17 Health and Nutrition Tips for a Vibrant New You

Just starting week two of a new year and hopefully it’s turning out to be a great one for you! Here are 17 health and nutrition tips for a vibrant new you this year and beyond! Are you ready for this to be the year that you transform your health and happiness in a huge way?

A lot can be accomplished in the coming 12 months, to support your goals of a more healthy, intentional, and vibrant version of you, but making these choices can sometimes be a challenge.

Generally speaking, I’m not a New Year’s Resolution kind-a-girl simply because the reality is, most resolutions just don’t seem to last long. Let’s be honest, most of us hit the new year all fired up, only to set lofty and unrealistic goals and end up falling right back into the same routine as last year.

It happens.

The reality is, if New Year’s Resolutions actually worked, we wouldn’t have to make the same ones over again at the beginning of every year. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with goal setting itself, it’s just that there are easier ways to tackle making your resolution a reality.

Make Your Resolution a Reality

So, here comes the good part…I am a total advocate of a good “reset” so to speak. I think anytime is always a good time to reconnect with ourselves, to take measure of our self care, and recommit to areas that may have gotten lost along the way. And if it happens to be the at the start of a new year, then great – I say go for it!

Personally, for me this whole “staying healthy thing” is for life, not just a passing phase. That being said, I’m way more interested in actionable ways for you and I to get and stay healthy, that can be sustained for a lifetime, not just a month, a few months, or a year – we’re talking long term transformations that stick – if that’s what you want, of course! First, it boils down to this…

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT. YOU JUST HAVE TO START.

In the busy day-to-day, smaller changes are much less overwhelming to tackle, much easier and more fun to implement, and allow us to experience consistent measurable results that keep us going for more.

In my experience, when it comes to making lifestyle changes that stick, small steps may not seem to add up all that quickly. But since they are accumulative, they can easily make some of the biggest impacts on our overall quality of life for the duration.

So this is really the basis for these tips. Small steps = Big results. I recommend to implement one change at a time, allow yourself to celebrate your efforts and results, and continue to add another, and so forth until you are happy with the changes that are working for you and they gradually become a natural part of your new vibrant lifestyle.

1. Hydrate With Water

Wake up with water. Drink a glass of room temperature water or warm water with lemon first thing in the morning, to transition the body from it’s natural detoxification phase while we sleep, hydrate your cells, and support healthy elimination. Fill up a water bottle to take with you wherever you go to help stay nice and hydrated, and continually flush out toxins. Try adding some flare to plain water with these recipes:

10 Detox Water Recipes to Keep You Hydrated and Feeling Great

2. Choose Whole Foods

Ditch dieting, food anxiety and the need to count calories by eating fresh whole foods. Nutrient dense real food is key to overall health and well being. My series on Starting a Whole Foods Diet offers more suggestions to get started on the right track and make eating real food a permanent part of your lifestyle.

3. Simplify With Meal Plans

Custom meal plans make getting healthy food on the table for you and your family stress-free, delicious, and sustainable. They have been a complete game-changer for us and can be a total lifesaver, especially for busy people (who isn’t, right)?! For my favorite options, check out my meal planning resources.

4. Think Smart Food Swaps

Simple food swaps can go a long way toward changing the way you eat. Swap out some the typical processed ingredients, foods, and snacks with their real nutrient dense counterparts. Start with simple swaps like using himalayan salt or sea salt instead of iodized table salt. 29 simple nutrition swaps offers more suggestions to help you get started.

5. Drink Juices and Smoothies

Fresh juices and smoothies are a great way to kick start your health fast, especially green ones (try my delightfully detoxifying green juice). Invest in a quality juicer, blender, or Nutribullet to make the task easy and enjoyable. There are pros to both – juicing takes the work off the digestive system while delivering nutrients in a highly absorbable state, while blending adds fiber.

6. Go Big on Greens

Leafy greens are some the most nutrient dense and cleansing foods you can eat. Find out all about leafy greens, including individual nutrient profiles, which areas of the body each helps to support, suggestions on how to prepare them to taste the best and other important information HERE. Another great way to get your greens in is with a green superfood powder.

7. Get Happy With Healthy Fats

One of the best things you can do to support healthy hormones, moods and brain function is eat more healthy fats. They also stabilize blood sugar, support healthy weight, and keep you full longer. Go for more Omega-3’s and more foods like wild caught fish, grass-fed meats and butter, pastured eggs, avocados, coconut and olive oil, and others mentioned in the whole foods series above.

8. Go For Gut Health

Enjoy more fermented foods and beverages and bone broth, to promote a healthy immune system and a happy belly, by supporting and encouraging healthy and well balanced gut flora.

9. Super Size Superfoods

Superfoods score huge on the ORAC score, which is a fancy way to say that they are loaded with antioxidants. Things like berries, cacao and dark chocolate, maca, noni, and matcha to name a few, are excellent for energy and overall vitality. Check out 5 Top Superfoods here, as well as a DIY smoothie powder to save you time and money.

10. Allow Yourself to Indulge – Guilt-Free

Plan one to two guilt-free cheat meals or treats a week and intentionally indulge by remaining mindful of what you’re eating and why you’re eating it, so you maintain a healthy balanced relationship with food, don’t feel like you’re missing out, and are better equipped to nourish yourself with healthy food the rest of the week.

11. Reduce Toxins

Reduce the burden of daily toxins on your hormones and body by filtering water, eating organic, using non-toxic body care and feminine care, green products for the home, and passing on plastics. Dry skin brushing is also a great way to remove toxins and certain plants can clean the air while sprucing up your indoor space at the same time.

12. Get Moving Outdoors

Enjoy the outdoors and engage in physical activity that not only nourishes your body and helps you stay fit, but also makes you happy. Go dancing, do yoga on the beach, go for a hike in the woods, a bike ride through the park, try a mindful meditation walk – whatever makes you feel awesome inside and out.

13. Exercise More Efficiently to Save Time

Alternate short bouts of high-intensity exercise with brief recovery periods for anywhere from 10-30 minutes and send your body into fat blasting mode to maximize your efforts in less time. Try these workouts, and if you’re into using a DVD at home, check out my full review on an awesome way to get your circuit training done in 10 minutes with no equipment, just a resistance band.

14. Expand Your Self Care/Self Love

Take time to reconnect with yourself on a deeper level by giving yourself what you need, whether it’s doing something you really love or just having a moment of silence to reflect. Need ideas? Here are 10 Ways to Practice Self Love. It’s important not to neglect self care even if we are limited on time, we can find some time to squeeze it in.

If misconceptions about self care are holding you back from taking care of yourself in the ways that you need, this post helps to remove the stigmas that are attached.

15. Strengthen Your Spiritual Practice

Meditate, pray, create a gratitude practice, create a spiritual yoga practice, engage in ways to expand your awareness, or practice affirmations. All of these things help us create a deeper spiritual connection within ourselves and with the universe so that we can be of better service to others.

16. Regularly Relax and De-Stress

Do more things that help you de-stress like yoga, deep breathing, hot baths, massage, getting out in nature, sound therapy, meditation, brain entrainment, essential oil therapy, flower essence therapy, reading a good book, writing in a journal, getting a pedicure – the things that make you go ahhh.

17. Get Good Sleep

For better sleep, consistency is where it’s at. Aim to be in bed by the same general time and an average of 7-9 hours of sleep each night. Promote a “sleep-inducing” environment in your bedroom with comfortable bedding, dim lighting, and power off your electronics and devices. Get more tips to sleep better here.

Have fun, enjoy the journey to a vibrant new you, and celebrate often! May this year turn out to be your healthiest and happiest yet!

Do you think you will try any of these and if so, which ones? Share your thoughts in the comments below!