Mark Twain once said:  “I’ve realized the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t like, drink what you don’t want and do what you’d rather not.”

So if you find eating right and exercising to be tough work, you’re in good company!

Here are some tricks for making it easier to do the right thing:

1.  Get enough sleep.  Adequate sleep reduces appetite and cravings for junk food, making it easier to stick to a healthy diet.

2.  Be proactive about managing stress.  Just like sleep deprivation, stress increases appetite and cravings, so it pays to schedule stress-relieving activities on a regular basis.

3.  Eat healthy right after exercising.  Your taste buds are more sensitive right after exercise, so everything has more flavor.  Fruits taste sweeter, grains taste nuttier and you’ll want less salt, sugar or fat added to your food.

4.  Never get famished.  Once you reach this point it is extremely difficult to make healthy food choices…or to eat reasonable quantities.

5.  Be prepared.  If your home and office are stocked with healthy snacks and have no junk food, you’ll eat right more often.

6.  Exercise in the morning when possible.  Research shows you are less likely to skip an early workout.

These strategies ought to make it a bit easier to eat right and exercise, so you’ll have plenty of will-power left over to whitewash that fence—or convince someone else to do it…

Have a good week,

Jill