When it comes to living your healthiest life, staying within the ideal body weight for your age, gender and height is only one way to ensure you're on the right track. Because let's face it, being fit and healthy certainly feels great, too. We've been looking closely at the habits of our healthiest IPRESSTV.COM members to extract some of their tricks and tips. What are the essential eating and fitness habits of the most toned and trim? Here are some from the top of our list.
1 ALWAYS BE PREPARED
Our healthiest members plan their weekly meals in advance, using their grocery runs to select unprocessed foods for the week. The best bet for getting a healthy start each day? A balanced breakfast. Los Angeles-based nutritionist Alyse Levine recommends setting aside time in the morning to create a well-balanced breakfast that includes unprocessed carbs, lean proteins and healthy fats. "Doing so will give you extra energy and jump start your metabolism," she says.
2 SNACK WHEN YOU'RE HUNGRY
Denying yourself food when you're hungry is rarely a reliable long-term weight-loss strategy. It can lead to overeating and drag you down throughout the day. Many of our members who've experienced weight-loss success swear by snacking between meals. They opt for healthy, balanced snacks in small, sensible portions. Nutritionist Alyse Levine recommends always keeping a "snack survival kit" at your workplace or in your car. "Snacks will prevent you from going into your next meal starving which can lead to overeating," she says
3 BE CALORIE CONSCIOUS
In addition to snacking, our fittest users watch their calories. LIVESTRONG.COM's MyPlate makes being calorie cognizant easy — the tool will do all the work for you, and the app offers tracking on the go. Knowing your calorie goal based on your weight-loss or maintenance goal is essential. It allows you to make smart meal choices to get to where you want to be.
4 INDULGE AND GET BACK ON TRACK
Staying slim doesn't mean you have to deprive yourself. In fact, a majority of successful eating plans include daily or weekly indulgences. The key is to eat a healthier meal or meal(s) post-indulgence. Nutritionist Alyse Levine challenges her clients to rethink, in general, the "good food, bad food" mentality when they do indulge, noting the importance of mindfully enjoying foods that might be a deviation from their regular eating plan.
5 DO SOMETHING ACTIVE EVERY DAY
Don't overwhelm yourself with impractical fitness goals. Think simple. Or rather, think "doable" and "consistent." Committing to just 30 minutes of cardio a day creates powerful habits that can keep you feeling and looking your healthiest. "Find an activity that actually brings you joy and you'll have a much greater chance of sticking to it," says nutritionist Alyse Levine.
6 STAY THE COURSE
One of the most common philosophical cornerstones we see in our success stories submissions? "Stay the course." Reaching your healthiest, best-looking self is a work in progress, and one that often comes with plateaus. Our most successful members acknowledge roadblocks and plateaus and then power through them with a reaffirmation of healthy habits.
