Tone it Tuesdays: The 8 Essential Steps for Living a Healthy Lifestyle

With the New Year, we awake from our food comas having overindulged in holiday sweets & treats. We feel more ready than ever to remove those clothes hanging from our treadmills and lace-up our new pair of sneakers. Yet, with the introduction of extremely strict meal plans and intense workouts into our routines, we go from one form of overindulgent extremeness to another. And, just like the holidays, there comes a time in which we feel “burnt out.” We hit that point where we've had enough. 

We’re overspent, both physically and mentally, and so we shift back from the winter health phase into the food phase again. Ready to indulge in the upcoming Valentine's Day chocolates; only to shift back to the health phase again, as preparation for our spring vacations. Like a never-ending, game of ping-pong, we go back and forth between the two forms of extreme. 

Marketing campaigns recognize this vulnerability and quickly time their ads accordingly. For example, the big discount chains adorn their shelves with alluring, Christmas-themed cookies and candies, as preparation for Christmas time. Yet, when we return in January to those same stores, the shelves have been restocked with workout tanks, water bottles, and even “healthy” cookies.

Rather than following a “quick fix diet” or participating in the latest workout fad, I encourage you to finally finish the ping-pong game and simply follow a healthy lifestyle. Call me crazy, but I believe that life is meant to be lived, rather than endured. 

 By “toning up” a little more each week, you will create a healthy body that feels good both on the inside and out.  And so it is with great pleasure that I kickoff the first of the Tone Up Tuesday series with the 8 essential steps you need to know for beginning (and maintaining) a healthy lifestyle.

 I want you to feel like you can go on vacation and not panic that you couldn't transport your kitchen and gym with you. Read and follow these 8 steps with you often for the next week. Pin it, snap a picture, whatever you need to do. Soon, they will become healthy habits. Then we will meet back here next Tuesday to expand a little more on the workout portion of the plan. Until then, here your dose of inspiration to keep you feeling motivated.  

Photo Courtesy  of: Kristin Haus
Brown County State Park
Nashville, IN

Create a great and "Toned-Up" Tuesday!

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