Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Lifestyles
Doing regular physical activity is a healthy lifestyle that health experts feel is among the most important. Not only does it help you prevent many of the major illness and enhance your physical fitness and health, but also it can contribute to good health in other areas as well.

Their list includes some of healthy lifestyles that you can adopt to promote good fitness, health and wellness. These lifestyles are only of benefit if you choose to do them. The choices you make have much to do with your fitness, health and wellness.

• Be Physically Active

• Adopt Good Personal Health Habits

• Eat Properly

• Manage Stress

• Avoid Destructive Habits

• Adopt Good Safety Practices

• Seek and Follow Appropriate Medical Advice

• Practice Other Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Eating Lifestyle

Healthy Eating Lifestyle
Eat for variety
Foods from all food groups are important. Eat foods from all the food groups every day and choose a variety of foods within each food group. For optimum nutrition, eat more foods from the grain, fruits, and vegetables.

Eat fruits and vegetables at every meal and snack
Fruit and vegetables are packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants; plus they provide fiber to help keep our bowels regular. We should get at least five servings of fruit and vegetables combined each day. Fruits and vegetable that are deep green or orange or red pack the most vitamin and minerals. It is important to select fruits and vegetables of different colors to get all of their beneficial nutrients.

Go for whole grains
Whole grains contain more nutrients and fiber than processed or refined grains because the milling process removes the nutritional part of the grain. Aim to make half of all the grain foods that you eat the whole grain.

Limit foods and beverages with added sugar
Sweet drinks such as soda, fruit punch, lemonade, iced tea, and sport drinks have a lot of sugar but no vitamins or minerals. Consuming too much sweet drinks makes it hard to get all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Soft drinks and sweets such as candy, cake, cookies and donuts can cause dental cavities, and they add to calorie intake, which makes it hard to keep a healthy weight.

Choose foods with healthy fat
The fat on our bodies serves several purposes: it protects our organs, keeps us warm, and stores our energy. Fat in food provides a feeling of fullness and it adds flavor. Some fat – namely unsaturated fat – is healthy for the heart, but other fat – the saturated fat – can damage arteries and lead to heart disease over time. Trans fat does the most damage and should be avoided.
Healthy Eating Lifestyle

Walking Not Enough

The Art of Healthy Lifestyle
Walking is a popular form of exercise, but may not be enough to experience significant health benefits.

Generally, low-intensity activity such as walking alone is not likely going to give anybody marked health benefits compared to programs that occasionally elevate the intensity.

Researchers were concerned that while people with health issues are encouraged to increase their volume of activity such as walking, there didn't seem to be much focus on the effort that needed to go into the activity.

The University of Alberta study put the popularized pedometer-friendly 10,000-step exercise program to the test against a traditional fitness program which incorporated cardio-based activities on equipment such as treadmills and stationary bicycles. The traditional group was asked to complete exercise at a moderate intensity, a level allowing for one or two sentences of conversation with ease. Intensity was not set for the walking group; they completed their daily exercise at a self-selected pace.

When researcher matched the two programs for energy expenditure, they found that the traditional fitness program improved aerobic fitness and reduced systolic blood pressure, more than the 10,000-step lifestyle program. Of the 128 sedentary men and women who completed the six-month research program, those who took part in a more active traditional fitness regimen increased their peak oxygen uptake, an indicator of aerobic fitness, by 10 per cent. Those who took part in the walking program experienced a four per cent increase. Systolic blood pressure also dropped by 10 per cent for the traditional fitness group, compared to four per cent for the group who just walked.

Other markers of overall health, such as fasting plasma glucose levels, response to a two-hour glucose tolerance test and various blood lipids were unaffected by either exercise program.

Most concern is that people might think what matters most is the total number of daily steps accumulated, and not pay much attention to the pace or effort invested in taking those steps.

The 10,000-step or pedometer-based walking programs are great for people--they are motivating, and provide an excellent starting point for beginning an activity program, but to increase the effectiveness, one must add some intensity or "huff and puff" to their exercise. Across your day, while you are achieving those 10,000 steps, take 200 to 400 of them at a brisker pace.

People got to do more than light exercise and move towards the inclusion of regular moderate activity, and not shy to interject an occasional period of time at the vigorous level.
The Art of Healthy Lifestyles