Lifestyle

7 Commandments Of Healthy Living, According To Fitness Guru Katie Austin

by Adam Silvers
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To say fitness and athletics run in Katie Austin's family would be a bit of an understatement.

Austin, a fitness trainer, athlete, author and social media star, is the daughter of legendary fitness icon Denise Austin.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Katie Austin's dad is Jeff Austin, a former professional tennis player, and her aunt is two-time US Open champion Tracy Austin.

So yeah, you could say Katie Austin was destined to make fitness a career before she even set out to do so.

Within 30 seconds of chatting with the 22-year-old, I can tell she has a passion for the fitness and nutrition game. This woman is a bubbling ball of energy, and her positivity is infectious.

Wednesday morning, the University of Southern California alum came down to Elite Daily HQ to talk all things fitness and do a Snapchat takeover to give followers a few essential workout and nutrition tips.

The self-proclaimed "lifestyle blogger and fitness trainer" dropped some serious knowledge on us this week, which is why you're going to want to do yourself a favor and check out the following seven commandments of healthy living, according to fitness guru Katie Austin.

Never skip meals.

Some of the biggest misconceptions I see Millennials making is thinking that not eating and skipping meals is the way to get fit. But this is not right. My key to eating healthy is preparation and keeping it simple, but switching it up at the same time. I love to set aside only 10 minutes every day to prepare your meals, and make sure you know what you're eating throughout the whole day. Also, Sunday meal preps are a huge thing to eating clean. You can set aside just an hour, hour and a half every Sunday, and you can plan out your whole meals for the week.

Get a great workout without hitting the gym.

You can always work out with just body weight. I have a lot of workouts that are just totally in five feet of space, not using any equipment. A lot of people don't think that they're very effective, but they can be. If you don't have enough time to do a 35-minute workout, you can do little things here and there throughout your day that will really add up. If you're in the kitchen waiting for something to cook, you can do lunges here and there. You can do pushups on the kitchen counter. You can do some squat taps on your seat while you're in the workplace. Little things like that, just a minute to five minutes, some in the morning, some in the afternoon, some in the night before you go to bed, will really help.

Nourish your body.

For breakfast, I like avocado toast: wheat toast, avocado, olive oil and pepper, with two soft boiled eggs on top. You can add a little bit of hot sauce to that. For lunch, I eat a salad. I love arugula salad with parmesan. Kale, maybe throw some tuna on that. [Maybe] some berries. I like to mix up with fruit. For dinner, brown rice and chicken and any vegetable. Any vegetable I have, I kinda just throw it in the pot and mix it up. I'm really not a big believer in counting calories, so don't focus on that too much.

Have a plan before you hit the gym.

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If you get intimidated with the gym, just make sure you know what you're doing before you get there. A lot of people get there, they look around, they look at all these machines and are like, 'Uh oh, I don't know what to do with all of them.' Make sure your workout is planned out before you get there, so you go straight to the workout. You're not bothered by anyone else. You put on your headphones, and you just get to it.

Use Instagram and social media to your fitness advantage.

Fitness gurus, I hope myself, can inspire others to workout and feel great. I'm all about giving girls confidence. Now, girls can find online workouts super easy. In-home workouts. I really hope girls don't look at Instagram the wrong way and get discouraged when they look at super-fit girls. I know I see a lot of fitness trainers on Instagram, and I'm like, 'Oh my god, they're so fit.' Hopefully, they just look at it in a motivating and inspiring way, and not to feel bad about themselves.

Don't get intimidated about eating clean and working out.

Some of the misconceptions I've seen, girls get really intimidated about working out sometimes, and they think it has to be super hard, super intense, but it definitely doesn't have to be. With eating clean, it's the same thing. They think it's really hard, basically, and they're scared to do it because they think meal prep will take so much time. But once you get in the habit and the routine of doing it, and you find what you love, it's really, really easy to keep up with it. It doesn't have to be intimidating at all. Start really slow if you want. Just make sure it's something you love, and it will not be hard.

Identify your biggest influencers and look to them for inspiration and guidance.

[My mom] has played almost every role. Not to sound super cliché, but ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to grow up and be like her. I never really thought about fitness as a career, I just knew I always loved fitness. I was an athlete growing up my whole entire life. I played lacrosse in college and tennis in high school. I was traveling with [my mom] on the road since I was 6 weeks old, and I would watch her film workout videos. Her positivity really inspired me to also spread that positivity. I think my mom is really inspiring because she is so balanced. She's so realistic, and she kind of instilled that in me, the fitness realism part of it. She's not this crazy workout woman who works out insanely, she's just a real woman who's trying to be fit.

For more of Katie's fitness and nutrition tips, follow @katie.austin on Instagram, @getfitwithkatie on Snapchat and youtube.com/katieaustinfit.