5 easy ways to boost your health and wellbeing in 2021

Setting New Year’s resolutions isn’t for everyone. Let’s face it, a lot of the time you make these grand plans to overhaul your life and become the perfect person, but then in a matter of weeks that all goes down the drain and you find yourself pigging out on leftover chocolate from Christmas and lounging around inside in front of the television with the air-conditioner on.

However, there’s no harm in focusing on yourself for a change and taking care of your health and wellbeing. There doesn’t need to be weight loss goals or the mission to do 10,000 steps a day, just some simple changes to make you feel more confident and happy in yourself. To give you some inspiration, we’ve put together five easy things you can do this year to ensure you are placed number one in your own life.

Start with new activewear to boost your confidence

They say the hardest park of working out is getting dressed. Once you’ve got past that you’re half way there! But if you have a collection of gorgeous clothes to exercise in, it may not be as difficult. In fact, you might want to wear them all the time.

While a lot of the activewear in stores these days focuses on skin-tight leggings and tops, there are comfy, loose-fitting pants you can wear instead such as the Mavis Full Active Pants, along with a baggy top that doesn’t hug in to all those areas you might be self-conscious about. Of course, if tights are your thing, you can get them in some fun patterns to boost your mood, such as leopard print. Active Truth’s gorgeous tights promise not to roll down constantly while you’re working out and they’re moisture wicking, which is just what you need in this hot weather. Click here to browse the activewear range on the Sassy Marketplace.

Add some extra protein to your diet

Protein is essential to help maintain muscle strength as we age, and adding protein shakes to your diet is a great way to boost your intake without having to worry about cooking. Protein shakes can help keep you feel fuller for longer, so you’re not snacking on unhealthy foods throughout the day, and may help you to burn fat, if you’re looking to lose weight.

You can purchase protein powders in a range of flavours and brands from the Sassy Marketplace, and they all claim to provide different benefits to your health and wellbeing. For example, the keto-fit plant protein may assist with putting your body into the ketosis stage and in turn burn fat. To see what protein powder options are available, click here.

Switch to a healthy sweet alternative

Going on a health kick doesn’t mean you have to get rid of sweet treats all together – you can simply choose the healthier option.

There’s such thing as a healthy hot chocolate and believe it or not, it’s packed full of goodness, including turmeric. Unlike your regular hot chocolate, it’s made from a combination of turmeric, cacao, cinnamon, coconut sugar powder and black pepper. It might sound like a strange mix, but it’s sure to beat that sugar craving, while also supporting your health and wellbeing. Plus, you won’t be beating yourself up afterwards for “cheating” your diet and ruining your hard work.

Meanwhile, if you’re after something filling and delicious for breakfast during this hot summer, you can’t go past a probiotic breakfast smoothie, especially one that’s chocolate flavoured. It combines pea protein and chia for a complete plant-based protein source, plus ground oats for a low GI, high-fibre boost and five billion probiotics per serve to assist with healthy digestion. The powder is naturally flavoured and there are no artificial sweeteners used to create that delicious taste.

Support your gut health with probiotics

We’ve long-known that enriching our bodies with the right nutrients and supplements can help keep our immune system as its strongest. But you may not know that our gut health is closely connected to the health of our immune system.

In fact, according to nutrition scientist Dr Joanna McMillan, as we get older 70 to 80 per cent of our immune system is actually in the gut, because the gut and the skin is where we get most contact with the outside world. One of the easiest ways to foster a healthy gut is by consuming probiotics, which are live micro-organisms that improve and restore existing micro-organisms living in the digestive system.

Major brands including Nature’s Way, Naturopathica and Bioglan provide a range of probiotic options with varying levels of live bacteria to support the digestive system. For example, the Nature’s Way Restore Probiotic is ideal for everyday use because it aims to relieve discomfort and support bowel regularity and immune system health, as well as restore gut flora after you’ve used antibiotics.

Meanwhile, Naturopathica GastroHealth DigestAid Dairy is designed specifically for people with lactose intolerance. It contains the lactase enzyme to help to breakdown lactose into more easily digested sugars and the probiotic bifidobacterium lactis to relieve digestive discomfort and maintain the balance of good bacteria. It also contains gentian root which helps to stimulate digestion and relieve symptoms of indigestion.

You can browse the probiotics and many more products to support gut health on the Sassy Marketplace.

Take care of aching joints with turmeric

It’s hard to really embrace life when you’re suffering from aching joints caused by osteoarthritis. You can’t run around with the grandkids easily, or even go for a casual stroll without experiencing a bit of pain. Unfortunately, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, there’s about 2.2 million people in Australia living with this painful condition.

Thankfully, there are ways to help. Researchers from the University of Tasmania found that the use of turmeric helped to reduce pain in those suffering from osteoarthritis. If you suffer from this condition and are keen to try turmeric yourself, there are a number of popular turmeric products available on the Sassy Marketplace. The Joint Relief capsules are a new product on the market that have been scientifically formulated, tested and proven to help with inflammation, oxidation and pain relief. It’s recommended you start with one capsule per day (preferably with a meal), and if you have no side effects you can increase your dosage to up to four tablets a day.

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IMPORTANT LEGAL INFO This article is of a general nature and FYI only, because it doesn’t take into account your personal health requirements or existing medical conditions. That means it’s not personalised health advice and shouldn’t be relied upon as if it is. Before making a health-related decision, you should work out if the info is appropriate for your situation and get professional medical advice.