Steal My Healthier Lifestyle Checklist

I’m on my own mission to create a healthier lifestyle and I’ve created a healthy lifestyle checklist to share with you.

I originally titled this blog post ‘Healthy Living Checklist’ but it didn’t feel right for me. It’s not about being super healthy. I’m not super healthy. I’m someone who’s trying to be healthier. It’s recognition that I’ve not always looked after my health and it’s about improving my lifestyle to add healthier habits.

Now I need to point out to you, just in case this is the first time you’re joining me here that I’m not a health expert or anything like that. I am a qualified Life Skills Coach, Law of attraction Practitioner and EFT Master Practitioner. But most of all, I’m on my own health and weight loss journey.

I’d love to tell you I have some kind of “BE SLIM AND HEALTHY” Magic wand, but I don’t. This really is a jounrey for me and sometimes it’s better than others. What I’ve learned is that I need to focus on consistent habits that I can maintain.

The start of my healthy living and weight loss journey

At the beginning of 2015, I was not in a very healthy state. I weighed over 13 stone (in truth at my heaviest, I was closer to 14 stone) and was classed as having pre-diabetes. I was super unfit really unhealthy. My lifestyle was based around eating quite unhealthily and having a very sedentary life. I really wasn’t taking care of my body.

I’d been overweight to some degree since around 2001. I knew I needed to change and I’m not talking about a fad diet or manic exercise routine. I think we all know that these don’t work long-term. I knew I needed to change my lifestyle.

When I was next tested for diabetes I was back to a normal range. I can tell you that was a huge relief and I never want to go back to being told I’m pre-diabetic. It’s scary.

My weight now

I currently weigh around 11 stone right now. Weight changes throughout the day and at different times of the week and month. So I don’t stress too much about a number on the scales. Instead, I tend to go off how I feel in my body, how fit or unfit I feel and how well I’m feeling.

My happy weight zone that I’m aiming for is 9 stone 5 to 9 stone 10.

I’m so much healthier and fitter than I was back then and whilst I’m not at my goal weight, I know that I’ve made a fantastic change to my health. And my journey continues.

Ups and downs of my healthier living and weight loss journey

I’ve had ups and downs on my health and weight loss journey. I think for me, my biggest hurdle over the years has been my business. I would quite happily sit and work all day with very little physical activity.

I now work outside of the home a few days a week and it’s fairly physical work which is good for me.

I’ve also forgotten about my health and weight loss journey from time to time and been so focused on my business and life.

I’m consistently trying to build healthy habits that fit into my life, no matter how busy I am. The crazy thing is that I know my business suffers when I don’t take good care of myself.

Whilst, I’m super, super happy with my weight loss so far, I want to get myself down to my goal weight now. I believe these healthy habits are the long-term key to my success in this area.

Healthier Lifestyle Checklist

I wanted to create a healthy lifestyle checklist for myself to help me stay super focused on my daily healthy habits. I thought maybe, you’d like a checklist too, so I’ve added a PDF version of the Healthy Lifestyle Checklist for you to download.

If you’d like to use my checklist, you can download it here >>> HEALTHY LIFESTYLE CHECKLIST PDF

11 Daily Healthy Habits

The checklist focuses on building 11 daily healthy habits.

Eat 5+ Fruit/Veg
Drink 1.5+ litres of water
30+ minutes of exercise in chunks
Add mini-exercise boosts
Watch my portion size
Eat mindfully
EFT Session
Listen to a Hypnosis download
Practice affirmations
80% real food (not processed)
Get enough sleep

These are the key things that really help me to keep improving my health, and wellbeing and help me to lose weight.

1. Eat 5+ fruit or veg

I’m sure you’ve heard of the health benefits of eating 5 portions of fruit or veg a day. I found this really helpful guide to explain what a portion size is from the NHS 5 A Day Portion Sizes

I actually have 5 as my absolute minimum, I like to get more than this most days and I go for a variety of different colours.

But, let’s be real, some days are busy and it’s easy to forget. So I try to build habits to ensure I achieve this.

I have a banana every day – usually as part of my breakfast.
I add at least 2 portions of fruit to my lunch (pack up if I’m working out of my home) – Usually strawberries and grapes

I make sure that I have 2 portions of veg with my main meal.

This is my absolute minimum and I don’t need to think too much about it.

Tips to eat more fruit and veg

Snack on fruit or veg – Cucumbers, peppers and carrots are great for making veg sticks
Make a big pan of veg-packed soup and freeze in individual portions
Smoothies and juices – I always prefer whole fruit and veg but if you’re struggling this is a good option.
Fruit on plain or Greek yoghurt
Make use of tinned, frozen and dried fruit and frozen vegetables

Plan ahead

I don’t know about you, but if I don’t plan ahead I can easily get to the end of the day and find I’ve not eaten any fruit or veg. This is why I stick to my fruit and veg plan of banana for breakfast, 3 fruit for lunch and 2 veg with my main meal. Then I don’t need to think too much about it.

I always make sure I have some frozen veg and fruit and tins or fruit in case I run out of fresh. I also have small bags of dried fruit in my bag at all times in case I get hungry when I’m out and about.

2. Drink 1-5+ litres of water

I used to drink very little water and I was constantly tired. Did you know that the feeling we get when we’re thirsty is very similar to when we’re hungry? People often think they’re hungry when actually they need a drink. I try to drink 2 litres of water most days but my minimum is one and a half litres of water daily.

Here are a few posts to check out to help with this habit…

3. 30+ minutes of exercise (in chunks if needed)

I’m not someone who loves exercise but I know it helps me to feel well, feel better in myself and keep my weight down.

30 minutes isn’t a set number but it’s what I roughly aim for during the day. Some days I’ll do this in one go, such as a walk with my dog or an exercise video – Check out my favourite workouts that I do in the comfort of my living room.

But other days one 30-minute block of exercise doesn’t work for me. It might be a 10-minute walk with the dog, another 10 minutes walking from one place to another, 5 minutes dancing around my living room and 5 minutes of stretches.

Here are some posts to help build your exercising habit…

4. Add mini-exercise boosts

I love mini exercise boosts. They’re simply little bursts of exercise throughout the day. For example, when you put the kettle on do some exercises whilst you wait. This can be as simple as marching on the spot.

Every time I go up the stairs, I do 10 standing wall push-ups. Do a few star jumps, dance around the room, and do some lunges or squats. Just get moving.

These little boosts throughout the day really add up.

Dr Michael Mosley talks about the benefits of exercise snacking (as he calls it) – Read Don’t worry about going to the gym! Shorter bursts of exercise could be better for you

5. Watch my portion size

This is a big one for me. I really love my food and growing up our plates were always full. This was fine when I was really active but as a full-time blogger that’s not the case anymore, so I really need to watch my portion sizes. Here’s a post all about portion size.

One trick I like to use is eating from a smaller plate. I found some plates that aren’t as small as my little side plates but they’re nowhere near as big as my normal dinner plates.

6. Eat mindfully

Another biggie for me. I used to eat so super fast. It started after the birth of my son, he didn’t sleep very long at all and I ate fast when I could. This habit didn’t stop as he got older and 18 years on it’s something I still need to work on.

When I eat mindfully, I enjoy my food much more, eat less and I never get that TOO full feeling.

Have a read of my Eat Mindfully Tips

7. EFT Session

EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques is one of the very best ways I know for clearing old limiting beliefs, low feelings and past memories that block us. I’m a qualified EFT Master Practitioner and I have loads of EFT scripts here on the blog.

For weight loss, general health and wellbeing, I recommend at least 1 EFT session every day.

Read my EFT – HOW TO TAP Guide to get started
EFT for Weight Loss Scripts and download
7-Day EFT and Affirmations Challenge For Weight Loss
7-Day Emotional Freedom Techniques for Weight Loss Scripts

8. Listen to a hypnosis download

I’m a huge fan of hypnosis downloads and I love to listen to a download that supports me on my health, weight loss and wellbeing journey at night as I go to sleep.

Read Healthy Hypnosis and Hypnosis downloads for weight loss.

9. Practice affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements. Negative self-talk is a big problem for so many of us. Instead, fill your mind with positive affirmations that support you.

Here are some posts to really help you make the most of your affirmations and give you plenty of affirmation ideas.

10. 80% real food

I try to make sure that most of my meals and snacks are real food – Not processed foods. I’d love to say all my food is real food but 80% or more is a good guide for me right now.

Meal planning is something that really helps me to make sure I’m choosing good quality real food.

11. Get enough sleep

I used to survive on around 5 hours sleep a night which meant I was constantly tired, unhealthy and unproductive.

I encourage you to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. There are the odd nights I don’t manage this but I really make this a priority in my life because I know how much of a difference it makes to me.

I’d love you to take my 30-day SLEEP CHALLENGE – Designed to help you build the healthy habit of getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night.

Download The Healthy Lifestyle Checklist pdf

I find that having a checklist where you can physically tick things off is a great way to help build your positive healthy habits. The 1-page checklist is for 7 days so you can just print off as many weeks as you want.

DOWNLOAD MY HEALTHY LIFESTYLE CHECKLIST

The download is on Gumroad, you’ll need to put a number in the payment box. You are welcome to put 0 in the box to download for free.

Final words of wisdom for building a healthier lifestyle

Okay, I’m not sure if it’s wisdom but I really hope you’ve found this blog post helpful I hope you will join me in making these things a habit in your own life.

I neglected my health for many years and for different reasons but no more. Now, my health and well-being are a top priority. It’s still very much a journey but one I enjoy more and more all the time.

Through my blog, I really hope that I can support you and help make your health and weight loss journey that bit more enjoyable.

My best wishes to you always. Please support my blog by sharing it anywhere you can. Thank you so much – Wendy xx

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