Keeping your body healthy is crucial when it comes to living a long and happy life. Although it may not sound like a lot of fun as most people will automatically assume that you’ll have to miss out on good (if not healthy) things in order to stay as fit as possible, that’s not necessarily the case. Yes, it’s true that you will have to give up some things, but not everything – you can certainly still have a very enjoyable life while you’re being healthy too.
The problem is that only a small number of people really understand what it means to be healthy and what it takes to stay healthy. Studies have shown that in America, only around twelve percent of adults have good metabolic health, meaning they have just the right levels of triglycerides, blood pressure, blood sugar, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL), as well as having the ideal waist circumference, and they have all of this without any medication.
If you want to get closer to perfect metabolic health, it will take some work, but there are some easy ways to get started. Read on to find out what they are.
Diet
Of course, one of the most important elements when it comes to health has to be diet. No matter what else you do, if you eat a lot of food that is bad for you and not enough food that is good for you, you’re sure to be unhealthy. Interestingly, what you eat will have an effect on every part of your body, and that includes your brain. That means that when you eat a nutrient-poor diet, your weight and organs will be negatively affected, but so will your mood and even your entire mental state. As you can see, it’s hugely important to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet if you want to feel good – the additional benefit of looking good is almost secondary to this.
The best thing to do is to eat a ‘clean diet’. When you do this, you will cut out any unnecessary sugar, fat, and processed foods, and instead, you’ll eat more whole foods and raw vegetables and fruit. Your body will start to regenerate and rejuvenate, ensuring that you feel wonderful and that you reap the rewards when it comes to your weight and organ health too.
Of course, you don’t have to give up every single terrible food item that you enjoy. However, if you currently eat a lot of processed foods or greasy take-outs, or if there are hardly any vegetables in your diet, or perhaps you drink a lot of sugary soda or alcohol, then this should become a rare treat rather than the norm. This will be hard to do, as these foods taste great and make you feel good when you’re eating them – they are literally addictive. However, if you can break away from them and enjoy them in moderation when you realize how much good you’re doing to your body and mind, you’ll be more inclined to keep going.
Exercise
Something that goes hand in hand with a good diet is regular exercise. If you are eating well, this is a great start and perhaps the most important element of becoming healthier, but unless you exercise, the results will be slow in coming, and you might feel as though you aren’t getting anywhere, which can lead to falling back into old, bad habits.
Regular exercise means at least ten minutes (and ideally 30 minutes) of exercise a day, and that’s exercise that raises your heart rate and makes you sweat – when this happens, you know you’re doing a good job. The exercise itself can be anything at all, from a brisk walk around your neighborhood to a full-on workout at the gym. You can follow exercise videos at home if you are short on time, or join a fitness class where you can see other people and make friends.
There are so many different forms of exercise, and no matter what fitness level you’re at or what you like to do, you’re sure to find something that fits you and your lifestyle. It might seem like a chore to add exercising to your daily to-do list, but when you exercise, hormones are released into the body that make you feel great, so you will be happy to do it after a while.
Mental Health
Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, and there are some crucial things you need to do if you want to maintain it. One of the most important things you can do is to avoid stress as much as possible and to reduce your stress when you are feeling it. This can be done via any number of means, such as relaxing with a book in front of a stonewoods.co.uk fireplace, going for a walk, seeing friends, or using essential oils – and these are just a few examples. If the stress is still weighing you down once you try these things, you’ll need to seek out a doctor’s care and professional advice.
When your mental health is suffering, you will have trouble sleeping, and you’ll potentially develop heart problems, you’ll have high blood pressure, and much more. The mind and the body are completely linked, so when one is unhealthy, the other is sure to be as well.
Avoid Substances
Just as you need to avoid certain types of food and drink, you also need to avoid other kinds of substances if you want to stay healthy for longer. These include tobacco, drugs, and alcohol.
Although alcohol in moderation is technically not ‘as bad’ as the other items, which should not be used at all, it’s actually just better if you can eliminate your intake of all of these things as much as possible.
When you put any additional substance into your body, it’s going to affect it in some way. This is the case with food, and the same is true for anything, whether you inject it, drink it, smoke it, or anything else. You’ll find that many of these substances can cause serious diseases, and they will often make you look a lot older than you are, for example, which is unlikely to be something that anyone is particularly keen to have happen.