12 Healthy Habits for 2023

Happy New Year, My Friends!

As we progress into January, I’d like to share my recommendations for 12 great healthy habits that will transform your health, body and life in 2023. Focusing on just one recommendation/goal a month will give you headspace, energy and time to build those new neurological pathways that will become a new habit and last for years to come. This way building new habits is so much more doable and achievable rather than trying to squeeze them all at once. You can also do them in any order that fits best for you.

Word of advice about building new habits, which I have learned from the book by James Clear "Atomic Habits".

1. Pick one habit at a time and commit to it for the next 21 days minimum. Some habits may take 21 days to form, some up to 66 or up to 90 days. However, the more you practice, the easier it gets to stick to it and it eventually becomes a part of your lifestyle. You will no longer need to put so much effort as in the beginning of your journey, and some things you will do on auto-pilot.

2. Never skip twice. "Missing once is an accident, but the second time is the formation of another new habit".

3. Prep your environment: make it easier for yourself or set traps for yourself, and think of substitutions.

4. Identify yourself with that new habit and take pride in it. Say “I like that I…” Also, if you know that you are a part of a large community of people doing the same, it makes it easier to stick to this practice.

5. Make a new habit attractive, choices accessible and obvious (prep the environment as above) note and acknowledge the reward (sometimes delayed and not immediate).

1. Avoid Added Sugar

The primary recommendation for any healthy nutrition starts with. It is something ANYONE will benefit from, no matter the age, lifestyle, health goals or even health state. I wholeheartedly would recommend eliminating (and stopping manufacturing to be completely honest) this product altogether for anyone, because it is truly no less than a silent killer. It is a 100% man-made product, and it was not intended by nature to be consumed by humans, especially in such large amounts as it nowadays is. No other product on the planet has caused that many deaths and diseases in humans as this one. It goes far beyond type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance. It creates inflammatory conditions throughout the whole body, hormonal imbalances as well as issues in the gut, liver, and cardiovascular system, wrecks down your immunity, and stress tolerance and there is data confirming that cancer cells feed on sugar. It causes water retention, weight gain, mood swings, fatigue and the list goes on.

To start off, I recommend to stop buying anything with added sugar (sucrose) and stop adding it to your drinks and meals at home. Choose other flavour enhancers, there are so many ways to make delicious meals without sugar, including desserts and baking! After a month of eliminating sugar, I promise you’ll be surprised just how much more energy you have, your improved well-being and your excess weight will start coming off easier.

Go to your pantry and take an audit of the jars and packs you have at home and practice reading labels at the store when you go grocery shopping. Anything with “sugar", "syrup" and of course "glucose" and "maltodextrin” is out and best if you can discard the junk you have at home - just makes it easier for you to get off sugar.

2. Support Your Vitamin D Levels

This is a very important vitamin that despite its name after decades of extensive research was described as a pro-hormone rather than a vitamin. Its functions go way beyond bone health and the immune system, in fact, every single cell in your body has a receptor for it.

Ever noticed your mood goes down with the approach of shorter days in autumn and winter? Perhaps your hair falls out more and becomes dryer in the winter months? These are some very good signs you are likely to be deficient in vitamin D. Because its properties are so far-reaching, a deficiency in vitamin D can create massive health problems.

We get Vitamin D in our skin from the sun and it is impossible to get a sufficient amount of this nutrient from food alone. That is why supplementing with vitamin D3 (not D2) and taking it with some source of dietary fat for absorption is crucial. And it is a very common deficiency in both adults and children, so I strongly recommend you do a blood test to check your vitamin D levels. Finally, if you spend the majority of the day indoors during summertime and do not expose your skin to the sun for long enough time, you might as well become deficient in vitamin D and need supplementation too.

So I recommend getting a good quality supplement and keeping it in a reachable place as well as establishing the time you'll be taking it every day.

3. Go to Sleep Early

This habit is a part of a bigger task - improving your overall sleep hygiene. Now, I may sound like your mother, but sometimes we do need to treat our bodies like we treat our children - with care and discipline.

Quality of sleep is by no means affected by a very long list of factors that start right from your morning. But for now, I want to focus on just one aspect that you can start improving right now to massively influence how energised and revitalised you’d feel the next day - and it is the time of falling asleep. There’s a huge difference between going to bed at 1 am or at 10 pm, even if in both cases you sleep for 8+ hours. This is due to your hormones changing throughout the evening and night and you need to be asleep during certain times in the evening to reap the benefits of sleep. When you go to sleep at 10 pm (or earlier if you can), your body repairs itself, de-stresses naturally, regenerates its tissues (skin, muscles, etc, new hair starts growing, and you age slower), the immune system does its reparative work, even your hormones get back to balance which affects your mood, your appetite and your weight loss. Finally, you are more likely to sleep long enough which is also important.

I'll be honest: this is a big challenge for me too. As a busy mom of 2, I often struggle with revenge bedtime procrastination. So I am totally taking up this challenge too because every time I go to bed past 22:30 I immediately feel the consequence and regret it the next morning. I realise that in order to be the best version of myself the next day, handle motherhood responsibilities and be productive at work without getting drowsy at midday, I need to prioritise early bedtime.

To do this, plan out your evening and bedtime routine accordingly. If you are planning to go to sleep at 10 pm, and you have a skincare routine, then you should start it 20 minutes before you get under the covers to get everything done, brush your teeth, get in your pj’s, turn off the phone and just finish everything up. Likewise, your dinner time and cooking should be moved earlier too, and please keep the gadgets away from your bed. Your sleep will make your day so much more rewarding than scrolling the social media feed before falling asleep.

4. Keep Your Phone Away from Your Bed

This healthy habit is closely connected to the previous one on sleep.

There are three problems with using the phone in bed:

1) it sabotaged your sleep because you may stay in bed and scroll social media, browse the Internet or YouTube until late or worse - read news which all over stimulates you prior to bedtime;

2) it sabotages your morning, because if you look at your phone, jump into work emails and messages first you wake up or again jump to social media, your mind will be taken over by 500 things instead of focusing on what is really important. It will greatly affect your focus, productivity, peace, stress tolerance and mood for the rest of the day (Mel Robbins talks a lot about this in her podcast); and

3) electromagnetic field (EMF) is what all of our gadgets emit. EMF disrupts our sleep, affects the nervous system, suppresses melatonin and causes insomnia. If you struggle to stay asleep, wake up at night, or do not feel you are waking up recharged (because you did reach deep sleep phases), and you keep your phone next to your bed - that can be a big reason why! Here's a link to an article where you can learn more information on this topic.

Start putting your phone at least 2 metres away from your bed and introduce a "gadget ban" in bed. It will significantly improve your mental and physical health and through a peaceful and rejuvenating sleep, you will be a happier and more productive person the next day! As you have learnt from previous habit number 3 above - sleep is the foundation of your health!

I personally have an app blocker that blocks Instagram, and Facebook from 21:00 and YouTube and Netflix from 21:30 and it really helps to put down my phone away before getting ready to sleep.

5. Glass of water "Stacking" Habit

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We have all heard we need to drink an adequate amount of clean water every day for various important reasons. But from working with clients and checking hundreds of food diaries, not drinking enough water is a common trait almost for everyone! To clarify, your body needs to stay hydrated even if you don't feel thirsty, that's the tricky part. You can feel fatigued, and irritable and headaches are also very likely before you feel thirsty. Therefore, drinking enough water consistently throughout the day is crucial.

I want to share a very effective hack that will help you nail those required amounts of water met every day. What you need to do is to "stack" drinking water (which is a new habit) on top of a habit you already have or something you already do. For example, you can "stack" drinking a cup of water:

• every time you take a 5-minute break at work

• after you put your coffee to brew

• after you finish washing up

• after you get up in the morning

• after you come to the kitchen for whatever reason

Think about what resonates best with you or come up with your own options. Most importantly, it should be something you already do, so it becomes a cue for drinking a glass of water. By connecting the two, you make it more likely to turn the "stacked" action into a new habit long-term.

6. Reduce or Avoid Alcohol

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Healthy habit number 6 is about eliminating or reducing a very harsh anti-nutrient from your diet (yes, it is a part of your diet) - alcohol. Be it expensive or organic wine, sugar or no sugar added strong spirit, the main offender is ethanol (alcohol).

Let me give you 16 fair reasons why you should do it. One glass of wine a day is enough to:

1. Zap your energy, cause fatigue and affect your mood the next following days

2. Depress you (any alcohol is a depressant)

3. Increase anxiety, irritability and PMS

4. Decrease stress tolerance

5. Lead to overeating and cravings

6. Affect your sleep and circadian rhythm. Alcohol impedes your body’s ability to recover and recharge both physically and emotionally

7. Reduce muscle strength and endurance

8. Disrupt gut microbiome

9. Accelerate ageing

10. Weaken immune system

11. Worsen skin condition, exacerbates eczema and rosacea.

12. Affect liver and pancreas function

13. Increase occurrence of headaches and migraines

14. Increase the risk of cancer

15. Weight gain and slow metabolism

16. Increase risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems.

In the new 2023, I want to invite you to reduce the amount of alcohol you drink by half, and see just how amazing this will turn out for your mental and physical health! For example, If you were drinking 3-4 times a week, I suggest you reduce it to 1-2.

January is a great opportunity to try Dry January challenging, I highly recommend giving it a go. There is one more challenge in autumn called Sober October. It can help you track down changes in your health and appearance as well as mood when you stop alcohol for 30 days.

Other resources I found helpful are Instagram accounts:

• @asobergirlguide

• @sobergirlsociety

• @sobermotivation

• @sobermomtribe

• @soberandsocial

The best book on the topic is by Annie Grace “This Naked Mind”. This has changed my relationship with alcohol forever.

7. De-Stress Daily

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Stress has become a part of our daily life in this day and age. We are swimming in the ocean of stress coming from the news (I stopped reading and watching the news in 2015), social media, work, home, relationships, parenthood, interaction with people in shops or public transport, and simply trying to accomplish as much as possible in a day by juggling our responsibilities.

However, stress is destructive to our physical and mental health and it accumulates in our bodies. Though we cannot always avoid it (as much as I highly recommend thinking about opportunities to do it where possible), we need to de-stress daily to negate the negative effects stress may cause.

If we accumulate too much stress, over time our bodies become ill and may develop autoimmune conditions, and weight loss becomes very difficult. De-stressing daily is essential to keep yourself healthy and improve your body’s ability to burn fat. Other health issues caused by sustained chronic stress include:

• our gut microbiome becomes less diversified and the pathogenic bacteria grow

• the immune system becomes suppressed

• loss of libido and reproductive system organs, including infertility

• insulin and bad cholesterol levels go up

• inflammatory conditions

• metabolic and xenobiotic waste-eliminating enzymes are inhibited

• digestive enzymes and bile secretion are inhibited

• stomach acid production drops

• poor absorption of vitamins and minerals

• accelerated ageing

• memory, focus, decision-making and creative thinking are affected

I'd like to recommend introducing a habit of doing something every day to extract the stress from your body in any of the following ways:

• Laughter (a true antidote to stress!)

• Quality sleep (see habits 3 and 4 above)

• Reduce stimulant consumption (they overstimulate adrenals)

• Regular exercise or walking in the fresh air as a part of your routine

• Taking time off to rest

• Unwinding after work and before bedtime

• Massage of shoulders, neck and also upper back. I like to use a foam roller to massage my back in the evening and I also do gentle neck stretching exercises.

• Deep breathing, breathing exercises and meditation even if it is for 3 minutes. There are many nice guided meditations on Spotify for 3, 5 and even 1 minute.

As a final word, I'd like to invite you to work on changing your viewpoint on things in your life: people, news, events, etc. You can train yourself by thinking more positively by writing a daily gratitude journal, which has a massive compound benefit on your emotional state

8. Eat Slowly and Mindfully

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It is one of the most effective techniques for stopping overeating, eating disorders, emotional eating, and obsessions about food and it also promotes better digestion.

Your brain needs to “register” the fact that you are eating food, it is a built-in survival mechanism. Therefore, if you eat while reading a book, scrolling through your phone or watching a movie, you lose touch with your body in a way that you might miss the time your hunger is satisfied (and therefore the point at which we need to stop eating) and you miss the enjoyment of food. Also, we eat faster this way, might not chew food properly and both are not good for the digestion. Finally, because you were not focusing on your food during your meal, your brain might as well ask you to eat again after you finished, because in this way it ensures you received fuel to survive.

As your new healthy habit, I'd like to invite you to arrange your meals in the following way:

1. Eat at a table without books, TV, phone or laptop. Eat outside in warm weather if possible. Just focus on nothing else but enjoying your food.

2. Consciously acknowledge every bite, its flavour and texture and how it makes your hunger go away.

3. Put the next bite in your mouth only after you fully chewed and swallowed the previous one.

This is one of the many recommendations I teach in my weight loss courses because mindful eating and being free from emotional eating (I have a whole module on my course dedicated to it) are essential for losing weight and keeping it off.

9. Reduce or Eliminate Snacking

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Although there are thousands of "healthy snack ideas" on the internet and many make a business out of it by offering snacks in shops and cafes, the sad truth is that a snack is not a complete or balanced meal. It usually is dominated by carbs and fats, which throws your macro-nutrient intake out of balance. Moreover, as a rule, commercial options are loaded with salt, sugar and highly processed ingredients. Remember: these foods are made for making a profit, not with our healthy nourishment in mind.

When you snack between meals, it knocks off your appetite for the main meals which should be the main focus of your diet. As a result, you also don’t get enough of the needed nutrients.

Snacking between main meals:

• increases the production of fat-storing hormones

• reduces the production of fat-burning hormones

• negatively affects digestion

The action plan I recommend for nailing down this habit is this:

• Reduce snacking to 1 a day if you cannot eliminate snacking entirely. It is a doable and achievable goal, which will not overwhelm you so much that you give up.

• Focus on your main meals. If it has been 5 hours since you last had your main meal, it is now time for your next main meal, not a snack.

• Get enough sleep. Our eating behaviour depends a lot on it.

• Drink enough water. Dehydration can often mimic hunger, which is a tricky part!

• Check-in with yourself, you may be procrastinating or coping with emotions with food. In these cases, address the underlying problem.

• Make unhealthy snacks invisible and hard to reach. As with sugar, I recommend not buying them at all.

10. Food-Grown Supplements instead of Synthetic

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This is a recommendation that can be smoothly introduced by selecting food-grown supplements and replacing your old synthetic ones. If you are in doubt about which supplements you need exactly, I recommend booking an individual session with me, where I will assess your symptoms and food diary and I can recommend you the required supplements which will address your deficiencies and maintain adequate levels of other nutrients.

The problem with synthetic supplements is that in most cases they:

• are poorly absorbed

• ineffective

• may create more deficiency symptoms (as in the case of vitamin B6)

• may create health problems

I have seen this in my practice time and again: a person is taking supplements but sees no improvement whatsoever, and the signs of deficiency keep showing. Synthetic supplements are easily available at pharmacies, online shops and even grocery shops and are relatively cheap (although I have seen some very expensive ones). But in most cases it is comparable to throwing your money down the drain, so don't fall for the bait.

In contrast, food-grown supplements (also labelled as “wholefood” or “food concentrate”) are made from real foods like broccoli, blueberries, carrots, various leafy greens, acerola and others, and therefore are in a bio-available form. They are capable of bringing value to our health and improving nutrient deficiencies. Food-grown supplements are more expensive supplements but absolutely worth investing in because they are effective and safe.

11. Regular Workouts

Image by Drazen Zigicon Freepik

I recommend getting into a habit of exercising regularly, no matter the season, mood, weather or any other factors that can put you off track.

Moving your body, muscles, and joints and increasing your heartbeat, blood and lymph circulation has benefits for your:

• mood and stress tolerance

• immune system

• brain and mental health, focus, creativity and productivity

• oxygen supply to cells and resistance to illnesses

• energy level

• sleep, bone, skin, cardiovascular health, etc.

I have a list of 50 benefits of exercise on my Facebook page if you are interested.

Morning workouts are undoubtedly superior because you feel the benefits for the rest of the day. If you are just starting out, try to set a goal to exercise 20 minutes twice a week.

Do what you can when you can even if it is 10 minutes, it is certainly better than nothing.

Action plan to get started:

• Start with a 10-minute gentle workout with stretching and warming up.

• Find a workout routine in advance: YouTube, apps, Pinterest, Instagram

• Prepare everything in advance: clothes and mat, music playlist.

• Get yourself a nice workout outfit

12. Prioritise Seasonal, Local and Organic Produce

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Another recommendation that is easier than some of the more complex previous ones. It will give you time and space to really stabilise those previous habits if they require more than 21 days to establish.

Get into a habit of checking what is now in season in an area you live in. Many grocery shops publish this information and the farmers' market is a good place to find local seasonal produce too. If it's also organic, you hit the jackpot! Because such produce ripens naturally on the sun (unlike in storage spaces with gas and chemicals):

• is more nutritious as it has more phytonutrients, minerals and vitamins

• tastes better because it's ripe. For example, tomatoes not in season are picked up while they are still green and then sprayed with ethylene to change their colour to red)

• lessens the toxic load on your liver and endocrine system. For example, apples in spring are not in season but are kept fresh with a help of chemicals sprayed on them or kept in a room with gas carbon dioxide, or often covered with wax and soy proteins.

Further recommendations:

• If you crave something that is not local or seasonal, try to find it within the organic range

• If you crave berries in winter, when they are not in season and hence sprayed with a heavy dose of chemicals, get frozen berries as these are picked and frozen in season

• Choose the lesser of the two evils. If you are choosing between a sugar-loaded snack bar and pear which is not in season at the moment, this pear will be by no means a healthier choice!

Final Word

Choose self-care and self-love over the judgement of your body. Your body was doing incredible work all these years of keeping you alive without you not needing to take any conscious action (think of breathing for example). If you ever look at yourself and criticise your looks, turn it around into a fact that you need more support, care and love. Your health journey will change its direction from punishment, labelling, name calling and hate to support, compassion, care and so many positive benefits you'll get when you start making little changes in how you treat your body!

Download this checklist below

Let's support each other in our journey. Tag me in your Instagram stories and put a hashtag #upgradingmyyear and let's cheer for each other. I will also repost them on my Instagram account. Knowing that you are a part of a movement will keep your motivation high and will make your journey easier and more fun.

Hope you have a wonderful healthy year!

With love and care,

Natalia xx