What you put inside your body is the first thing we need to focus on, have you ever heard the statistic that we should be drinking 8 glasses of water a day and thought “Ha, I don’t even drink one!” Well, it’s time to make a change. Drinking plenty of water speeds up your metabolism and allows you to eat more without the guilt, it also keeps your body fresh and rejuvenated, allowing you to go out and seize the day! You can replace the drinks you already drink with water, you could also carry a water bottle around with you wherever you go, taking a sip every [insert time] minutes and aiming to refill it [insert number] times a day. If you don’t like the taste of water and don’t think you’ll ever get used to it, you could buy a fruit infuser, this is a bottle that allows you to add fruit or veg into your water in order to enhance the flavour. Clever, I know! 

Food is also something to consider, making small snack swaps will be extremely beneficial for your health. Try swapping jellybeans for grapes, or crisps for homemade popcorn, or chocolate spread for peanut butter (if you’re not allergic, of course!) Food is a big beautiful world of variety and trying new foods will help you to develop your own taste, especially for the healthier options!

Next is exercise, I’m sure we’re all a little too lazy to go to the gym…and work out…in front of everyone, when we‘d rather be catching up on our favourite TV series. So, here is your solution: Walking. Walk to school, walk to work, walk to the shops, take the stairs, park further away from the building so you can walk a little more. All these little things add up and give you results in the long term. It has been proven that walking 30 minutes a day improves your mood (motivating you more for other sports if you feel like it), strengthens your heart, reduces the risk of some diseases and tones many parts of your body. So, why not walk?

If you want an extra exercise to take part in, find something you love through the magical process of trial and error. Take a taster session in tennis, if you don’t like it, try trampolining? Basketball? Dance? Maybe you notice that you really, really love volleyball and want to keep doing it every week? Then, do it! Doing something you love as exercise gets rid of all the stress of “But, I can’t be bothered!” and “Not today!” and you soon forget you’re even exercising because you’ll enjoy it so much!

If you consider everything I’ve recommended for keeping healthy, I’m sure you’ll be on the right track, best wishes!

Sarina :)