4 Things You Need to Know About Healthy Living

Healthy living is the best way to minimize the effects of infectious diseases, prevent or reverse lifestyle diseases, and stay active until the end of your life. I didn’t pay much attention to it until I started suffering back pain, arthritis pain, developed high cholesterol, and was pre-diabetic. Three years later, I’m glad I started working toward a healthy lifestyle, although there is still more I can do.

What Is Healthy Living?

Over the last three years, I have done a lot of research on what constitutes healthy living and have come to the following breakdown of practices. I’ll cover each of these in more detail in other articles.

• Clean eating
• Sleep
• Exercise
• Stress Management

Clean Eating

Clean Eating means cutting way back on processed foods.  A good rule of thumb for this principle is “if man made it, don’t eat it.” You don’t have to eliminate these treats, but if they constitute most of what you eat, they will cause problems. A diet rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains, healthy fats and proteins will go a long way to improving your health.  A diet rich in sugar, unhealthy fats, refined grains, and highly processed foods will put you on a path toward diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments. 

Sleep

Sleep is incredibly important for your health.  Our bodies need a chance to rejuvenate, and our brains need a chance to recharge. Lack of sleep depresses the immune system and has a long list of other negative health effects, both mental and physical.

Exercise

 I look at people my age (65) and older and see a lot of them shuffling along and stooped over.  Exercise is key to preventing that.  My best advice to younger people is to get in shape now and stay in shape. It’s a lot easier than trying to catch up when you get older.  Trust me, I know.  Check out this article on starting an exercise program you can stick with or this article on how to get back in shape if you hate to exercise.

Stress Management

Easier said than done, right?  But it’s worth the effort.  If we can’t find ways to drop our stress levels, it will have a profound negative effect on health. Deep breathing, yoga, meditation, getting out in nature, and vigorous exercise are some good ways to deal with stress.  I split my firewood by hand.  If I’m stressed, it only takes about 10 minutes of beating on logs with a splitting maul to dissolve the tension. 

Now that we’ve briefly covered what constitutes healthy living, here are four things you should know before you embark on your journey. 

1 – Focus on the Long Term

If you’re out of shape or dealing with lifestyle diseases, it took a while to get there.  If you want to reverse all that and have it stick, it will most likely take a while to achieve that. You don’t need to jump into exercising so fast and hard that you can’t move the next day, nor do you need to make immediate, radical changes to your diet. Instead, commit to making small changes and giving them time to become habits.  I cover more about how to do that in this post. Healthy living is for the rest of your life, not just a season in life.  As I started feeling better from making healthy changes, it became easier to add new habits.  Even when I get off track (it happens), it’s much easier to get back in the game.

2 – You Are Unique

The reason there are so many diets out there is that no diet is the “best” for everybody.  You not only have unique preferences and experiences, but your body responds to things in unique ways. Some people do better on a low-fat diet.  Others get their best results on a low-carb diet.  Some people can lose weight at the drop of a hat, while others struggle to shed every unwanted pound.  That’s why I like programs such as Real Plans that take your “uniqueness” into consideration.

A great benefit of focusing on the long-term is that you get to discover what is best for YOU.  You have to experiment on yourself, find your own pace, and choose your best diet and exercise program.   I still struggle to motivate myself to exercise, but it was easy for me to quickly make large-scale changes in my diet.  Some may struggle with both challenges, while others may have no problem with their motivation and discipline.

Be willing to experiment with ways of improving your diet, exercise, stress management techniques, etc. until you find the combination that works best for you.  Chances are, you will eventually want to change any program you start to follow.  It will be a never-ending process, so look for ways to find joy in the journey.

3 – Your Body is Amazing – It’s OK to Cheat (a little)

When I studied physiology in college and graduate school, I was astounded when I discovered how our bodies work.  Mind blown!  We are NOT machines, but incredibly complex organisms with built-in systems to protect us from much of the bad stuff in our environment.

The problem is that our protective mechanisms aren’t designed to deal with a constant onslaught of the bad stuff. If we consume a lot of sugar every day for years, it’s going to mess us up.  Smokers can eventually do so much damage that their bodies can’t recover. 

But the amazing mechanisms of our bodies allow us to eat a couple of donuts here and there with no adverse effects. When my daughter comes out to visit, I have several meals over the weekend that I would not normally eat, like pizza. But I know that’s OK.  My body can deal with it.  No harm.  No foul.  No guilt. I just don’t make a habit of it.  My goal is to stick with my diet 80-90% of the time and still treat myself to goodies like that candy bar I ate yesterday.

There are some circumstances where you don’t have much room to cheat such as following the Keto Diet. You must keep your carbs very low in order to achieve ketosis. But before you go to that extreme, just try cutting back on carbs. That may be all your body needs.

4 – Little Changes Add Up to Healthy Living

Making small changes in your health habits is easier for many of us, but they add up quicker than you may think. At first improvements may be imperceptible, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I was in awful physical condition at the age of 62. I twisted my back twice in 2 months just by turning the wrong way, I often needed a cane because my arthritic knees hurt too much, I was pre-diabetic, and my LDL cholesterol was high.  I started by making changes. 

• Cut carbs and increase healthy fat in my diet. Not a Keto diet. I just cut net carbs to around 100g/day
• Commit to one set of pushups per day
• Take targeted supplements for my arthritis (fish oil, turmeric, and a supplement with chondroitin) 

Within 2 months, I noticed a dramatic reduction in pain.  Six months later, when I got blood tests done, my levels were back in the normal range or close.  My LDL was still two points above “normal”.   

Since then, I have made other changes to my diet, although I still struggle to get enough veggies and drink enough water some days. I also added more exercises, but my typical workout still takes 20 minutes or less. 

Despite the fact that I haven’t made all the changes I should make for healthy living, I have made considerable progress and have avoided having to take medications.  Those little changes have added up to a dramatic improvement.

Check out some of the other articles at DoSomething4Health.com find out how you can start on your healthy living journey.

Now, go do something for YOUR health!