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Learning to tune into your body can help you become healthier and stay that way. Some people just know when they need to change their diet or need more protein or vegetables. They’ve learned to pay attention to the subtle cues that the body offers and follow through with the request to feed it right. If you’ve ever felt out of sorts only to realize later that the reason is all the junk food and lack of fruits and veggies in your diet, you have a clue how your body communicates with you.

Learn to judge whether you’re hungry or just want to eat out of habit.

Sometimes you’re not really hungry, but you eat any how. You may find yourself substituting food to eliminate boredom. Eating mindfully means more than just knowing if you’re hungry. It’s deciphering what your hungry for and why. Do you need the nutrition? Do you really enjoy the food? Savor each bite and appreciate how it helps your body. It’s not only a way to listen to your body, it’s a way to get in touch with it so you can listen.

Is that hunger really thirst?

So many people fail to identify the difference between thirst and hunger. Sometimes, when you think you’re hungry, your body is really craving more fluid. Learn to know the difference between the two. If you think you’re hungry but you’ve recently eaten or shouldn’t be, it’s probably thirst that’s driving you. Try a tall glass of water first and wait to see if the craving is gone. Chances are, you’ll be more likely to recognize thirst easier each time you do.

Do you feel stress?

Not everyone knows when they’re stressed out, some people keep on functioning, barely realizing that the sick feeling in the pit of their stomach comes from stress. A quick way to learn what this body cue means is to do things to help offset stress and see if you feel better. Meditation can help, but so can exercise. In fact, most people find that exercising makes them feel better, but seldom realize it’s because that feeling comes from it relieving stress.

• Listen to your body when it tells you that you’re tired and worked out enough. Trying to workout beyond your point of exhaustion is dangerous. Know the difference between true pain and normal muscle soreness.
• Pay attention to each movement when you exercise. It helps you learn the language of the body faster.
• Are you accustomed to going all night and ignoring that tired feeling? That actually slows the process of knowing your body better. Learn to rest when you’re tired or at least take a few minutes to meditate and rest your brain.
• Remember the more you ignore the messages from your body, the harder it becomes to listen or understand the signal it sends.

I’ve had people come into the gym dragging. They workout regularly and think it’s enough to keep them functioning well. Exercise is great and does boost your energy level, but if you’re not running on real food even that benefit will soon fade. Eating healthy provides the body with nutrients to build new cells and keep all parts of your body in top operating condition. Some foods actually make you feel tired, and not the sleepy, good type of tired like the tryptophan in turkey does.

Spiking your energy level with sugar has disastrous results.

If you’re diabetic, you have to watch your sugar intake closely and know all about drops in your sugar level, but for the vast majority of people, they don’t have a clue about the drain sugar takes on their body. Sure, if you’re tired a sweet treat will boost your energy level, just like a cup of Jo will. However, within a few hours, you’ll be right back down to the basement and maybe even more tired than you were before you ate. Avoid sugary treats to keep your body healthy, happy and running at full steam.

Seriously, can you pronounce all the ingredients in your meal?

If you’re eating processed foods, you won’t be as healthy. Many processed foods contain ingredients you can’t even pronounce and some that are made from the same ingredients as plastic, petroleum oil. Making sure your car has oil is one thing, but that doesn’t make it healthy for your body. Some of the ingredients are preservatives, artificial color and even some “flavor enhancers.” When you switch to real food, whole foods or dishes that you make from whole food ingredients, you know exactly what it contains and it’s all healthy.

Avoid refined flour products and stick with whole grains.

Refined flour has had the nutrients stripped out of them and then added back into them. They’ve had up to 25 extra chemicals adding to them, such as bleach or oxidizers. These types of additives are not allowed in countries like Germany. Chemicals are added to keep the bread soft and fresh feeling, while mono and diglycerides make it fluffy. Dough conditioner can include a mixture of chemicals that resembles anti-freeze, too. As one nutritional saying goes, “The whiter the bread, the sooner you’re dead.”

• Eating a wide variety of colors at a meal helps balance nutrition, as long as those are the natural food colors, not artificial ones. Bright yellow cake frosting doesn’t count, but yellow squash does.
• Real foods from animal sources need one further step. You need to know what the animals ate. If it was hormones and antibiotics, that’s not good. Grass fed beef, that’s excellent. In fact, butter from grass fed cows is heart healthy.
• Real foods contain lean meat cuts, but in smaller portions and more fruits and veggies than meat.
• If you’re eating in fast food restaurants, chances are you’re not eating real foods. That can be also true in even more expensive restaurants unless they’re known for healthy foods.

Choosing who has to cook or being stuck with the job because you’re the only one in the house can be a tough job. If one person enjoys cooking, that’s great, life should be filled with things you enjoy. However, for everyone that hates to cook, but enjoys eating, minimalist cooking should be at the top of your list. Not only is minimalist cooking easier, it has many other benefits, which can include eating healthier than you did before you started. Minimalist cooking does NOT mean buying prepared frozen meals. Even though you’re doing less, you’re also getting less nutrients.

Use common herbs and spices to spruce up your dishes.

If you’ve opened your cupboard to find hundreds of spice bottles, it’s time to do some housecleaning. In most cases, you’ll probably use only just a few. You can also improve both the flavor and the nutrition of the dish by growing herbs in your garden and plucking a few to add to dishes for flavor. This is actually fun. Lemon balm can substitute for lemon. Cinnamon basil is great for chili. Add some chives, oregano or basil to most vegetables and get a great flavor with little effort.

Minimalist cooking means less kitchen clutter.

You don’t need all the fancy machines and cookware when you switch to this type of cooking. You do need high quality ingredients, such as fresh veggies or good quality olive oil. Keep your spices to a minimum and get rid of the clutter in your cabinets. You’ll find that cooking is more satisfying when clean up is at a minimum and you don’t have difficult recipes to follow. In fact, you can create substitutions for recipes to keep prices low or make it more convenient by using what’s in the fridge or the cheaper seasonal vegetable.

Whole foods, those less processed or not processed are a great way to start.

What’s wrong with serving a one ingredient dish? Absolutely nothing. In fact, single ingredient whole foods are far better for you than a gourmet, “healthy” dish that was cooked, frozen and comes in a box. Eating fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs and nuts are just a few examples of whole foods that taste good in their natural state or with just a minor amount of preparation. They’re filled with nutrition and don’t require a lot of effort or extra ingredients. You can make them even healthier without breaking a sweat by adding some healthy herbs and spices.

• You can take one recipe and make a number of meals. For instance, combine noodles with various vegetables you have on hand.
• It’s even easier to cook if you wash and chop veggies ahead of time and have them ready to add to meals, whether cooked or eaten raw.
• What’s better than soup on a cold day? Whether you have homemade bone broth ready in the freezer or use the natural juices of tomatoes for the soup. It’s delicious, nutritious and easy to whip up a fresh pot of soup.
• If you have left over veggies, either throw them in a soup or get creative with stir fry. You can stir fry almost any veggie and it tastes delicious.

Whether it’s the rush of hormones you feel after working out or that feeling of relief when you burn off stress, you’ll not only feel better, you’ll boost your mental well being. Healthy goes with happy in other ways besides just modifying the flood of hormones in your body to give that temporary feeling of a high and relief from the pressures of the day.

When you think about it, you’ll realize it’s hard to be happy when you feel awful.

It doesn’t take much to be out of sorts enough to spoil a good mood. If you’re feeling bloated, tired or have medical issues, but doing your best to stay healthy can help elevate your mood and make it easier to smile. One way to do this is to program yourself to exercise regularly and even make certain that you do other active things, such as take the stairs rather than the elevator and enjoy an active lifestyle.

What you eat can make you both happy and healthy.

If you cut back on caffeine and sugar products, you’ll first experience a headache from the lower caffeine intake, but eventually find yourself with fewer mood swings, particularly when you cut out sugar. Mood swings can make you become a grumpy old man or woman, no matter what your age. One Australian study showed that people changed their diet from limited fruits and vegetables to at least eight servings a day had a boost to their satisfaction in life. Your body reacts well when you feed it right.

Which came first, the happiness or the healthiness?

It’s like the chicken and the egg, it’s hard to tell which came first. If you feel good about life, you’ll live longer and do the things that make you healthier. You’ll be less apt to grab a snack of crunchy potato chips or a comfort food to help you make it through the day. You’re more apt to eat when you’re hungry, not out of emotional need. However, eating healthy and exercise can also make you more aware of your body needs and feel good about yourself.

• Stress is the precusor of poor health. Happy people feel less stress. However, if you’re under constant stress, make yourself happier with exercise.
• Being overweight can cause many serious conditions, it also can lead to a poor self image, which isn’t conducive to happiness. Shedding pounds will make you happier and healthier.
• You need to be fit to enjoy all life has to offer, which can include active things like bicycling and hiking with the family. If you start out slowly, you can do those things and start to enjoy life to its fullest.
• Getting adequate sleep helps you stay healthier, but it also can make you a happier person the next day too.

Good family workouts don’t have to be limited to the types of exercises done at the gym, although there’s nothing wrong with that and it could be fun to do together. When you’re working out with kids, make it fun. Planking, squats, push-ups, crunches and lunges are easy enough exercises for the whole family to do. Stability ball exercises are also fun to do and super good for building a strong core. The age of the children make all the difference in the world. Young children will love exercises that mimic animals. There are all sorts to do from a puppy dog walk to a crab walk. Once you workout with the kids, you’ll notice that they’re playing with glee and you’re the one who is getting tired.

Take an adventure walk.

While taking a walk is good exercise, there’s nothing exciting about it unless you have a place to go or maybe even a treasure map. Choose a final location that’s fun, like a park or even playground. Pack a healthy lunch to eat there and make it a picnic. If you have a friend that’s far enough from your home to make the walk a healthy distance, but not so far that you’re too worn out to walk home, get permission to hide or bury a treasure at their home. You then need to create a treasure map to their house giving everyone a copy. It’s a super fun game that keeps their mind off the walk and on the adventure.

Participate in sports to keep active.

Participating in sports doesn’t necessarily mean joining a ball team. It could mean swimming, snow or water skiing, walking are running marathons or even bicycling. A family bike ride is active and you can help your children learn safe bicycling in the process. If you have a pool nearby, take swimming lessons so you all can enjoy the beach safely. Snow skiing isn’t exactly a Texas pastime, but there are places to water ski just north of San Antonio.

There’s plenty to see in San Antonio with a lot of walking to see it.

The San Antonio Zoological Gardens and Aquarium is a 35-acre zoo. That means a lot of walking for both parents and children. Natural Bridge Caverns is another site that involves walking, combining it with some amazing sites. Go to Phil Harberger park on weed Wednesday to help combat exotic weeds that have invaded the area and are overtaking local plants. You spend time in the great outdoors pulling weeds and replanting native plants, which is extremely tiring exercise, but it gives an appreciation of nature in the process. Of course, you can go to the park anytime for nature walks and enjoying the great outdoor.

Take a trip to a trampoline park. It’s fun an will keep the family active.

Plant a garden together and do yard work. Keep it fun and about an hour. Gardening is a combination of movements, depending on the season. Digging, pulling, planting and etc. go into creating a great garden. Grow at least one plant that produces something to eat.

Turn up the music and have a dance fest in the living room.

Get out the jump ropes and hone your skills. Jump ropes have been around for a long time and aren’t at all high tech, but you’ll get a lot of exercise jumping rope together and have fun in the process.