Baby Steps: Easy Steps to a Healthier You

No energy? No time? Here are 12 easy, effortless, and fast ways to a healthier you!

1. Take the stairs. Do you work on an upper floor? Do you often travel? While at work, at a hotel, or at an airport you will find yourself forever in an elevator or on an escalator. Try taking the stairs. While at first it may seem minimal, that few minutes of extra exercise will start to increase your muscle tone in your legs. You may find yourself running out of breath less often, and you may even find the boost to try even harder to achieve the new you!

2. Walk backwards up the stairs. Do you already take the stairs? Try walking up the backwards. This simple step will be a great help to define your leg muscles. It may seem trivial, but try it for a few weeks. Each step is one more toward success!

3. Tighten your abdominal muscles frequently. Self-tightening of your abdominal muscles will make them stronger, and give you a start to defining them. Try this simple task while doing dishes, or even while watching television. You may start to find those next sit-ups are less strenuous.

4. Tighten your buttocks muscles frequently. As with step 3, you can get an easy start to defining your buttocks. Again, you can do this a few times while washing the dishes, or for a deeper effect you could do this while working on step 1 or 2.

5. Drink water in place of soda. Eliminate just one soda, coffee, or tea from your daily routine. Try having water with one of your meals where you would normally drink something with more sugar. This may seem like a very small step, but in one month you will have eliminated 30 beverages that may have been affecting you in a negative way. You will start to feel more alert, less tired, and your teeth will start to lose their coffee stains! Once you start seeing the effects it will motivate you to drink more water.

6. Skip one snack a week. Are you a snack-a-holic? I am, too. Try starting with the elimination of just one snack each week. Slowly migrate yourself into the elimination of one every other day, or even every day. You will gain energy, and depending on the snacks you are used to, you may even lose some weight.

7. Eat vegetables in place of snacks. I love vegetables. Instead of that bag of chips, chop up some celery, broccoli, cauliflower, or carrots and have them instead. The amount of cholesterol and calories you will eliminate from your diet will surprise you into what could be an entire diet change!

8. Go to sleep just one hour earlier. Sleep deprivation can affect is in ways that we normally do not think of. Nowadays we are all busier than in years past. Add just one hour more to your allotted sleep time and you will feel more energetic, and less moody, nearly immediately.

9. Stand behind your desk. Have a sit-down job? Try standing for just ten-minute periods frequently. When I worked in an office a few years ago we used to stand for 10 minutes each hour, on the hour. We also threw in some leg lifts while we were doing it.

10. Add ankle weights to your day. Especially in connection with step 9, you can put 1/2-1 pound ankles weights on each day. Start out small, leaving them on only for a small period of time. At the office we used to wear them at the same time we did our standing and leg lifts. If you decide to follow step 1 or 2 you could add the ankle weights as well. Let yourself get comfortable with the steps first before adding extra weight.

11. Exercise for 1 minute. Doing push-ups or sit-ups for just 1 minute each morning has a variety of healthy effects. Of course you will start to tone and define the muscles you are using during each practice, but you could even lose up to 7 pounds your first month. You will find yourself with more energy leftover at the end of the day by just doing one of these simple exercises for 1 minute in the morning.

12. Do wall push-ups. Not comfortable getting down on the floor? No problem. Angle yourself at a sturdy wall. Complete push-ups against the wall in the same manner you would as if you were on the floor. In a few weeks you will find yourself on the floor completing push-ups with ease.

These steps to improve your health are small, and virtually take no time or effort. Many of us fall short on exercise because of time restraints or lack of energy. Pick just one step from above to start off with. Once you find yourself with more energy you will be able to look toward more of the steps with great ease, and a better state of mind.

Remember not to overdue it right away. Doing too much too fast can have some drastic effects. Start with these small steps and work up to what you are comfortable with. If you start off too hard, too fast, you could end up hurt or even more exhausted than you were before.

Take it easy and good luck!