How to Keep Yourself Healthy

Introduction

As we grow older, we realise the importance of maintaining good health and its impact on our overall lifestyle. We tend to look for more and more ways to develop a healthy lifestyle to not only prevent chronic and prolonged diseases, but also to feel good about ourselves. We feel obligated to do right by our body and to look after it.

To keep yourself healthy, you need to find a good balance between exercise and healthy diet. The key to leading a healthy lifestyle is not just one of those things, rather, it is a combination of the two. In order to crack the code and find what forms of exercise and what diet works best for us, we need to understand the processes and results involved.

In order to keep yourself healthy, you may incorporate exercise in your life in the form of cardio, weight, training, strength training, or stretching through yoga or Pilates. You need to maintain a well-balanced diet consisting of fruits and vegetables, whole grain foods, lean meats, and dairy. At the same time, you need to cut out saturated and trans fats, sugars, processed food, and alcohol and caffeine.

Exercise

Exercise is an absolute necessity in order to keep you in good health. The reason is that exercise improves your muscle strength, boosts your endurance, and improves your heart and lung health. All of these things contribute to a healthier mind and body.

Cardiovascular exercise (cardio) is any physical, endurance activity that increases your heart rate and respiration, thereby increasing the flow of blood and oxygen in your body. It can be any exercise, sport, or activity that gets your heart rate going.

The most popular cardio exercises are running and jogging. Other such activities include cycling, dancing, hiking, jump rope, football, and basketball. Swimming is the most intense cardio activity of them all.

1) Cardio

These exercises contribute majorly by improving your heart, lungs, metabolism, weight, sleep, and mental health.

2) Weight training

Weight training is another form of exercise and a great way of improving your overall physical health in order to look and feel better.

While most people believe its purpose is just vanity muscles, weight training is more than that. It has a number of other advantages such as strengthening of bones, improvement of energy levels, improving balance, and improving glucose tolerance thereby regulating sugar levels in the body.

The amount of weight you lift depends on your goals. One should go about it wisely and maintain balance and a slow pace.

3) Strength training

Strength training, also known as resistance training, is another popular form of exercise. It aims at building strength and endurance as well as muscle mass specifically in the form of structured workout over the course of months. It involves a combination of weight lifting and other endurance exercises. You do not really need a lot of equipment for this.

The good thing about strength training is that it not only builds strength, but also increases mobility and lowers the risk of injury and improves joint function. This makes it more beneficial for your health in addition to the other advantages of exercising.

4) Stretching

Stretching is a great way of improving your body health. It not only improves various bodily functions, but also improves flexibility and motion in joints as well as muscle flexibility.

It is a bit of a long-term process and requires dedication, as muscles do not become flexible overnight. Not only that, but it can be a form of warm up before more intense exercises such as cardio and strength training. It may, however, be the sole physical activity in the form of yoga and Pilates which involve stretching combined with other exercises, coupled with mindfulness.

Emsculpting Pro

Emsculpting Pro uses High Intensity Focused Electromagnetic (HIFEM) technology to help your muscles contract in a way not achievable through exercise or voluntary contractions. During normal voluntary muscle contractions, the muscle fibers relax between each nervous stimulus. Emsculpting Pro generates impulses at such a rapid frequency that it doesn’t allow such a relaxation phase.

Healthy diet

There is a direct relationship between our health and the food we consume. A healthy diet is not only necessary to sustain all bodily functions, but also to build a strong immunity, which keeps us safe from various diseases, and stronger bones and muscles.

A healthy diet does not mean leaving all foods that are considered harmful cold turkey and consuming only fruits and vegetables. It also does not mean consuming dangerously low number of calories in a day. A healthy diet means a balanced diet which gives your body all the nutrients and calories it needs to sustain. It means majorly consuming healthy foods and reducing intake of harmful ones.

What to incorporate in your diet?

Here are some foods to incorporate into your life to keep yourself healthy, which cover the food groups the food absolutely needs to function:

1) Fruits and vegetables

A healthy diet emphasises greatly on fruits and vegetables. You may include apples, bananas, pineapples, kiwis, or any other fruits in season as part of your breakfast or as a snack when you are hungry in between meals. Vegetables such as carrots and broccoli go great, steamed, grilled, or sautéed with little cooking spray with just about any meal.

2) Whole grain food

These include grain foods, such as wholegrain or high fiber cereal varieties. These are one of the major food groups necessary for sustenance.

3) Lean meats and poultry

Lean meats and poultry are a great source of protein and an absolute necessity in your diet. These include chicken, red meat, turkey, fish, etc.

4) Dairy

Dairy foods to incorporate into your diet include milk, yoghurt, and cheese. People trying to cut back on calories may consume these in reduced fat form. They must not, however, be entirely eliminated from your diet.

What to reduce in your diet

Here are some foods to reduce in your diet in order to keep your body healthy and to prevent various diseases brought on by poor diet:

1) Saturated and trans fats

These are the fats which are harmful for you as they increase your cholesterol. These include fried foods such as fried chicken, doughnuts, and French fries and baked goods such as cakes, biscuits, frozen pizza, etc.

2) Processed food

Most food are processed to some extent, and they are not all bad for you. Chemically processed foods, though, are harmful for your health. These include sugary drinks, baked goods, fast food, processed meats, ice cream and frozen desserts, etc.

3) Sugar

Consuming too much sugar can put you at risk for a number of heart related diseases. Sugary foods include carbonated drinks, sweetened juices, baked goods, etc.

4) Caffeine and alcohol

Another thing harmful to your health is too much caffeine and alcohol.

Final Thoughts:

A combination of exercise and food is the key to a healthy body and lifestyle. These can give you an ideal life, free of chronic diseases, and with lower levels of stress. Combined with good sleep, hydration, and meditation, you can achieve better physical and mental health, helping you lead a longer, happier life.