Start 2020 Off Right: Our Favorite FREE Healthy Resources

It’s a new year and a new decade, folks! Year after year, the most common resolutions are about improving our health – like quitting smoking or achieving a healthier weight. A bonus of setting these health-related goals is that they can also help reduce your risk of many chronic diseases, including cancer! We’ve compiled a list of our favorite free healthy resources to help you reach your goals for 2020 and beyond – check them out:

Quitting Smoking/Vaping

• Quit With Us, LA offers free coaching to support you in your quit journey. You’ll get a one-on-one phone counseling session, information about the online Web Coach Program, receive a Quit Kit in the mail, get information about local quit programs, and get 24/7 quit support. 
• Smokefree.gov has lots of great information, and even has specific information for veterans, women, teens, older adults, and Spanish speakers. Our favorite Smokefree resources? Their free tools! They have quit plan guides, quitting tips, phone apps, and texting programs. 
• iQuitApp helps you stop bad habits, like smoking, by tracking how much time and money you’ve saved by quitting. 

Healthy Eating

• Spend Smart. Eat Smart. Is a really cool resource for how to plan, shop, and cook healthy meals on a budget. They even have an app to help you save money at the store! 
• SkinnyTaste is a hugely popular healthy recipe blog by Gina Homolka. You can sort her recipes by diet (vegetarian, paleo, low carb, dairy free, Whole 30, gluten free, and keto), by method (under 30 minutes, air fryer, freezer meals, slow cooker, pressure cooker, and meal prep), and by kid-friendly options. She even has weekly meal plans! Between her huge catalog of healthy recipes, and the easy-to-use recipe filters, you’ll always have a healthy recipe on-hand. 
• MyFitnessPal is a way to easily track what you eat. Studies have shown that you’re more likely to eat healthy when you track your food. It can also make you aware of good habits that you want to continue, and bad habits that you can work to avoid. This app can help you set goals and track your calories, carbs, fat, protein, sodium, and sugar. But that’s not all this app (both desktop and phone) does! See below for more…

Physical Activity

• Move Your Way is an easy-to-use site with physical activity recommendations, fact sheets, tip videos, and interactive tools to help you and your family get active. They even have specific resources for parents and older adults. All of their resources are based on the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, so you know it’s backed by lots of research.
• Yoga With Adriene shares new yoga videos to her 5.5 million subscribers on her website (and YouTube channel) every Sunday. Yoga is a type of physical activity that anyone and any age can participate in. She has so many types of videos, including a whole playlist for beginners, and you can even search by workout length. 
• MyFitnessPal not only tracks your food, but also allows users to track physical activity using your smartphone or your fitness wearables (like FitBit). It allows to track by type of activity so you can log the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (cardio) and 2 muscle-strengthening activities each week. Don’t forget, it’s available on your desktop and on an app for your phone.

Mental Health

• Five Minute Journal shares their Quick Guide for how to journal for five minutes each day to help improve your mental health. They even provide you with templates for how to set up your own journal!
• Smiling Mind App is a web and app-based mindfulness meditation program that offers specific resources for various age groups (7-9 yrs, 10-12 yrs, 13-15 yrs, 16-18 yrs, and adults), as well as purpose (sport, classroom, and workplace).

Studies show that most people give up on their resolutions by mid-January, and only 8% of people actually reach their goals. We hope this mid-January post gives you a boost with the tools you need to stick to your healthy resolutions all year long!