A 12-Step Plan To Get Healthy That Your Doctor Will Never Prescribe

If you are looking to optimize your health, there are many professionals out there who can guide you to your healthiest self. But, if you haven't found the right match yet, the good news is there are plenty of things you can do on your own. I urge you to become the CEO of your body and try some (or all) of the steps below.

You'll want to order a complete blood count, which will give you information about your blood and can help pinpoint issues with fatigue and infection. It's also a good idea to order a complete thyroid panel and a complete lipid panel. Getting this data will give you a more complete assessment of your health and help you identify areas for improvement.

Here's the easy way: just sleep for 3 to 5 days without an alarm to find out how many hours of sleep you need to feel rested. For most of us, this is somewhere between 7 and 9 hours.

Needs some extra help? Try taking Vitamin C (start with 1 gram three times a day and increase until you have loose stools), fish oil (1 to 4 grams a day), Phosphatidylserine (400- 800 mg/day), Ashwaganda (300 mg twice a day) or Rhodiola (100 mg a day).*

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Whether you use a pedometer, FitBit, FuelBand or pencil and paper, tracking your movement during the day is important. Aim for 10,000 to 15,000 steps a day. (That's about five miles a day.)

Finally, an easy one! Check your pulse when you wake up, before you even get out of bed. An ideal resting pulse is 60 beats per minute or below. (Athletes are routinely in the 50s.)

Women typically need three tests drawn during their 28-day cycle. This is because levels change (or should change) throughout the month. Women can get their hormones levels checked at the same places above.

Why? Getting "in the zone" with an enjoyable activity lowers stress hormones, increases your happiness, and gives you something to look forward to every day. Aim to start have fun 15 to 30 minutes every day.

Bottom line, although it's really cliche: Eat the foods your grandparents would recognize.

We use, and ingest chemicals that throw our hormones off balance. Although it's hard to remove all the offenders-- I found this article to be a helpful and solid start.

Interested in your heart and overall inflammatory markers? Check your cholesterol, LDL particle number and size, homocysteine, lipoprotein a, hbaic, fibrinogen

Here are the common top offenders:

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Of course, this list doesn't include every single thing you'd do to improve your health. It's just meant to be a starting point you can use to improvise and improve.