Do you want to get healthier this summer? Are you wishing you could look better before summer is finished? You can achieve both by following these health and fitness tips this summer!
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Summer Health and Fitness
Summer is a great time to focus on health and fitness. Daylight is longer, and with the warmer weather it’s natural to want to go outside more. Working out outdoors is a fantastic way to improve your health and get out in nature. My husband and I love to hike together.
Get Healthier This Summer
Here are a 7 ways to get healthier this summer:
1. Work out 3-6 days per week. Working out consistently is essential in improving your health and how you look. I recommend a mixture of cardio and strength training. For fun cardio workouts, check out my dance workouts! For more fun workouts including Pilates & strength workouts, recovery workouts, and Kids workouts, check out my workouts category! For full-body strength exercises, including exercises specifically for adults as well exercises for kids, check out my exercise videos!
2. Drink lots of water. I recommend drinking a minimum of 64 ounces per day. Drink even more water on days you work out and spend time in the sun. I like to add celtic sea salt to my water for electrolytes. Another great healthy way to get extra electrolytes is with this watermelon berry smoothie.
3. Sleep more. Try to get 7-8 hours per night or what your body needs. (It’s probably more than you think!) Try to get well rested, and then see when you wake up without an alarm clock for a week. That way, you’ll know what your body naturally needs. It’s very helpful to sleep in better posture to enhance your health.
4. Avoid white flour and simple carbohydrates (white pasta, white pizza dough, white bread, etc.). Try to replace them with complex carbohydrates, ideally gluten-free complex carbohydrates (wholegrain bread, wholegrain pizza, etc.). Some great gluten-free complex carbohydrate options are quinoa, organic brown rice, and lentils.
5. Drink green tea and avoid other caffeine (energy drinks, coffee, black tea, etc.). Instead of coffee or black tea, have green tea. Matcha green tea is packed full of powerful antioxidants. To paraphrase the book How Not to Die, “antioxidant” is code for anti-aging and anti-cancer.
6. Eliminate white and brown sugar and reduce natural sweeteners as much as you can. A square of dark chocolate without sugar can help with those cravings … and there are health benefits, too! Fruit is also a great substitute for desserts. My favorite natural sweetener is raw honey.
7. Avoid alcohol. Eat organic red grapes to get the benefits of red wine without the many negative side affects of alcohol.
Making the Changes
The first step is learning how to get healthier this summer. Next, decide which of the above you’re committed to doing. Then set your goals, and do your best. You can do this!
Some of these changes may seem very difficult changes to add or eliminate from your daily life, but it will be worth it. If you’re already doing a lot of the above, good for you! However, you may be struggling with a few or many at the time you’re reading this.
If you decide to follow all of the above, go for it. If that feels too overwhelming, try to input one change at a time or a few at a time. Then add new changes as those improvements become consistent. It’s better to improve one thing at a time than to never get started on improving 10 things. Once you start feeling the benefits in your changes, you will want to do more. Enjoy each new change to the healthier you!
What Changes are You Committed to Making?
What change(s) are you committed to making this summer? Remember to write down your goals, too.
I’d love to hear your success stories, what you like to do, or what you’re doing already! 🙂
Have fun!
Connect with me, @ChristinaChitwood, on social media:
Instagram @ChristinaChitwoodOfficial
I look forward to reading your comments, seeing your photos, and chatting with you on social media!