Today the main causes of disease are: smoking, diet, lack of exercise, alcohol and stress. But the good news is that you have control over all these unflattering habits. Living a healthy life is up to you!

Adopting a healthy lifestyle and getting fit is all about willpower (and a few concessions) that will make you feel better about your body, your mood and your environment. It’s important to know that healthy living doesn’t mean suffering and depriving yourself of everything; on the contrary, it means enjoying yourself, or rather, pleasing yourself… And it doesn’t mean abandoning your mantra of living day by day!

Taking a step back from your bad habits and following the right strategy to change them will allow you to live a healthy life without taking too much on.

Here’s a list of 5 habits you can follow to live a healthy lifestyle and be fit every day.

5 habits to adopt for a healthy lifestyle:

Reduce stress

Stress is the cause of many diseases (depression, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.). Moreover, stress does not help you to stop smoking or drinking in moderation, quite the opposite.

To take a step towards a healthy lifestyle by reducing your stress, it is first necessary to identify its cause (or rather its source) in order to work on it. Generally speaking, the most well-known sources of stress are: work, studies (or exams) for students, family or relationship problems…

These very uncomfortable situations can quickly set you up in a bad routine, a vicious circle that will eventually make life unbearable, and what you want is to have a healthy life. Try to change your habits rather than focusing on what is causing you so much trouble.

For example, students are known to be very stressed about their studies, and even more so during exam time. What to do in these cases? No scientific study has ever shown that you do better in exams if you spend the whole day just revising. For students who do this, it is important to (reasonably) reduce the time spent on revision.

And if reducing revision time is not enough to stop revision being a source of stress, then you need to do everything you can to improve the quality of the time you spend revising. This means, for example, taking regular breaks or relaxing with an activity that you enjoy alongside your revision (reading a book, watching a film, cooking, etc.).

Also think about getting out of your house or the library and spending time with your loved ones! Do anything that takes you out of your routine and, above all, that gives you pleasure. This is possible even when you have a lot of work to do. Good organisation is essential if you want to get rid of stress and have a healthy lifestyle.

Drink in moderation

Alcohol has serious effects on health, which is why you should drink in moderation. Women should not exceed one drink and men two drinks per day. In addition, drinking alcohol carries many risks, such as car accidents and the acceleration of violent behaviour…

Your (excessive) alcohol consumption makes you dangerous not only for yourself, but also for others. To reduce your consumption, try to drink slowly and alternate alcohol with water. Be careful: drinking in moderation does not mean that it is harmless to your health. If you manage to sacrifice alcohol, you are certainly putting the odds in your favour.

To reduce your alcohol consumption considerably, you should know that today there are many alcohol-free drinks and cocktails that will allow you to reduce your consumption and discover new tastes while enjoying yourself.

At the risk of making some people smile, the best drink you can have is obviously water. It is imperative to drink water to live, of course. But when it comes to a healthy lifestyle, it is important to understand the draining effect that water has on our bodies.

Indeed, drinking a lot of water promotes the elimination and release of toxins through the urine. Water is the most natural drainer, but there are others such as tea. Drinking plenty of water is therefore essential for a healthy life. But like everything else you consume, you should not abuse it. Many people, especially fitness enthusiasts, drink and recommend drinking more than 2 litres of water a day…

But more and more nutritionists are sounding the alarm about the fact that drinking too much carries health risks, particularly the elimination of essential minerals such as sodium. We therefore recommend that you limit yourself to 1.5 litres of water per day.

Stop smoking

Quitting smoking is a difficult but far from impossible step. If you succeed in changing this habit, the risk of disease will be much lower and your wallet will thank you too! Keep the motivation once you’ve got it and don’t fall back into the trap.

There are several methods for quitting smoking. The first, more than a method, is an alternative to smoking: it is the electronic cigarette. The principle of the electronic cigarette is based on the vapour and not on the tobacco. It is therefore much less damaging to the heart and lungs than traditional cigarettes.

Another method of quitting smoking is to use nicotine-based lozenges, gum or patches. Nicotine is the component of cigarettes that makes smokers addicted. A good first step towards quitting smoking and leading a healthy lifestyle is therefore to opt for nicotine replacement products in the form of lozenges, gums or patches. These are freely available in pharmacies.

Doing sport

Lack of sport is the cause of many heart diseases, diabetes, cholesterol, etc. You don’t have to do a lot from the start, just start with a few minutes in the morning: you will already feel the change and your desire to do sport will grow!

Doing sport does not necessarily mean going to the gym for two hours every evening after work to work up a sweat. When you are looking for a healthy lifestyle, it’s all about staying active, because an inactive body is a body that accumulates the wrong calories without ever eliminating them, which inevitably leads to overweight, if not obesity.

In order to live a healthy life, especially when you are very busy and don’t necessarily have time to go and sweat at the gym, there are several simple tricks to stay active. And you don’t have to be a big, strong athlete to do this!

For example, when you go home in the evening or when you get out of the metro in the morning on your way to work, rather than taking the lift or escalator, take the stairs. Similarly, for short trips, instead of taking the car or public transport, opt for walking or cycling. And don’t make excuses! If you don’t have a bike, there are self-service bikes in most French cities.

You can be sure that all these small changes will make a difference. By staying active, you expend energy and ensure a healthy lifestyle and a healthy body.

You will feel good about your body and your shoes. And if you want to get active and don’t know what to wear, our Shopping Assistants can advise you on the right outfit and the right pair of trainers to choose – free of charge!

Lose weight

The best way to lose weight is to reduce the calories you eat by eating more fruit and vegetables. Being overweight promotes the development of many diseases after smoking. Willpower, a lot of effort and patience are the keys to changing your bad habits and having a healthy lifestyle. It’s all about having as much fun as possible while respecting the rules you set at the beginning. Of course, you shouldn’t set too hard a target from the start, otherwise you won’t make it. Instead, you should set regular goals so that you can continue to enjoy yourself.

To get a better idea, you should know that calories are found in fatty, sweet and salty foods. So when it comes to being fit or living a healthy life, you should (as you already know, but we can’t stress this enough) avoid eating foods that are too fatty, too sweet or too salty.

Of these 3 components, the most insidious, i.e. the hardest to detect, is undoubtedly sugar. It is often considered a drug by health professionals. It is therefore particularly important to be wary of it because it is present even in so-called “healthy” foods such as fruit and vegetables.

Examples of overly sweet fruits to be avoided (or at least eaten in moderation) are pineapples, mangoes and grapes. Instead, opt for berries, which have a good sugar/fibre ratio. This type of fruit (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc.) will help you to have a good balance in your sugar intake and thus promote weight loss.