feel pressured to go jogging or go to the gym if you do not enjoy what you are doing. Try and find an activity or sport with which you can engage with and feel like you are working your utmost.

Set a workout strategy, make weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. Getting a personal trainer to motivate you will help you immensely, but if you do not wish to opt for that path you can make a workout routine on your own, with a bit of research and trial and error.

Dieting

When it comes to diet, as mentioned previously, consistency is key. There are different diets you can try out. Some people like really intense diets whereas others might opt for slower and less intense ones. Find out which diet suits you best, you might like a keto diet, or would go for intermittent fasting, or any other diet. It is advisable to always consult a nutritionist or your family doctor before trying out any kind of extreme dieting, to ensure that it will not have any adverse effects on your health.  Another key benefit to visiting a nutritionist is that they can tailor diet plans specific to your body type and lifestyle.

Always try and be consistent with your nutrition, as you cannot rely solely on exercise for weight loss. What you eat plays a massive part in this whole journey. Having a healthy combination of diet and exercise will have the best results and will reap the best outcome possible.

It would help if you learn a bit about nutrition and meal planning, the more you learn on your own the better this will be for you in the future!

Find Support

People before you have been on the journey of lowering or keeping their BMI low, and whilst some people might not find it that challenging, others will find it is one of the hardest things they will ever do. Do not be annoyed by people who do not need to do anything to keep their BMI at a low level, always look at your own road. Speak to your doctor, your friends and others who can show you support and help you in such times. Building a support network helps – but remember that everyone’s body adapts at their own pace. 

Final Words

Even losing 5-10 percent of your body fat can be extremely substantial, just make sure to be consistent. Once you lose the weight, you have to maintain it. Dieting and exercise should not stop, but rather maybe their intensity can decrease slightly. If you are happy in your weight, maintaining it should not be a problem. The essential thing is to integrate any changes into your everyday life and make it part of a long-term lifestyle, not a short-term change just to lose the weight.

Be determined, keeping your BMI low can be a challenging aspect in your life and whatever helps you to maintain your healthy weight should become habitual. Never forget that results do not happen overnight! Don’t expect to see results immediately because it will rarely happen,  living a healthy lifestyle is already a reward within itself, having that coupled with a bit of exercise and you will start seeing results soon, not immediately but soon!

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