Hello! Most of you probably know me through my instagram. I am so thankful for your support there and I hope you will find this page interesting as well. I decided to start a blog, because I had quite succesful blogs in the past and I miss this. I miss the feeling of writing, creating something that can help or inspire other people. Writing in english also helps me getting better at it.

I always try to share healthy food options on insta stories, because my page is mostly about lifestyle and sports. You all know that sport and eating are going hand in hand. Many people are saying that 80% of healthy lifestyle is healthy eating and 20% exercising. I did an experiment on myself and I can tell that my body doesn't agree with that. I don't eat clean all the time. I eat sweets, I eat chocolate and I am still losing weight if I want to.  It's because of ratio of daily calorie intake and exercising (losing calories). It is also probably because of my age and therefore better metabolism. But I will touch on this later.

Many people are asking me how I eat, how much I eat and similar questions. I will try to answer them in this article that is made to give some tips that you may not know.
However it is not meant to be inclusive, even though I'll go through some major points that are important for improving your health in general.

What is "healthy living"?

I guess we all think that it means the same but in reality it depends on each person. I personally understand this term as a mental and physical well-being. Mental and physical health is well balanced and they are functioning well in a person's body.

Know your goal

Most of us, humans, care about being skinny and fit. I understand that. I was a chubby girl basically my whole life and I was always struggling with that. I felt insecure, timide and I simply wasn't feeling good about my body. Today it's different. With all bodies are beautiful movements it is easier to let those bad feelings go and be happy.
But that isn't the topic of today's post. I wanted to tell you, here in the beginning that your goal shouldn't be skinny. Your goal should be healthy. Mentality of wanting to be skinny or to change your body drastically because you feel disgusting of yourself won't help you. It will tear you down and broke you. You'll be worse than when you started. I've been there.

Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash

So the first important step in being healthy is to actually want to be. You want to be healthy because (this is such a cliche) you love yourself and your body. And you want to treat something you love the best way possible.
And how you can treat yourself in the best way?

1. Drink more water

Every article says that, you can look up the benefits of doing this and it is true. Pure water makes you feel hydrated and full of energy. Your brain functioning gets better (brain is mostly of water), your muscles have better performance and your blood pressure tends to improve.
However you can't drink way too much of water. There were evidences of people who overdrank in very short time period and they've had several issues. Your body is 80% water. Cells need to have isotonic environment to work well. If there is way too much of water, you can have a lack of sodium. Sodium helps your cells to balance fluids. If it is absent,  liquid moves from your blood to your cells that causes swelling.

2. Healthy food

We all know what is the healthy food right? It's vegetables, grains and fruits. We all need to eat properly for growth in the childhood and for maintenance in adulthood. There is no other shortcut here than eat a lot of fruits (1 apple per day par example), a lot of vegetable (My side dish is always vegetable based) and also grains - for better digestion. I also eat meat since I think that in a small amount (once per week) it is healthy. Meat is full of animal based proteins that are necessary for muscle growth. I only eat chicken and fish, even though they have the most additives (hormones) from all of the types of meat.

In every stage of our lives we have different requirements. A senior needs something different than a child or adult.
We don't only have a different requirements regarding the food, but also the portion. Par example, infants tends to eat more times a day than a normal adult.

- eat 3 times a day
Many people would say they can't eat breakfast because they are sick in the morning. As I said earlier, this article isn't inclusive, but personally I think it's better to eat breakfast.
And here's why: If you are eating breakfast you don't have to eat much at dinner. Dinners are supposed to be smaller portions because your body is going to sleep - it doesn't require that many calories and it can't really process it. If you overate and went to sleep, you wouldn't have such a good sleep as you would have without eating that much. This causes a gastroesophageal reflux (gastro - digestive, esophaegal - muscle between esophagus and stomach, reflux - surferom from heartburn and acid indigestion). It's because your stomach needs to process all the food and it can't rest.

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

- control portions of your food. It's best to eat the smallest portion to only satisfy your hunger. Overeating is not healthy and you will feel bloated afterwords.

How to spot when you had enough?

Try to eat in the slowest possible way. This way the information of fullness from your stomach to your brain will get in time.
- snacks are fine, if they consists of fruits, nuts or whole grains. I sometimes "cheat" and eat something sweet and that is completely okay too, if you do it in moderation.
- avoid sugary drinks and sodas. They all have excessive calories you don't need and are full of chemicals that aren't healthy for your body.

3. Sleep Well

Sleeping is very important, we all know that. When you work out you also need to have a good amount of sleep. If you can´t sleep you shoul drink milk with honey, it is proven to help. When you are gaining muscles it isn´t recommended to drink coffee later than 4 p.m.

4. Try not to stress

What more should I say? Just try to be calm, relax and let it slowly go off your mind. However a bit of stress is good when you need to perform, because it makes you faster, more aware and awake. However high level of cortisol, hormone that causes stress, can take some of your years away... Hope you liked this article and understood what I wanted to say, haha. I tried to add as many tips as possible and bring some value.

 Take care,
 Radka

insta: So She Glows 
my designs: shop here