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What's your simple health and fitness tip that is easy to follow and doesn't cost money?
- When you are thirsty drink water.
— therealquiz
- Bringing my lunch to work everyday was a game changer.
— bitchyoutriedit
- Keep a food journal. You'll break your snacking habit of you have to write it down each time. Works great if you're counting calories too.
— soconn
- Lost 73lbs. I don't keep junk or "quick" food in my apartment. Also, to avoid temptation, I used to deliberately leave my money at home. Saved money and body.
— PennyMarbles
- If you live a sedentary life, pick an exercise you want to do that you can do in place (I usually do squats). When you get up to get a drink or go to the bathroom, when you get back to the couch, make yourself do 20 of that exercise. It's not much, but throughout the day, it'll add up.
Or, if you want a bit more rigor, if you have cable TV I've found it useful to tell yourself "I'll work out during commercials." So, when it goes to commercials I'll do squats, or sit-ups, etc until my program comes back on.
— Dreekius
- Okay, lots of people saying portion control, but here's some specific tips on *how* to do that.
- Using smaller dishes and utensils makes the food seem more filling
- Eating an apple or drinking a lot of water before meals is [shown](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664987/) to reduce net calorie intake
- Put your fork/utensil down between bytes. Chew more. This slows you down, so you have time to notice getting full
- Watch less TV. [You eat more when watching TV](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829711/#R20) I don't trust the following statement as much, because I just read it on some website talking about a study: this effect continues for hours after watching TV.
— G01denW01f11
- Cut down your sugar intake. Especially junk food and sodas.
— RedditIsATimeSucker
- Eat for volume.
Typically eating foods that take up more space per calorie is a great way to reduce your intake.
— Byizo
- If you drink a high-calorie drink in the morning (such as mochas, flavored lattes, blended beverages like Frappuccino's from Starbucks, sweet tea, full-sugar soda), try to gradually wean yourself off the sugar.
If you're having a mocha every day (depending on the size, that could be 280-400 calories alone), try getting one less pump of the chocolate sauce. Or try getting it without whipped cream or with low-fat milk and see if you still like it. I did this in college and went from having a mocha/flavored mocha (even more sugar!) every day to drinking black coffee (<10 calories). I have a sugary espresso drink like a mocha about once every couple months as a treat, but it's not an everyday thing anymore. It saves me both calories and money!
— allthebacon_and_eggs
- Do NOT go home from work before working out. Couch gravity is nigh impossible to escape; the only sure way is to slingshot off it in hope you'll be captured by bed gravity.
— keenly_disinterested
- Drink less alcohol. Hard alcohol has about 75 calories per serving, wine about 125 and beer about 150 but it's easy to lose track of these calories because they aren't printed on the container.
Also, we usually drink in the evenings after we've already eaten. If someone brings a big birthday cake to work, you might calorie control by having a smaller healthier dinner. If you're planning on going out for drinks, you don't think "I'm probably going to drink 600 calories tonight, I'll just have a salad for dinner," you'll probably eat a full dinner, probably a little heavier on the fats and carbs-- which is good because drinking on an empty stomach is a bitch-- but what this essentially means is you're eating an entire dinner, then going out and drinking another entire second dinner's worth of calories.
tldr; Alcohol has lots of calories, if you need to budget calories, you shouldn't give up food, instead give up alcohol.
— N0EGRETS
- Everyone is focused on food/water/exercise but missing the single most important thing that is free, easy to do and does more benefit for your health, [sleep](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632337/)
— Bacchus_IRL