A healthy lifestyle is not a New Year’s resolution, it’s a discipline

A healthy lifestyle early on will decide what you will be like in your middle age and beyond. However, it won’t happen unless you make the right decisions. Exercise, eat healthy, sleep well and you will be on the road to success. After 40, most people have reached biological adulthood, which is a nicer way of saying they’ve jumped on the slow train to their inevitable mortality. You will begin to notice the slow and gradual decline in your response to bodily activities and the resulting resistance in your bodily functions.

Eating unhealthy processed foods, an irregular sleep pattern, and inactivity create a low-level inflammatory response in your body. This inflammation gradually increases over time, directly contributing to the germination of all the major diseases plaguing humanity: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease, just to name a few.

The first and foremost thing to focus on is nutrition: what you eat. Add plenty of leafy green vegetables, whole grains, organic poultry, dairy, and fruit to your daily diet. Keep your body hydrated. Drink plenty of water and raw fruit juice, as fluids help keep your body temperature down and eliminate toxins through perspiration (sweat) and excretion (urine). Keep a balanced portion of carbohydrates, proteins, good fats and minerals. These small changes to your diet will contribute to your overall well-being. Reduce unhealthy fats from your diet slowly and aim to cut them out altogether. Unhealthy fats include: dark meat chicken, poultry skin, fatty cuts of pork, beef, and lamb, and high-fat dairy products include whole milk, butter, and cheese. Common ways to reduce unhealthy fats are listed below:

• Instead of frying the meat, bake it/grill it/grill it. Don’t forget to remove the skin before cooking chicken or turkey.
• Instead of butter and cheese on the bread, use low-fat spreads or tomato slices to enhance the flavor.
• Instead of scrambled eggs, eat boiled or soft-boiled eggs. Garnish with a pinch of salt and black pepper to taste.
• Instead of using sugar in cakes and desserts, use organic honey to satisfy its sweetness and stay healthy.

When it comes to a healthy lifestyle, the importance of sleep is worth discussing. Get enough sleep, because internal healing and tissue repair happen only when you sleep. Sleep deficiency contributes to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, brain damage, etc. Lack of sleep lowers your body’s metabolic rate, which is linked to weight gain. Studies show that sleep-deprived people have higher levels of ghrelin, the hormone that stimulates appetite, and lower levels of leptin, the hormone that suppresses appetite. Therefore, those who sleep well tend to eat fewer calories.

Last but definitely not least is the importance of regular exercise when it comes to a healthy and active lifestyle. No matter what age group you fall into, it is advisable and prudent to include a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity/exercise, such as running, brisk walking on most, if not all, days of the week. As humans, we spend too much time in our synthetic environment, disconnected from the outside world. This disconnection poses a serious threat to our overall health and well-being. Think of your body as a complex machine, housing equally complex parts (bones) and subsystems (organs) inside. If you leave it idle, parts and subsystems will lose their ability to move and will eventually rust. Some tips for incorporating exercise into your daily routine:

• Prioritize physical activity
• make it fun
• get a partner
• Keep track of results
• set milestones

All these factors together will bring about a remarkable change in your lifestyle and well-being. Some changes will happen quickly, others will be gradual. But in general, you will feel the positive change in your health: mind, body and soul.

Cheers to a healthy lifestyle!