THE SECRET WAYS OF STAYING HEALTHY AND LIVING LONGER
Don’t you want to look younger, stay younger and live longer? The following healthy tips will help you enjoy and love your life more and more for years to come. Follow these tips and see that you will enjoy and love your life more and more in just a couple of weeks.
1. Don’t Skip Breakfast – Try to have your breakfast as soon as possible after waking up in the morning. An early start on eating makes your metabolism rev up throughout the day. Include fiber and protein like milk, egg and beans in your breakfast.
2. Do Away With “White Foods” – Avoid white flour, baked foods made with white flour, refined grains, white sugar, sugar-laden sodas, snacks and other processed foods as they are not only devoid of their natural fiber, but also lack in vitamins and minerals; instead eat fiber-rich vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes like whole wheat and beans.
3. Go For Colourful Diet – Bright and rich colourful vegetables and fruits are packed with flavonoids and carotenoids, powerful compounds that bind the damaging free radicals in your body, lowering inflammation. Red tomatoes contain lycopene that lowers risk of heart disease and cancer. Colourful, all vegetable salads provide good-for-you phytonutrients that are not available in greens.
4. Avoid Dangerous Trans Fats – Cutting down on consumption of overall fat intake is not enough. It is more critical to keep a watch on types of fat you eat. Avoid saturated fats, deep fried food, and anything made with hydrogenated oils (margarine, store bought pastries, cookies), as these contain Trans fats that raise your heart disease risk. Instead consume only healthful fat, like omega 3 oils, soy oil and cholesterol-free oils; these guard you against heart disease.
5. Natural Fat Burning Foods – Include in your diet on regular basis natural fat burning foods like hot pepper, ginger, mustard seeds, citrus fruits (particularly lemon) and apple cider vinegar.
6. Strive for Your Optimal Weight – A healthy weight not only makes you feel better, but cut down on your risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and other major killers.
7. Avoid Alcohol – It is better not to take alcohol at all, but if you must, then drink in moderation. While one or two drinks (standard size) may work beneficially for your body, excessive drinking is cause for both physical diseases and social disaster. And for some, even one drink is too much. A point to note is that approximately ten per cent of people who start drinking socially become alcoholics with time.
8. Exercise Regularly – This healthy habit not only lessens the risk of high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis, but is also beneficial in elevating your general mood and lowering the risk for depression.
9. Quit Smoking – Avoid smoking if you wish to stay young, healthy and live longer. Everyone knows smoking is bad for health. It is not only a cause for lung disease but also for lung cancer, COPD and colorectal cancer. They are not joking when they say, “Smokers are liable to die young”, after every cigarette advertisement.
10. Keep Your Blood Sugar in Check – Pre-diabetes is a condition on which blood sugar is elevated but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. But it’s as harmful as diabetes itself. So get your sugar level checked regularly and start taking care by doing exercise and having a high fiber, healthy diet to keep your blood sugar in safe range.
11. Right Amount of Sleep – Sleep for about seven hours a night. This helps you not only to live longer, but also lessens your stress, sharpens your memory, improves your immune system, and keeps important weight-loss hormones in balance (without it, ghrelin rises that makes you hungrier, and leptin is suppressed, so you are not satisfied by what you eat). Avoid working late night on your computer’s bright screen, as it stimulates your brain and your sleep remain disturbed for very long time after that. If you do not get enough time to sleep at night, consider having a short nap during the day.
12. Cholesterol And High Blood Pressure – Get your cholesterol and blood pressure regularly checked; high BP and bad cholesterol are “silent killers”. They silently damage the heart and arteries without showing any symptoms, until it is often too late. Men are at greater risk of a heart attack than women. To keep your heart healthy, go for heart healthy foods.
As you follow the above tips carefully, you will notice significant improvement in your health. As they become part of your daily practice, you will enjoy a vibrant healthy and long cheerful life.
