Little Steps Turn Into Big Strides

New year, new goals - some can seem easy, others seem damn near impossible. Here are some tips to turn small healthy steps into bigger ones! 

Track your daily steps

Many of us are already wearing accessories like watches, bracelets, or phone apps with step tracking capabilities (and yes, smartphones track your steps. Explore the health app on your smartphone). Trackers make us aware of how much we move on a daily basis and allow us to become more cognizant of the times we are falling behind and need to "step-up" our steps!

100 extra steps a day can quickly morph into 1,000. Sidebar: If you don't want to wear/use fancy trackers, clip-on pedometers do the job too. So clip a pedometer to your hip and start walking!

Set realistic goals

Start by setting realistic and achievable walking goals instead of immediately committing to running the New York Marathon next year! Start by committing to 2 laps around the block/the hallways at work, every day for a week and see how it goes. The following week, increase your daily laps to 3 and see what happens. And if you don't feel ready to walk three laps a day, that’s okay - stick with 2 and keep walking! 

Other healthy tips

Other "little steps" in our daily lives have the ability to turn into big healthy strides!

• Check your blood sugar 5 times a day instead of 3.
• Drink 2, 8 ounce glasses of water first thing in the morning, every morning while your coffee is brewing.
• Incorporate 3 healthy plant-based meals (including this chickpea salad) into your diet, per week, and see how you feel.
• Bring a snack pack of 1 - 2 servings of veggies with you to work, every day and make a point to eat them.