
3 Steps to Better Understand Your Health
Do you find it hard to keep track of what you do to live a healthy lifestyle? If you want to know exactly where your health stands and know where to start improving it, you need metrics. Your feelings may lie, but numbers never do.
Use the three tips below to see an honest picture of your current lifestyle so you can start working on creating a healthier you.
Step 1: Keep an Updated Record of Your Medical History
You should always keep any medical records you receive. They are essential when figuring out which changes to make to your diet, exercise, and other parts of life. However, paper records are messy, easily lost, and take up space.
An easy way to rid yourself of this headache is to use a small practice EHR. An EHR is an electronic health record. This record contains all the information that your confusing paper records had and makes it easier for you and your doctors to look at and understand.
Going to a provider that uses an EHR system will help you make necessary changes to your lifestyle more accurately.
Everyone eats differently because we are all unique people with different bodies. However, making and sticking to healthy eating can be tough. A simple way to help solve this problem is to create and write down your dietary chart.
The best way to understand how you’re eating now and what changes need to be made is to write everything down. The way we think we eat and what actually ends up in our stomachs are sometimes two different things. Spend a week or two tracking what you eat. Don’t be judgmental; consider yourself an observer.
Once you understand where you are, you can set realistic but meaningful goals. A great way to decide on your goals is to sit down with a doctor or dietitian. You can learn more about the foods you should strive to reduce or add to your eating routine. Work to fill your plate with various food groups for the best results.
After you create your plan and goals, you will want to write this down on a sheet of paper and put it someplace you’ll see it. An excellent place to put it is on your fridge to serve as an easy-to-spot reminder.
Step 3: Keep Track of Your Exercise
Exercise is a crucial part of living a healthy life, but not always easy to fit into your daily routine.
The Mayo Clinic recommends getting at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity. You only need about 75 minutes per week if you’re doing more intense exercises. Shoot for somewhere in between if you’re mixing up your workouts regularly between moderate to intense.
At first glance, 75-150 minutes of exercise a week sounds like a lot of time and difficult to manage. Though, it may not be as impossible as it may seem.
An easy solution to this problem is to sit down and figure out what time is the best for you to exercise. After you have a time slot figured out, set a reminder on your phone to go off when that time of day arrives.
When you have a specific time and plan, you can easily track when you do and don’t complete your goals and better understand how to improve.
Organization is Key to Your Success
If you started this year saying, “I want to be healthier,” how can you know if you’re accomplishing your goal? But when you follow these tips to review your medical history, diet, and exercise, you’ll have a clear baseline and goals — the best way to track actual progress.
Try these tips yourself and see how far they can take you in your journey to better health!

