How to Practice Healthy Habits

The U.S. spent close to $3 trillion on health care in 2012, according to the National Health Expenditure Account. This is over 18 percent of the gross domestic product, and the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, predicts it will grow to 25 percent by 2025. By 2082, the CBO says half of all money generated in the U.S. will be spent on health services.

But there is something that can be done. The American Medical Association reports that 75 percent of all health care costs are used to treat preventable chronic conditions. This makes striving for health a matter of personal and community responsibility.

Step 1

Adopt one new healthy habit at a time by breaking a major health goal into steps. For example, there are five parts to the process of creating a healthy body mass index, or BMI, for life -- a wise goal for the 72 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese: getting seven hours of sleep each night; calculating your target number of calories; investing those calories in healthy, nutrient-dense foods; walking 10,000 steps, or 5 miles, daily; and integrating more movement into all parts of your life. Each one of these is a separate habit, and it takes three to four weeks to make a new behavior a natural part of your life.

Step 2

Frame your goal in a positive way. Change is more effective when you are moving toward what you want rather than away from something you fear. For example, you're much more likely to brush and floss daily because you want to attain a beautiful smile than you are to do the same action to prevent gingivitis and the heart disease that it causes. In the same way, don't try to lose weight -- rather, aim to recreate a svelte, lean, body with a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9.

Step 3

Write down your goal in very specific terms. Imagine mountain climbing without knowing where the summit is; there would be no place to stop at the top and celebrate your achievement. The same is true of health goals. For instance, determine the weight you want to achieve and when, at a safe weight loss rate of one pound a week. Visual people might find that it helps to have a picture that symbolizes your healthy goal posted where it can be seen throughout the day.

Step 4

Immerse yourself in planning for goal achievement as a way of optimizing the results you'll attain. According to Dr. David Krueger, psychiatrist and professor of health coaching, the more you take control of designing your own strategies for reaching a goal, the more likely you are to succeed. Rather than joining a diet group, in which others have done the work of planning for you, research nutrition using sources you trust and create an eating plan that you can live with for life.

Step 5

Try using a coach. Professional health coaches work with clients to facilitate health goal achievement . Having a certified health coach provides you with a source of sound medical knowledge who will help you set attainable goals and serve as an accountability partner in a relaxed, nonclinical way. And that's good for the economy too. A study of 174,120 insured Americans, published in the September 23, 2010, issue of the "New England Journal of Medicine," concluded that health coaching provided a 10.1 percent reduction in annual hospital admissions. The participants, who used the services of a health coach in short, phone-based sessions, averaged 3.6 percent lower total annual health care costs than those who did not utilize this service, making engaging a coach a fiscally prudent health strategy.