Health check up recommendations !

About 3 weeks after my health check up in Taipei, I received the results and recommendations by international mail! Obviously I’m not sharing them here, but I will share the hospital’s recommendations, and maybe this blog can help keep me accountable in some way, as my health really is my wealth:

7,000 to 8,000 steps a day. I know I have reached 10k+ in a day before though, so to motivate myself, I bought a step tracker !
Aerobic exercise three times a week for 30 minutes each time until you break a sweat – I’ve stopped doing this since the wedding, I really have to get into it again !
A diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, fish and olive oil and less meat can help prevent heart disease and cancer. – This is already mostly my diet (some close friends my know of my recent change though). I think it would be good to munch on certain veggies as snacks again though, and also maybe things like apples with plain peanut or almond butter.
Eat protein and fat foods for breakfast, which can keep us full of energy for the day; Cut back on these foods at dinner to avoid weight gain. I’m assuming this means eat mostly vegetables at night then ? What about carbs though haha (I generally don’t eat much for dinner – y’all can ask my husband). I have gained weight though since I started my current job two years ago – it would be nice to shed it off to a place where I felt more physically fit and strong again.
If you currently only eat 1 or 2 vegetables a day, please add 1 more to lunch and dinner. Yep I pretty much only eat 1 kind of vegetable a day. I think it benefits me to buy more vegetables. A new habit will definitely need to be built.
Eat as much brown rice as possible to get more nutrients like fiber, minerals, and more. I think I will mix a more fibrous rice with white rice instead of just straight up eat brown rice for know. I know brown rice has a tad bit more health benefits, but it is difficult for my stomach to digest, and plus it’s messier to cook. White rice is cleaner to cook and easier to digest. I’m actually remembering now that my mother use to mix and cook black/purple rice with white rice – so that’s something fun I could start doing! We have just begun to run out of rice at home anyways, so it could be fun to look out for the black/purple rice again.
Switch to skim milk or low-fat milk, and reduce carbonated soda or other sweet drinks. I have avoided low fat milks because they don’t taste as satisfying… but I suppose if I would like to drink them (the non-lactose ones), it would need to be in the morning. I already don’t like soda and my sweet drinks are usually coffee, milk tea, and soy milk. I suppose I could challenge myself to have less sugar in my coffee… I already order one of Starbuck’s least sugary lattés. For milk teas, I know we can customize the sugar level, and normally I order half, but I could order less, too. Non-sugary soymilk is going to be tough, but I’m remembering now that my mom use to home make soymilk that was unsweetened, and it wasn’t bad.
When buying food, pay attention to nutritional content labels and choose foods with the least amount of sodium or salt. Okay I admit I rarely pay attention to sodium content, I’m usually watching out for sugar. I’m seeing now that the recommended allowance is somewhere along 2000 mg, so I suppose it will be helpful to keep that in mind.
Have dinner before 8 o’clock, and do not go to bed later than 11 o’clock at the latest. So… I ate past 8:00 last night and I did the same today as well. I’m definitely going to need baby steps with these ones. Not eating after 8:00 will be okay for me, but I’ve been having time management difficulties in falling asleep before 11:00, and it takes me quite a while to fall asleep.

Maybe a couple of times a month, I can review on here how I am doing in these areas – not as a way to shame, but as a way to reflect and make small adjustments that is more motivating for me. I know I want to make these changes more from a place of self-compassion and a place of feeling good and strong, not of shame nor trying to ‘look good’.

Thank you all for reading !