Seven Ways to Simplify A Healthy Life

The adjustment to a healthier lifestyle can be overwhelming!  To help hopefully simplify, I’ve made a list of the advice I wish I’d gotten:

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Meal Plan and Budget

This list of my ten top tips for eating healthy on a budget is a compilation of all the tricks and tips I’ve learned along the way. Meal planning can make a tremendous difference in helping stick to a healthy diet and in saving money. When I slack on this, my health and my checkbook suffer.

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Fast Once In A While

Cooking three healthy meals a day can be tiring! Save your energy once in a while and fast for a meal or two (or a whole day). You won’t waste away or cannibalize your muscle and your body will thank you. This also helps with budgeting, since meals that you don’t eat are free!

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Get Enough Sleep

Everything seems easier with a good night’s sleep and with good reason… your adrenals are functioning better and you’ll get stressed less easily. Getting quality sleep is an important pillar of health, especially if you have any underlying adrenal, thyroid or endocrine issues. Catching ZZZZs is also the most ignored part of overall health in my experience, and unfortunately, you can’t out diet, out exercise or out supplement lack of sleep. Ignoring this one factor can have a serious negative impact on your health!

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Make Things Yourself

Natural alternatives can often be much more expensive, unless you make them yourself. This has been the area that I’ve saved the most money in overall, which is a benefit when you’re trying to stretch a budget to buy quality foods. Here are some of my favorite homemade product recipes:

Natural Homemade Laundry Detergent
Natural All-Purpose Cleaner Recipe
Natural Oven Cleaning
Natural Homemade Glass Cleaner Recipe
Easy Homemade Scouring Powder Recipe
Floor and Tile Cleaner Recipe
Natural Homemade Baby Wipes-Easy to Make
Make Your Own Natural Deodorant With This Simple Recipe
Homemade Elderberry Syrup Recipe for Illness Prevention
Natural Homemade Toothpaste- Easy Recipe

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Stick to the Basics

Eating a healthy diet doesn’t have to be complicated. A protein, healthy source of fat and vegetable make a meal and there are thousands of combinations. If time or money is an issue, saute some ground meat in coconut oil or butter, throw in a bag of frozen veggies and enjoy. Big salads are also a great choice. Once you get used to a grain free real food way of eating, you’ll find that meal planning is easier because you don’t have to plan the starch to go with the meal.

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Avoid the Worst Offenders

The best laid plans of mice and men…. It’s not always possible to eat completely healthy 100% of the time, especially when traveling or at other people’s houses. Try to avoid foods like grains, vegetable oil and sugar completely if you can, and don’t stress too much if you can’t eat a completely optimal diet all the time. Mark Sisson’s 80/20 rule comes into play here… sometimes the stress of avoiding certain foods is worse than the foods themselves. If you do indulge occasionally, aim for the healthiest option available and move on!

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Simplify Your Fitness

More isn’t always better! Save time and improve your fitness faster by optimizing the types of exercise you are doing. Consider ditching the treadmill or gym membership and take your simplified fitness routine outside!

What are your tips for simplifying a healthy life? Any budgeting secrets or meal planning tricks? I’d love to hear your top seven below!

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