How to Achieve a Healthy Lifestyle

 How to Achieve a Healthy Lifestyle

We all know that it is good to live healthy. Living a healthy life means eating healthy food that helps you to detox, get enough sleep and exercise, be moderate with alcohol, sugar and fat. Yet for many of us keeping up a healthy lifestyle is very difficult. Part of this is because we are creatures of habit.

We are a bit like machines. We create a pattern and if we follow that pattern long enough it becomes a habit.

So to unlearn a habit you have to create a new one.

So if you want to live a healthy life, you have to replace your habits that are not so healthy with ones that are healthy. In order to detox your body you have to replace the habit of eating a lot of fatty unhealthy foods with eating healthy detoxing foods. In order to feel less tired you have to replace your habit of sleeping only 4 hours a day to sleeping at least 6 hours a day.

Now the mistake that most people make when they decide to live a more healthy life is to change their lifestyle dramatically. They try to tackle¹ all of their habits all at once. Or they are too drastic². The best example of this is with people who try to lose weight. They go on a diet which is quite severe, and yes, they do lose weight. Sometimes a lot of weight in a relative short period. But they do not really change their eating habits. Only for a short while. So what happens often is that these people notice they will gain the weight back, and more even, once they stop with the diet. Their old habits have not changed, they are lurking³ in the shadows, waiting for the moment to pounce⁴ on you once you stop with the diet.

And the same holds true for people who start exercising in order to lose weight or to overcome a physical problem. Once the problem has been overcome or the weight has been lost, many stop the exercising. It has not become a habit.

A lot of habits which promote a healthy lifestyle, such as eating foods that help to detox, regular physical exercise and enough sleep, are not the habits that people look forward to create. People associate these habits with boring, too much trouble, difficult to achieve, taking time so that they have less time to spend on things they like to do. So a change of mindset, or rather association, should be created. What if you thought of chocolate as boring food, food that leaves your body sluggish⁵ and yucky on the inside? What if you thought of physical exercise as fun, as relaxing, more relaxing than sitting on the couch⁶ watching telly?

1 tackle   

n.工具，复滑车，扭倒；v.处理，抓住

参考例句：

• Don't forget to bring your sports tackle with you tomorrow.别忘了明天带上你的体育用具。
• We have gained sufficient experience to tackle this problem.我们已经有了足够的经验来处理这个问题。

2 drastic   

adj.严厉的，极端的，激烈的，猛烈的

参考例句：

• His view brings a drastic argument.他的观点引起激烈的争论。
• The situation brings home to us the need for drastic preventive actions.这种情况使我们深切地感到采取极端的行动是必要的。

3 lurking   

潜在

参考例句：

• Why are you lurking around outside my house? 你在我房子外面鬼鬼祟祟的，想干什么？
• There is a suspicious man lurking in the shadows. 有一可疑的人躲在阴暗中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

4 pounce   

n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意

参考例句：

• Why do you pounce on every single thing I say?干吗我说的每句话你都要找麻烦？
• We saw the tiger about to pounce on the goat.我们看见老虎要向那只山羊扑过去。

5 sluggish   

adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的

参考例句：

• This humid heat makes you feel rather sluggish.这种湿热的天气使人感到懒洋洋的。
• Circulation is much more sluggish in the feet than in the hands.脚部的循环比手部的循环缓慢得多。

6 couch   

n.睡椅，长沙发椅；vt.表达，隐含

参考例句：

• Lie down on the couch if you're feeling ill.如果你感觉不舒服就躺到沙发上去。
• The rabbIt'sprang from its grassy couch.兔子从草丛中跳出。