Each year we are told that there’s a magic solution to fixing our health — the exercise routine that will motivate us, the one vegetable, vitamin or powder that will revolutionize our diet. Now that our (likely already failing) New Year’s resolutions are behind us, let’s be honest: we already know what to do. We didn’t need all those diet articles, all those celebrities hawking their products, all those new exercise strategies. That flood of “new” health solutions is a smokescreen, blocking our common sense and our self-knowledge. It’s not what we know but what we do that changes our health outcomes. Here are three simple steps to start the process:
Target the bad eating habits you already have — but not all of them at once. You already know you should be eating more vegetables. You know the truth of the old adage: if your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, don’t eat it. Once you get in the habit of healthier eating, it’s easier to keep going. Healthy food is typically more filling than processed food, much of which is filled with preservatives that make you hungrier. The first step in improving your diet will be hard, but if you do something hard regularly on your way to better health, those hard steps will start to feel automatic. Maybe this month you stop frying any meat or limit fast food or takeout to a certain day a week.
Move more. Stop worrying about the “right” exercise routine. An imperfect exercise you do regularly is better than a perfect one you don’t. It doesn’t matter if you’re a remarkably slow walker or embarrassing your kids by practicing dance moves. No one cares if your yoga routines include clinging to the side of a chair. What matters is that you move — and that you keep moving. Build up to a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly.
Commit to a regular sleep schedule. You don’t need to understand the science of circadian rhythms to realize that you function better when you stick to a sleep routine. You also know that most of us need more sleep than we’re getting; try to get between seven and nine hours of sleep if possible. Remember that addictive electronics interfere with good sleep. If you must put your phone out of reach or even in the next room to avoid the temptation of checking it, do so.
These are not, of course, the only three steps you should take to improve your health, but if you manage all three, your body will likely feel significantly better in 2025 than it did in 2024. If you succeed in avoiding illnesses and chronic diseases this year, you can always tell your friends that you have the magic solution to good health — and have known it all along.
Broderick Rhyant, M.D., chief physician executive with Eskenazi Health Center Grande
