How To Eat Healthy & Exercise (At Home)

All teens should eat healthy and exercise to stay physically and mentally strong especially now when you’re spending more time at home.

The following are tips on how to make it happen:

• Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Keep snacks to a minimum. By making sure you eat 3 full meals a day, it can help you prevent mindless snacking and allow your body to get the nutrients it needs to reach its full potential. 
• Try to include fruit or vegetables into every meal. Kid’s Health explains that calcium and iron are two very important nutrients a body needs daily. Examples of where you can get calcium is from broccoli and/or yogurt and iron from eggs, leafy green vegetables like spinach and/or almonds to name a few.
• Stay hydrated. Make sure you are drinking 8 glasses of water each day. Try to limit sugary drinks like soda, Gatorade, and iced tea to one a day. 
• Stretch daily. It should be done before and after each workout to prevent injury. However, even if you don’t intend to workout, stretching is a good way to get the body moving and blood flowing. 
• Start slow. Don’t jump right into a 5-mile jog. Take your time by walking a mile then jogging for 30 seconds and repeat. As you continue to jog, your stamina will increase over time. The same applies to bike riding. 
• Floor exercises like sit ups, planks, and sit backs are a great foundation to increase your heart rate while strengthening your core. 
• Lower body exercises like squats, dips, lunges and leg raises can be done basically anywhere and increase strength.
• Yoga is a low intensity exercise using stretching, mindfulness, and core exercises that will help you balance mind and body while increasing your overall strength. 
• Strength Training. Try to include some strength training into your routine. These can be done with or without weights. If you want to include weights and do not have any at home, you can use bottled water, cans, or other household items to add some resistance to your routine. 
• Have fun! Put on some music you like and dance or jump around!