Everyone reading this, visiting this website, or clicking around social media has some sort of guilty pleasure, some sort of vice. Three of the most popular vices in America and around the world are drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and eating unhealthy food. These vices are things that aren’t going to ruin our health if they are managed, moderation is key! All three can get out of control and severely affect your health in the form of alcoholism, lung cancer, and obesity. Of course, having some wine and a cheeseburger aren’t going to put you at risk for these things but making vices a regular habit can increase your risk for health issues, below are some ways you can lighten your vices so that you can still enjoy them from time to time but lower their effects on your overall health.
-Alcohol
A 2014 survey asking Americans if they are “current drinkers” resulted in over half of America confessing they have had alcohol in the past thirty days, upwards of 139 million people. Alcohol’s negative effects on the body have been widely researched and publicized yet alcohol remains the leading guilty pleasure of over half of America. If beer is your drink of choice try to consume only light beer or low-calorie options. For example, if you are to consume 5 regular Budweiser beers your intake is a whopping 725 calories! Swapping in a lower calorie beer like Michelob Ultra and having the same amount is a calorie intake of 475, that difference can add up to thousands of calories per week. When you are choosing a bottle of wine you can also save yourself tons of calories by choosing less sweet varietals. Most wines pack in around 105 calories per glass whereas sweet and dessert wines can rise as high as 300 per glass!
-Smoking
With the use of cigarettes still prevalent in America but on the decline overall people are looking for other and healthier mixtures to smoke for pleasure, relaxation, and socialization. In fact, there are even herbal blends that can be smoked to help ease off cigarettes altogether like this one from Alien Herbal. Smoking for your health sounds like quite the juxtaposition, but when you eliminate the chemicals, tars, and byproducts added to cigarettes or cheap cigars you can inhale natural and herbal blends for fasted absorption of anything from rosemary leaf to chamomile flowers. Sites like Herbal Bar can send you bulk herbs in a dried form to roll and smoke without the risks of pre-packaged big-tobacco. Smoking things like herbs, tea blends, or other mixtures of herbs aged in honey and fruit juices are the way to go when you want to light up. These products will allow you to enjoy smoking something without putting yourself at huge risk for lung cancer, heart disease, and other cigarette-related health issues. You can even control every part of the product that is involved in rolling your own herbs. Companies like Kong Wraps have made papers for rolling out of hemp to improve the health standards of what is surrounding your herbs too. When you understand what plant or tea mixture you have and what it is rolled in, you will truly notice the healthful difference when you do decide to smoke.
-Eating
Enjoying some ice cream, a cupcake, or maybe something heftier like fried chicken or fast food is not going to kill you, however, eating unhealthy food is a slippery slope and the easiest way to ruin your long-term health. Enjoying rewards, snacks, and treats is sometimes the easiest way to stay tied to a healthy eating plan for the majority of your calorie intake. Nowadays the pressure is on for food makers and brands to provide healthier options or to simply “lighten up” their unhealthy food choices. Frequent purchases like ice cream now come in tons of variety with either less fat and reduced sugar. Same for cookies and cakes where you can buy completely sugar-free alternatives when you need something sweet. As research and chemistry evolve around food so do the options we have in the grocery store. Making smarter choices and looking for slightly healthier options for our regular food can save tons of calories and chemicals from your regular intake, such as lower sodium ketchup. If you find yourself needing a binge then try low-fat options or lower carb desserts to get your fix. If every choice you make in the grocery store and kitchen ends up being a slightly healthier ingredient that you have made in the past, all those small edits to your
