10 Easy Ways to Save Your Money and Improve Your Health in 2015

Who wouldn't want to both save money and improve their health? If you're looking for some ways to do so, here are some quick thoughts:

1. Unless you have a medically proven reason or need, stop buying vitamins and supplements that at best provide only the most marginal of benefits to your health (estimated savings $100-$1,000/yr).
2. Reduce your dinners out (including sit down, fast food, take-out, and supermarket take-out) by 50% across the board (estimated savings $1,000-$5,000/yr depending on family size and meal out frequency).
3. Never eat lunch out unless someone else is buying or unless you have a business obligation to do so (estimated savings $500-$3,000/yr).
4. Cancel cable or satellite TV, buy an HDTV antenna (so you can still watch your local sports, news and some TV), and use Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime or some other comparable service (estimated savings even after expenditures $250-$1,000/yr).
5. Buy a thermos or a travel mug and a great coffee maker and kick your fancy coffee habit (estimated savings even post purchases $100-$500/yr)

Now of course there will be readers who spend more and less on various aspects of those points, but if there are readers where all 5 apply, making these changes might save them between $1,950 and $10,500 dollars.

As far as what to do with that windfall?

1. Join a CSA farm share to increase your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables (estimated average annual cost $400-$1,000 depending on size of share)
2. Join a great local community centre or gym (estimated annual cost of $200-$600)
3. Buy some used recreational fitness equipment (bikes, skis, snowshoes, etc.) from your local buy and sell (estimated one time cost of $200-$400)
4. Take a cooking class at your local Community College (estimated cost of $100-$300)
5. Save it all and use it for a stress relieving active vacation, or stress relieving debt relief.

(And sure, some of your own personal numbers and mileages will vary.)

Everything is Bull$hit

You can buy this poster here

The sad truth is that healthy living science is nowhere near where the public believes or is told that it is. We just don't have the drilled down specifics of this food vs. that food, or this exercise vs. that exercise, etc.

So what do we know? It's a really safe bet that these 8 behaviours are good for your health:

1. Cooking foods from fresh whole ingredients and eating them free from distraction
2. Minimizing restaurant meals
3. Minimizing consumption of sugary liquids
4. Drinking alcohol at most in moderation
5. Exercising as much and as often as you can enjoy
6. Sleeping well
7. Cultivating and maintaining friendships
8. Not smoking

This New Year's resolution season, steer clear of the stupid stuff and focus on as many of those 8 things as you can, because everything else? Everything else is either total but innocent nonsense, too soon to be conclusive hopefulness, genuinely inconsequential minutia, or sheer conflict-of-interest inspired bullshit.

The crucial difference between a goal and a resolution.

One's a hope, and one's a plan.

A goal might be to lose weight, get in shape, eat healthier, love better, get a promotion, higher grades in school, etc. Those are things you truly hope you'll do in 2012.

A resolution?

That'd be the plan that'll actually get you there. So your resolution might be to pack your lunches every day to work, to go for a 20min walk on your treadmill every morning before you shower, to tell you wife or husband you love them on an at least weekly basis and create a standing date night, to ensure you never leave work without having cleared out your inbox, that every weekend you dedicate at least 4 hours to library based study.

If you actually want to reach a goal, well then you'd better also figure out exactly how you're going to get there. So for instance don't just renew your gym membership, schedule workout times into your real agenda and treat yourself like your most important client.

This year, resolve to actually have plans, and not simply hopes.

Happy New Year one and all!

Resolution Series Day 12: YOU!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 12: YOU!

Is there anyone more neglected by you in your life than yourself?

I know it's cliché, but truly, if you take better care of yourself, you'll likely be better able to take care of those you love.

It may mean asking your family members to pick up some slack around the house. It may mean dropping some volunteer positions that are taking up too much of your time. It may mean organizing a car pool. It may mean carving out some 'you' time from a weekly schedule filled with everyone else. It may mean spending a few dollars on higher quality foods, exercise equipment or new walking shoes. It may mean asking your spouse to look after the kids while occasionally go dancing with your friends.

Whatever it takes, this year resolve to ensure that you not only take care of those who you love around you, but that you also take care of yourself.

You deserve it, and if you don't look out for yourself, who will?

Make this the first of many years of you.

Resolution Series Day 11: Small Steps!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 11: Small Steps!

It goes somewhat hand in hand with striving not to be perfect, but the fact remains, people often take flying leaps at their New Year's Resolutions.

The thing about flying leaps? You tend to land on your face.

Small steps?

You might actually get somewhere.

Unfortunately the road to New Year's Resolutions for many has been paved by reality television, and real reality sure ain't the same thing.

Reality television teaches you to try to lose huge amounts of weight each and every week, to restrict, deny, and avoid dietary indulgences, that exercise in order to be useful needs to be performed in massive amounts (often the point of throwing up) and be painful.

And while those strategies may well work for contestants on a reality television show, they sure aren't going to work well for a working mom of 3 kids in hockey, or in my case, a working dad of 3 kids with a blog.

Remember, it's the healthiest life you can enjoy, not the healthiest life you can tolerate. Any more and you can probably kiss your resolution goodbye.

This year? Resolve to take small steps and leave the flying leaps to idiotic television shows.

Resolution Series Day 10: Look at Pricetags!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 10: Look at Pricetags!

So let's say you wanted to buy a new outfit and that you decided to shop on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive. If you didn't look at price tags before you bought your clothes, do you think you'd be pleasantly surprised when you got that month's Visa bill?

I'm guessing not.

Weight wise, the currency of weight is calories, and unfortunately the world out there? It's the Rodeo Drive of calories, where foods that don't look like much, or foods that are "healthy", may still have stupidly high, non-intuitive caloric prices.

I'm not saying calories are the be all and end all of nutrition, but they're certainly a nutritional determinant of health. Research regularly and conclusively points at calorie reduction as life extending, and therefore even if weight's not your concern, a reduction in your total calorie consumption may be beneficial.

Thankfully nowadays calories are easy to identify. Whether by means of nutrition facts panels, online resources, or in some States, even posted on menu boards.

So this year, resolve to look at price tags, with the question to be asking yourself, "Is it worth the calories", and where sometimes, even if they're exceedingly high, the answer's going to be "YES!".

Calories are but one branch of your decision making tree, where other branches might include your stress level, religious holidays, how long it's been since you've indulged in it, how good or bad your day might have been, what your calories have looked like lately, etc.

But they do make a difference.  For instance, I've never met a muffin worth its calories, and once you start looking at price tags, you might feel the same.

Resolution Series Day 9: Burn your Pigeonholes!

12 Days of Resolutions.  12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not.  12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable.  Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 9:  Burn your Pigeonholes!

People sometimes lock themselves down.

Either they always have to be "perfect", never straying from some restrictive ideal, or instead they pigeonhole themselves into some dietary regime or strategy.

This year resolve to do neither.

Striving to be perfect is a sure way to first "fall off the wagon", and then "not get back on track", because who wants to be on an impossible track.

My thinking is that rather than try to be perfect, do your best, remembering of course that your best will vary, and some days, compared with others, objectively your best won't look very good, despite the fact that subjectively it's actually your best.

Pigeonholes are dangerous too. Declare yourself a staunch anything food wise (low carb, paleo, vegan, low fat, etc.) and suddenly you too have that many more opportunities to let yourself down - and if let yourself down often enough, you're liable to quit whatever strategy it is that keeps making you feel guilty.

Sure, if you want to advocate a particular style of eating, go for it, just don't beat yourself up if you're not perfectly adherent.

Don't strive for perfection, and don't live a pigeonhole, instead do and eat your best, and rather than worry that your best isn't perfect, worry if it is.

Resolution Series Day 8: Beeps and Boops!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 8: Beeps and Boops!

Thankfully these days, if we want to remind ourselves of something, we don't need to tie a string onto our finger, instead, we can use the magical world around us.

Everything these days beeps or boops.

Cellphone and smartphone calendars and alarms, reminder apps, Outlook, text messaging, emails. There's no shortage of means to get in touch with oneself.

The thing about resolutions, by their very definition they're things you're not accustomed to doing in your normal, default, daily routine.

So how do you turn a resolution into a habit?

You consciously remind yourself over, and over, and over again, of those very things you're resolving to change.

This year resolve to remember, and resolve to do so without using one extra ounce of brain power or resilience, resolve to do so with beeps or boops.

Set your cell or smart phone calendar to remind you to snack, to shop for fresh produce, to exercise. Schedule your resolutions into your outlook reminders. Use text messaging services like  OhDon'tForget.com or send emails out into the future.

Why would you naturally remember to do things you aren't accustomed to doing?

Beeps and boops? They're your secret resolution weapons. Wield them well.

Resolution Series Day 7: Construct, don't Destruct!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 7: Construct, don't Destruct!

I've blogged about this resolution before.

This year resolve to ask yourself constructive questions, rather than destructive ones.

People generally interpret their lives through a series of reflective questions, and when things are going well, we tend to fall into questions like,

"What's my problem"

"What's wrong with me?"

"Why can't I just do this?"

And brains? Well, they're very accommodating. If you ask your brain to point out, "what's wrong" with you, it will readily and happily do so.

Self-destructing by piling guilt, anger and derision on yourself is no way to build a lifelong change.

If you want to change for good, I'd recommend you build on constructive, positive questions, because remember, your brain is accommodating.

So instead of the destructive questions like those above, when things aren't going well, when you're unhappy with your performance or the situation, resolve to ask these constructive questions instead,

"What can I do right now that'll help?"

"What can I do tomorrow to improve things?"

"What can I do today that I can be proud of?"

And suddenly, instead of beating yourself up, your helping yourself out.

Resolution Series Day 6: Meet Your New Best Friend!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 6: Meet Your New Best Friend!

Who is it?

YOU!

What do I mean?

We don't treat ourselves very nicely.

Whether it's struggling with healthy living behaviours, parenting, or doing our jobs, we're usually our own worst critic and most of us regularly heap piles of self scorn on our already weary shoulders.

There's an easy-ish way out of the circle of shame - treat yourself like you would your best friend.

Whatever's going on or going wrong in your life, ask yourself what you'd tell your best friend if they were recounting the exact same scenario.

My guess?

It'll be both kinder and more constructive than the guilt and self-loathing you're likely to be loading on yourself.

Shouldn't we all resolve to be our own best friends?

Resolution Series Day 5: A New After-school Activity!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 5: A New After-school Activity!

There's no debate, exercise is the single most important modifiable determinant of health.  The even better news is that there's really no need for skill - plain old walking works great.  Of course that doesn't stop any of us parents from schlepping our kids here there and everywhere for exercise "lessons" - soccer, hockey, skating, dance, the list, and the time involved, can sometimes seem and feel endless.

But with all of those after-school sports, is something else suffering?

I'd say so.  In fact I'd say that perhaps all of those after school skill building activities are actually decreasing the likelihood of parents teaching their children the single most health conferring skill imaginable - the skill involved in transforming raw ingredients into food. The skill of cooking.

Cooking is quickly becoming a lost art.

With the incredibly fast pace of our lives and world these days, it's no wonder cooking's falling by the wayside. Between chauffeuring kids to their various after school activities, to the electronic tethers we all now wear, time has become more pressured than ever. And of course restaurants of all sorts are everywhere to fill the void.

Resistance isn't futile.

Resolve this year to ensure you teach your children how to cook (and if you yourself don't know how, this is your opportunity to ask them to help you to learn).

Find a simple and easy to follow cookbook (like for instance any of the Looney Spoons' books) and book off one night a week as a family cooking night.

Each week a different family member gets to take a turn picking, prepping and cooking a recipe. Of course parents can and should help, this isn't about division of labour, this is about sharing and learning the love and joy of cooking.

Pick the recipe out on a pre-specified night each week at the dinner table. Ensure you schedule a time to shop for the recipe's ingredients before the day of, and perhaps even prep the ingredients together the night before cooking so that putting things together the next day is a quick snap.

Your kid missing one extra after school activity isn't likely to have any negative long term impact on their health. Their leaving your home not knowing how to cook will, as not only will it lead them into the processed food world's nutritionally bereft embrace, it might lead them to lead their future families into it as well.

In a sense, your family cooking nights?  They're for your unborn grandchildren.

(P.S. - Not my wife and kid up above)

Resolution Series Day 4: Reclaim Your Table!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 4: Reclaim Your Table

I know you have one. You might even have two. A dining room version and a kitchen version.

But do you use them?

Most of us (sadly me included many nights), pile up our plates and head to the living room. It's a practice we all ought to stop, and assuming my wife's in agreement, this one's a resolution for us as well. We're going to rediscover our table, maybe not every night, but certainly some and maybe many.

If you live alone, eating at the table will allow you to pay attention to your food and actually enjoy your bites rather than just mindless chewing (and if the bites aren't as enjoyable as you'd like, that might be a cue for you to try some new dishes). Turn on some of your favourite music, reflect on your day, and savour your meal. If you're trying to lose or maintain your weight, eating mindfully might allow you to get away with smaller portions than those you'd have plated for your televised meal.

If you live with adult loved ones or roommates, eating at the table will allow you to share your days, and spend a few moments of quality time in a world that has too few.

If you live with children, eating at the table will first and foremost teach them that families eat at tables, but has also been shown to be correlated with a healthier diet for the children, lesser body weights, and decreased adolescent acting out type behaviours.

Don't let your kitchen table just be a place to pile stuff up.

This year resolve to reclaim your table and stake your dietary flag in as often as you possibly can.

(P.S. - That's not my table)

- Resolution series to continue on Monday!

Resolution Series Day 3: Lose a Box!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 3: Lose a Box!

When my wife and I first met, her freezer was full of boxes. There were chicken fingers, burritos, pierogies, and fish sticks.

Now I can't brag too much. While I wasn't a box sort of bachelor, my staples were home made burgers, steaks, pizzas and chicken wings.

Over time our dietary worlds have changed - in part because of the career path I found myself upon, in part because of simply getting older/wiser, and in part because we had children.

Nowadays there are no boxes in our freezer.  In fact it's an extremely rare meal that's not home made, from scratch.

Of course we didn't get to where we are now overnight. Instead we slowly lost boxes.

I think the pierogies might have been the first to go, followed by the fish sticks. A few years later the chicken fingers were gone and finally the burritos.

You don't need to get where you're going overnight. In fact that's a great way to not get there.  Flying leaps land you on your face.

Instead start with a small and very doable step.  Why not take a boxed food inventory of your freezer and resolve to permanently lose the most nutritionally offensive box?

In it's place?

Learn a new home made, from scratch, produce rich meal.

Once one box is successfully done and gone, consider when you might want to tackle the next.

In terms of what's replaced our boxes, here's one we love. It's stupidly healthy, ridiculously inexpensive, strangely coloured, but wonderfully delicious and extremely hearty:

Lose a Box, Stupid Easy, Beet Curry (Serves 4)

1 large beet
1 can coconut milk
1 can chickpeas (rinsed)
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1/4 to 1/2 vegetable bouillon cube (depending how salt sensitive you are)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons curry powder
3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 cup Brown rice or quinoa

1. Cook chickpeas until tender
2. Cook brown rice or quinoa on side to serve over
3. Peel and dice beet root and cook in simmering water until tender
4. Chop up beet leaves
5. Saute garlic and onion with some sesame oil for extra flavour
6. Add coconut milk, diced beet root, chickpeas, tomato paste, tiny bit of stock cube and curry powder and bring to boil and when boiling add in chopped beet leaves (or cooking greens). Boil for 5 more minutes
7. Sprinkle with fresh coriander and serve over brown rice or quinoa

Per serving 410 calories, 12g protein, 9g fibre, 427mg sodium

Resolution Series Day 2: Pre-Eat

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Day 2: Pre-Eat

Another incredibly easy one.

You're going to have lots of celebratory meals this month. Office get togethers, family dinners, vacationing, etc. Most folks think that their best plan is to ensure they skimp on their calories all day long so that when their celebratory meal time comes around, they've got more caloric room for indulgences.

That's a terrible plan.

Why?

Because you'll end up combining frank hunger with a terrifically human reason to eat (celebration), along with markedly more indulgent food, social pressures, and probably alcohol.

And hunger wins of course. Go to the supermarket hungry and you'll know what I mean, you shop differently when you're hungry.

Sitting down to eat hungry is exactly the same, just on a smaller scale. Simply put, you'll be shopping from your plate.

But what happens when you go to the supermarket not hungry? Well you buy what you need and aren't tempted to buy much else.

Show up to your festive meal not hungry and you'll eat what you need - including a more indulgent menu given the circumstances, but by not being hungry, and by being in control, you'll have a far easier time navigating your choices and your portions.

My recommendation? Resolve to "pre-eat" all of this year's celebrations. Not only have all of your day's meals and snacks, but ensure you have an extra 200-300 calorie, protein inclusive snack half an hour before you head out to your dinner. The calories you'll spend "pre-eating" will be dramatically outweighed by the calories you don't consume from the seconds you leave on the table, the more thoughtful navigation of choices and a more controlled consumption of dessert.

You don't crave green leafy salads when you're hungry. The flip side of that? You don't crave much at all when you're full. So this year, pre-eat, avoid hunger, and thoughtfully indulge because it's a celebration and not uncontrollably indulge because you're hungry.

Resolution Series Day 1: Like Em!

Yes, I'm Jewish, but that's not going to stop me from glomming on to the "12 Days Of" theme.

My 12 Days?

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.

Which brings me to my first recommended resolution:

Day1: Like Em!

This one's pretty straight forward, and pretty darn easy too. Simply put? For any of your coming year's resolutions or lifestyle interventions, resolve to only start ones that you think you'll actually like.

What do I mean?

Too many people make far too dramatic, broad, general, or strict resolutions, and are then surprised when a few months later, their resolutions are barely a memory.

It's this phenomenon that pays the bills at every gym in the world - people take a flying leap at a far too aggressive and/or time intensive program and surprise, when they get sick of trying to bite off more than they can chew, they stop chewing.

Weight wise, the more weight you want to permanently lose, the more of your lifestyle you're going to have to permanently change. Trying to adopt changes you don't like is a sure fire way to ensure that they're not going to be permanent.

So this year, resolve to like them. Analyze each and every resolution through the lens of, "Can I keep happily keep living this way"? Because if you can't do it happily, you're probably not going to keep doing it.