Written by Fahiza Danjuma
Image by @Jyotimatharoo
Little changes always go a long way, that’s why it’s important that we make decisions daily to invest in healthy lifestyle changes. Building and sustaining changes in your lifestyle is highly dependent on each individual but making long-term lifestyle changes is a process that will take
time, care, patience, and a lot of discipline and dedication. That’s why it is important to be as realistic as possible, take it easy on yourself, work with your schedule and see where you can make the small changes.
Little changes are often all that you need to improve your health. So here are some suggestions you can use to help you make those small lifestyle changes for long-term health.
Reduce your salt intake
Something that is extremely overlooked is salt in our diet. If you didn’t know already, in the UK high blood pressure is more common among black Afro/Caribbean people than any other ethnic group. The recommended daily salt intake for adults is less than 6 grams of salt per day
(that’s equivalent to 1 teaspoon). Cooking and prepping your food at home as much as you can is one of the best ways to control the levels of salt in your food.
My favourite ways to naturally add flavour to food is using any spices (e.g white or black pepper, all spices, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, curry, nutmeg etc.) and incorporate dried and fresh veggies like garlic, onions, ginger, and peppers, which are naturally low in salt. Zest & Zing and SeasonLESS have great high quality spices.
Gut health
The health benefits of a healthy gut include everything from a better mood to a strong immune system. Probiotics is what you need, it’s the good bacteria that helps keep you healthy. Kombucha is sparkling fermented tea that is a great probiotic that contains beneficial live microorganisms that can help improve your gut health. This is a great way to make that soda switch, it’s lower in sugar and even better for your gut. There are so many brands of Kombucha, but I highly recommend HOLOS and Momo Kombucha.
Keep active
The goal should always be health, which involves keeping our bodies moving, sometimes ditch that lift or elevator and take the stairs where you can. Be aware of how much you’re moving, make it fun, challenge yourself, if you tend to work at home or the gym isn’t for you, start small, do a minimum of 3k steps a day and then add 1k every week to your daily amount of steps to be completed (your phone tracks your steps, utilise it). If you struggle to keep active and keep your body moving, get an accountability partner, grab a friend to keep you on track and to go on the journey with you.
I hope this makes you consider making changes to your lifestyle, big or small, we say health is wealth for a reason.
