Want to improve your health but don’t have tons of time? Here are six 60-second ideas for improving your health—and your life!

1. Sit or stand up straight! Good posture is the key to confidence and a welcoming appearance. Not only do you speak more clearly and breathe better, you’re also taking pressure off your lower back and allowing your muscles to develop correctly. Taking a second to adjust your posture every once in a while can be helpful in reducing back pain in the future!

2. Do a plank and work the abdominals. This is a great “take with you anywhere” exercise; just drop down on those elbows and toes, keeping the back flat and the butt down. The plank is one of the most efficient and effective when it comes to a solid core workout for ab endurance and stabilization. Hold this position 20-60 seconds for 3-5 repetitions.

3. Drink a glass of water. As you’ve probably heard, the average person should drink about eight glasses a day to help prevent dehydration. Yes, drinking water helps regulate your metabolism and your body temperature, but additionally it can give you younger looking skin, keep you from getting sick, remove toxins in the body, and boost your mood. Water is the ultimate medicine!

4. Compliment someone. It is the easiest way to spread a little bit of happiness and your thoughtfulness can go a long way. It’s a win-win for the other person and for the way you can also feel good, empowered, and kind. When we live our lives so inwardly focused, we can get down about our own problems and miss so much of the world around us. Making someone else happy might just make you happy, too.

5. Read the label. Ideally you want to look for food items with low sugar, high fiber, and high protein. Looking at the calories seems easy, until you realize that’s the calories per serving size and there are four servings in that container you just ate. The nutrition facts can be confusing on those labels, but understanding exactly what you’re feeding yourself can make all the difference in your health!

6. Floss. Your dentist tells you this at every six-month cleaning. It’s something so simple that most of us don’t care to do it or don’t even think about it. When we don’t floss, we’re leaving a heck of a lot of tooth unclean, susceptible for gum disease to set in and spread bacteria to the rest of our bodies. Fun fact: people who floss live six years longer than those who don’t.

Remember, healthy living comes in the consistency of our good choices. Take 60 seconds today to do something to better the life you live and make every step count.

Emergency: We are facing a “body” crisis! Startling statistics about the obesity epidemic in our country are all over the news, and yet at the same time we are bombarded with images from the media of the “ideal” body that is unattainable, unnatural, and unhealthy for many. I believe both the pressure to be too thin, as well as dealing with being largely overweight, contribute to low self-esteem and low self-efficacy, perpetuating the problems.

It seems that America is out of tune with our own bodies. We need to function on a physical fitness philosophy revolving around self-respect. Self-respect means giving your body the exercise it needs; not over exercising and not under exercising.  I’m not dismissing the many other environmental and psychological causes of obesity and eating disorders, but these body crises might be better dealt with if people became more introspective and aware of what being healthy means to them—not their families, cultures, friends, or any other demands life puts on them. Living in the extremes, over or under eating and/or exercising, negative self-thinking, and obsession are not conducive to overall wellness.

Being a fitness instructor and personal trainer, I am encourage my clients to spend a significant amount of time working out. I sincerely applaud those who are working hard to stay in shape to be healthy. However, at the same time I see people in my classes or around the rec center who stay there for three hours at a time every day of the week and appear to be only a set of bones. It saddens me to see the damage these people are doing to their bodies. They will likely never be satisfied with who they are, no matter how many pounds are lost. This lifestyle corrupts the natural good and joy in exercise and is the antonym of “physical fitness.”

As someone who has struggled with my weight and disordered eating patterns in the past, I understand the difficulty of seeing exercise as a means of achieving and maintaining good health. It can be hard not to count calories every minute or not to think about needing to burn off everything that you just ate. Whether overweight, underweight, or just right, concern about weight is a constant thought for most females. This is not a correct frame of thinking. I finally said, “Enough is enough,” and once I understood how to find balance, my mind was free to start loving who I was created to be.

But how do you teach someone (or teach yourself) to love her body? For me it was finding a fitness goal to accomplish, rather than focusing on pounds. I love feeling successful and strong when I attain my goals. Regular exercise plays a huge role in helping me feel connected to my body. Once I got into a continuous and challenging routine, other healthy decisions followed suit, each one reinforcing the love and respect I deserve. It’s not about being what other people want you to be, but knowing who you are and becoming what your body needs you to be.