Steemit Engagement Challenge S4-W2: Heathly Routines by @ozenozge

Hello everyone,

First of all, I would like to thank the RECREATIVE STEEM team for this week's challenge topic. It has been both motivating and a beneficial competition where we can see the routines of other Steeminas and be inspired by them. As someone who is trying to adopt a healthy lifestyle to my life, I started thinking about what I would write for this beautiful contest.

_{The collage was prepared with Canva}

1- What moves you each day to go out into the world to fulfill your responsibilities?

At one point in my life, I was a fast food and junk food enthusiast, and my physical activities were limited to going to the grocery store, going to and from school. What this means is a lot of weight, unhealthy skin and most importantly a bad mood. After all, this is our life and no one is going to come with a magic wand and fix it. The only person who can stop this downward spiral is ourselves. Unhealthy lifestyle affects my mood the most. One day I stood in front of the mirror and confronted myself. Are you choosing this life? If you don't do something, nothing will get better. And after that day, I cut out junk food from my life and started doing sports. I still can't claim that I'm doing it perfectly, but I'm not doing too badly. In summary, our time in life is limited and it is in our hands to spend it in the best way. For this reason, I try to live the best life I can by pushing myself a little bit.

2- What things do you do or what methods do you use to keep yourself balanced? Explain (health, beauty, fitness, sport, devotion).

I think it would be good to answer this question by breaking it down into sections.

Here I will try to explain under separate headings: healthy eating, sports, personal care, and others.

Healthy Nutrition

A healthy diet is essential for a healthy life. After all, there is a famous saying "You are what you eat". But what I want to emphasize here is that proper nutrition is also very good for the psychology.

So, let's talk a little bit about what I do for a healthy diet. First of all, unfortunately, I am not at the weight I want. I still have 6-7 kilos to lose, but I am trying to lose it in a healthy way, not quickly.

_{My healthy meal with chicken and salad🍗🥗}

As someone who loves sweets, I have not consumed any artificial sugar for about 2 months. I only get sugar from fruits. It has been years since I have consumed soft drinks.
Turkish cuisine unfortunately has a lot of pastries, a lot of fatty and caloric flavors. although I love pastries, let's face it, they are not healthy at all. That's why I don't consume pastries except for very rare events.
Instead, I try to consume plenty of vegetables and fruits. Instead of eating out, I cook them myself at home. This way, I avoid unnecessary oils and sauces.

I take care to drink at least one cup of green tea a day. Actually, I will make a small criticism here. Instead of pre-packaged green teas, green teas that we brew at home are healthier, but these packaged green teas are more practical.

Apart from that, I drink at least 3 liters of water a day. We all know very well how important water consumption is. However, some people have problems drinking water. I am lucky in this regard because I have accustomed myself to it and it has become a habit for me.

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And finally, I don't drink anything after 6 pm except water and green tea.

I am trying to maintain this way of eating now, but unfortunately, I gain a lot of weight when I get out of this routine from time to time. That's why we set up a Whatsapp group with my close friends. We try to motivate each other by sending each other what I eat every day. If one of us has had a miss, the others warn us and we try to get back on track.

Personal Care
It would not be wrong to say that this is my specialty. I have been interested in personal care since childhood.
First of all, I want to talk about skin care. I do my skin care every night before going to sleep. If I have made up that day, I definitely remove my make-up and then wash my face with face cleansing gel. Respectively, I apply tonic, moisturizer and serum. Even if I am very tired during the day, I try not to neglect these treatments.
On a weekly basis, I apply a clay mask or peeling. Maybe my skin type is not problematic, but thanks to these treatments, my skin is clean and acne-free.
Another important routine is sunscreen. I always apply sunscreen before going out, regardless of winter or summer. I recommend sunscreen to everyone because it protects against cancer and prevents skin aging.

Another issue is hair care. Since I have a difficult hair type, I need to put my hair care into a routine. I take care of my hair weekly with herbal oils like coconut oil or hair care masks. I use hair care oil and conditioner after a shower. These are now habits that I have adapted to my daily life like drinking water.

Experts claim that an active life is as important as a healthy diet. When I do sports, I lose weight faster and have more energy. Since I am trying to lose weight in this period, I try to take 6000 steps daily.
I am lucky that I have a very nice route. Below I have captured some shots from today's walk for you. I do my walks in the evening after sunset because it is very hot especially in summer. Spotify is my best friend to cheer up my walk. Depending on my daily mood, I try to make my walk more enjoyable by listening to music or a podcast.

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Here I would like to mention another thing that motivates me. I donate the steps I take during the day to a social responsibility project with an application called HelpSteps. In the application, the steps taken during the day are transformed by watching an advertisement. There are various projects here. For example, when users donate 1,000,000 steps, a wheelchair can be bought for a child with walking disabilities. I have been saving my steps for a while and today I donated the steps I have been saving for a long time to an association that helps stray animals.

3- Do you feel there are things you can improve in your routine? Mention them.

I believe there are things I can improve here, especially in terms of sports. Yes, I walk daily, but it would be nice to add some exercise to that. Especially when I was working, I was going to reformer pilates and my body was shaped very well and my posture improved. It would not be wrong to say that I was relieving the stress of business life with reformer pilates. Then Corona came into play and I had to take a break from reformer pilates. Now I don't have a budget for reformer pilates because I quit my job. Instead, I try to do pilates with videos on Youtube. But I could not make it a routine. I especially follow Blogilates and Chloe Ting channels, if there are channels you have tried and are satisfied with, I am waiting for your suggestions.

4- Would you like to add any other routine to your life? What would it be?

The answer to this question is obvious. I have a terrible sleeping pattern. It has a very negative impact on my daily life. I definitely need to establish a sleeping pattern. I'm working on it, but it's very fragile. Nowadays, I sit up until around 5 a.m. Then I sleep intermittently during the day. I realize the importance of a good night's sleep, but even knowing that, I still sit up until the morning, so I need to sort this out.

5- Are you satisfied with your current lifestyle or do you think it could be improved?
As I mentioned above, my lack of sleep pattern affects many things negatively. Since I sleep during the day, I always have to postpone the activities I need to do outside. It also causes me to spend less time with my family. But other than that, my other routines such as nutrition, sports and personal care increase my quality of life.

6- Which of the routines you perform would you recommend?"

So I can recommend all of the routines I mentioned above. I'm sure you'll notice the improvement after you take these routines into your life. Maybe it will be difficult to do all of them at the same time. For this reason, it may be beneficial to take small steps and move forward. For example, you can leave only sugar first and then soft drinks. You can start with 5 minutes of exercise a day and increase it over time.

That's all I have to say about this wonderful contest for now. I hope it has been inspiring for you. I invite @baycan, @serap and @travel777, who are curious about healthy routines, to this competition.

See you around😇