How to create your own Health Habit and dramatically improve your life (book review)

I recently read The Health Habit by Elizabeth Rider and was completely blown away by her expert advice on how easily it can be to create healthy lifestyle habits. There’s a ton of information out there about how to eat healthy and achieve your goals. But even though there’s a lot of information out there, why aren’t we all living our best healthy life? 

Elizabeth Rider’s approach to health is genius. In her book, The Health Habit, she breaks everything down into small actionable chunks you can implement daily and she created a grocery list to prepare you for her 28-Day Kick Start Plan. 

Here’s what The Health Habit taught me about dramatically improving my life: 

1.Set clear goals 

This one may sound intuitive, but hear me out. Elizabeth shares why most people don’t achieve their goals. Want to know why? (of course, you do! :)) One of the main reasons she mentions is because most people confuse the outcome for the goal. I’ve definitely made this mistake. In the book she lists out how to set your goals straight to make sure you achieve them. 

2. Eat what works for you 

Every time you turn around there’s a new diet or new eating trend that everyone’s trying out and is all over social media. The issue with some of these fad diets is that most people don’t keep up with them and therefore end up gaining the weight back or go back to eating unhealthy foods. Also, there’s no one diet that works for everyone. In the Health Habit, Elizabeth Rider introduces us to the Qualitarian Way of eating. According to Elizabeth Rider, “a qualitarian is someone who may or may not follow a specific dietary plan, but who always evaluates the quality of food before consuming it.” Focus on eating real food vs. sugary highly processed foods. 

3. Keep track of your numbers 

I’ve never kept track of any health-related numbers, minus the numbers on the scale. (eek!) Sad, but true. Two important numbers (amongst others) Elizabeth Rider mentions in The Health Habit are the amount of added sugar as well as the amount of fiber to consume daily, which are both 25 grams. It’s best to consume no more than 25 grams of added sugar and 25 to 50 grams of fiber per day. 

4. Your internal environment = your external environment 

I completely resonated with this one. I recently got back from a month-long trip to Mexico. It was something I desperately needed to get my creative juices flowing again. Before I left, I was feeling in a bit of a creative rut and a little off. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was specifically (after reading The Health Habit, it was probably a few different things), but the one that stuck out the most was that I definitely needed to change my environment. 

5. Implement the bookend method 

Having a morning and evening routine (the bookend method) can be life-changing. “Bookending your day with self-care simply means that you have a morning ritual and evening ritual that fills up your body, mind, and spirit. It’s giving structure to your Health Habit by establishing non-negotiables tailored to creating the physical and mental environments for your health to flourish.” <–This is straight from The Health Habit and definitely something we should all implement into our lives especially if you’re like me and you work from home. Having a routine allows you to have more control of your days and Elizabeth maps out how to create a routine that works for you in her book. 

I enjoyed reading The Health Habit. There are several takeaways that I’ll be implementing into my daily life to create my own health habit. If you aren’t following her or her blog, you should! Elizabeth is a leading nutrition and whole living expert teaching women around the world how to become the healthiest, most successful versions of themselves. Check out her blog at www.elizabethrider.com for more and to grab your copy of her book, The Health Habit, HERE!