Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes

by Tom Rath

No matter how healthy you are today, you can take specific actions to have more energy and live longer. Regardless of your age, you can make better choices in the moment. Small decisions — about how you eat, move, and sleep each day — count more than you think. As I have learned from personal experience, these choices shape your life.

tackling multiple elements at the same time increases your odds of success, compared to initiating a new diet or exercise program in isolation. Eating, moving, and sleeping well are even easier if you work on all three simultaneously. These three ingredients for a good day build on one another. When these elements are working together, they create an upward spiral and progressively better days.

The best performers work in bursts. They take frequent breaks to avoid exhaustion and ensure they can recover completely. This allows them to keep going the next day.

Ask yourself if what you are about to eat is a net gain, based on what you know about all the ingredients. If you develop a habit of asking this question, you will make better decisions in the moment.

Sitting more than six hours a day greatly increases your risk of an early death.

Walking increases energy levels by about 150 percent. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator increases energy by more than 200 percent. Instead of viewing a long walk as something you don’t have time for, think of it as an opportunity to get in some extra activity that will make you healthier.

You are simply a different person when you operate on insufficient sleep. And it shows. Your friends, colleagues, and loved ones can see it, even when you are too sleepless to realize your own condition. One study found that losing 90 minutes of sleep reduces daytime alertness by nearly one-third.

At a minimum, avoid foods with a ratio higher than 5 to 1 carbs to protein.

Sugar is a toxin. It fuels diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. At the current dose we consume, more than 150 pounds per person every year, sugar and its derivatives kill more people than cocaine, heroin, or any other controlled substance around. One report aptly described sugar as “candy for cancer cells.” It accelerates aging and inflammation in the body and subsequently fuels tumor growth. It is now clear that if you lower your sugar intake, you reduce your odds of developing cancer.

Sugar also has an unfair advantage; it manipulates our brains so we consume larger amounts over time.

Any packaged product with more than 10g of sugar is more than you need in a single serving.

Anything that makes your food or drink taste sweet leads you to crave less healthy foods later.

The act of sitting literally makes your backside bigger.

So even if you exercise regularly, sitting for many hours encourages fat cells to congregate near your rear.