To a degree, how successful you are at losing weight and staying in shape depends on what you DON’T do, rather than what you DO do. There is a common misconception that people who are in shape are ‘always’ exercising, or are in the gym 7 days per week – the truth is decisions help you to great health – healthy lifestyle design helps with this!

Health and fitness isn’t a hard slog that requires thousands of hours of exercise every month. In fact, if you look at this article you will understand that actually, exercise takes up very, very little of your week!

The key to great shape often lies in what you don’t do. Typically speaking, lean people are lean because they make better choices when it comes to lifestyle, exercise habits and their diet. For want of a better term, I will call this ‘healthy lifestyle design’.

So what exactly is healthy lifestyle design?

Essentially, healthy lifestyle design is how you organise yourself and your time to make living a healthy life easier. In this circumstance, if your healthy lifestyle design is done well and you have your time organised, living healthily is easy and you won’t be caught out having to rely on bad food often.

Read these 15 tips to help improve your healthy lifestyle design…

1. Shop better – online shopping makes you buy what you need and not be tempted by chocolate on offer!
2. If you lead a chaotic life, batch cook healthy meals so you always have something healthy to hand.
3. Remove hidden sugars – if you have sugar in coffee and drink 5 per day, switch to a low-sugar drink.
4. Throw out all of your junk food. If it’s not there you won’t eat it.
5. Where possible, stand rather than sit. You use muscles that way.
6. Look at your transport options – is it viable that you could walk or cycle more?
7. Socially, look at options other than the pub. We seem to have an obsession with a night out involving drinking! Look at events where drinking isn’t the norm!
8. Spend less time in front of the TV. There is something about watching the TV or a movie that makes us want to eat. If this is you, get up and do something!
9. Look at ‘accidental’ exercise – golf requires lots of walking but isn’t considered exercise. If you have a dog, take it on longer, hillier walks!
10. Relax – stress is a killer. Massage, yoga, walking, meditation and reading are popular ways to relax.
11. Try to get to bed by 10.30 at night. Sleep is vital to your health.
12. Stop having a lie in – you don’t need to lie in bed all weekend. All you end up doing is disrupting your sleep patterns. If you are tired, get to bed earlier. You will benefit more from an early night than a late morning.
13. If you can’t face exercise after work, train at lunch time!
14. Struggle for motivation? Book sessions with a Personal Trainer. That way you won’t have to self-motivate!
15. Get yourself a foam roller – they are fantastic for keeping your tissues healthy.

These tips are simple, but they work. The list is designed as a framework from which you can you look your own choices and decisions. Is it worth 10 minutes of time to prepare a healthy meal? Of course it is. You are less likely to skip a workout if you have a session with a personal trainer, so if you are struggling to make yourself train, make it an appointment.

There are solutions to each problem you have when it comes to living well, so follow the tips to ease the transition from unhealthy to healthy!

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HoylesFitness

Owner of www.hoylesfitness.com. Personal Trainer, Father and fitness copy writer. Working hard making the world fitter and healthier! View all posts by HoylesFitness