If there's one thing I've noticed about health, it's that in 2018 it has become cool to be healthy again.
Even our celebrities are doing their best to stay in shape. Cassper has become the most chiselled rapper on the scene, Unathi is like the hottest celebrity mom we know and even Heavy K has decided to put his health first right up there with his music.
Which begs me to ask, is your health in check? Because this year I realised that my health was far from being A-OK.
Like all young people, I've been living my best life, working hard and most importantly partying hard which was coupled with a lot of bad eating habits. Oh yeah, frequent trips at my favourite take away spot was such a treat and if I'm entirely honest with myself cheat day for me was more often than it should've been.
But I'm young right? My body can take the abuse right? Err, not exactly.
My downfall
A few months back my body gave me the middle finger after a weekend marathon of indulging in takeaways and soft drinks. Come to think of it; I don't remember drinking not even a drop of water that weekend and to make it worse, sleeping was the last thing on my mind because hey, I'll sleep when I'm dead.
The weekend eventually ends, and It's Monday which means I need to tone down the party animal within me and get back to hustle-mode, but my body had other plans. Instead of being woken up by my alarm clock, I was woken up by piercing chest pains, coupled with shortness of breath and as expected I went into panic mode and booked the first appointment with a doctor.
The doctors visit
Now I'm not going to go into detail about the long lecture that my doctor gave me about my health, in short, the doctor's speech was brutal, honest and it made me realise that I was heading to my deathbed fast. But the speech from my doctor also came with some sound health advice I'd like to share with some of you who may be playing Russian Roulette with your health.
Health Advice:
You don't need to go to the gym
Now I know we all have busy lives and sometimes gym just does not fit into our schedules so instead of going to the gym, there's an exercise book I purchased titled "High-Intensity Interval Training for Women/Men" By Sean Bartram. I use this book to exercise at home in the comfort of my living room. Plus, it's free and, it cancels out having to pay for a gym fee, you only need to pay for that book once.
Walk often
If you have a car then this advice is for you, cars are such enablers and have made us so lazy. Sometimes it is healthy to ditch your car and walk to the nearest shop to buy lunch, don't drive, walk. The same applies when parking your car at your office park, park the car at the furthest spot and walk to your office to get your body moving a bit, we spend so many hours sitting at a desk that a walk to and from the shops or the car makes a lot of difference.
Meal preparation
I'm not a fan of meal preps and let's be honest sometimes healthy food can be so dull, you'd rather sink your teeth into a juicy burger than have a bowl of boiled broccoli with poorly seasoned grilled chicken.
So considering that we're on our phones and on social media half of the time, I was also advised to follow some health accounts on Instagram that helps me prepare fast, delicious but most importantly healthy food.
@Calorieshub and @lea.bowls.your.mind are my favourite accounts to follow; these accounts make you think twice about what you plan on putting in your mouth plus the meals shown on these Instagram accounts look delicious and easy to make.
I've followed these three health advice steps for a few weeks now and although there may be no drastic physical changes in my body I sure feel much more alive than I did on that terrible Monday morning.
Hopefully, these three simple steps will lead you to a path of good health. I'm not where I want to be with my health, but I sure am glad I'm not where I used to be.
Main image credit: Supplied