HEALTHY EATING AND LIFESTYLE BENEFITS

Table of Contents

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WHAT IS HEALTHY EATING?

Healthy eating means eating the wide variety of foods from each of the 6 major food group types of foods that give you the nutrients you need to maintain your health, feel good, and have energy. These nutrients include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, vitamins, and minerals.

This can help reduce the risk of disease – as well as keeping your diet interesting with different flavors and textures.

WHAT IS HEALTHY LIVING?

Healthy Living is the steps, actions and strategies one puts in place to achieve a good health. It is about taking responsibility for your decisions and making smart health choices for today and for the future. A healthy lifestyle is a valuable resource for reducing the incidence and impact of health problems, for recovery, for coping with life stressors, and for improving quality of life.

Many health problems can be relieved from us by just having a healthy lifestyle in general.

Healthy living consists of:

Physical (for the body): Good Nutrition, Eating Right, Getting Physically Fit, Beneficial Exercise, Adequate Rest, Proper Stress Management

You also need to give and receive: Forgiveness, Love and Compassion, You need to laugh and experience Happiness, You Need Joyful Relationships with yourself and others.

Emotional wellness (for the mind): Self-Supportive Attitudes, Positive Thoughts and Viewpoints, Positive Self-Image

SPIRITUAL WELLNESS: Inner Calmness, Openness to Your Creativity, Trust in Your Inner Knowing.

Tips for healthy eating

i. Base your meals on higher fiber starchy carbohydrates

ii. Eat lots of fruit and veg

iii. Eat more fish, including a portion of oily fish

iv. Cut down on saturated fat and sugar

v. Get active and be a healthy weight

vi. Do not get thirsty

Benefits of Healthy Eating

1. Helps Lose Weight

Clean eating also gives natural nourishment and helps balance the hunger hormones (leptin and ghrelin), improves insulin sensitivity, and maintains normal thyroid function, which aids weight loss and helps you live a healthy life.

2. Helps Manage Diabetes

Unhealthy eating habits, obesity, insulin resistance, and genetic factors may lead to type 2 diabetes.

Changing your eating habits and lifestyle can certainly help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and related complications. Avoid consuming excess sugary by opting for gluten-free alternatives and junk foods and replace these with nutritious substitutes.

3. Improves Heart Health

Eating healthy by including plant-based food such as fresh green vegetables, fruits, fruit juices, seasonal ingredients and plant sources of protein in your diet, limiting the intake of red meat, and avoiding junk food, animal fat, and sugary foods helps reduce cholesterol and improve heart health.

4. Decreases Cancer Risk

An unhealthy lifestyle and genetic factors can cause the cells in your body to divide exponentially, leading to abnormal cell functions. Researchers have found that consuming organic edibles and unprocessed foods is the best way to keep cancer at bay. There are certain foods that have nutrients that may inhibit cancer progression. These include berries, watermelon, broccoli, cabbage, tomato, garlic, turmeric, ginger, and leafy greens.

5. Increases Immunity

A healthy immune system helps keep infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, and the common flu at bay. It aids faster recovery and healing. Consume foods that are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.

Eating healthy foods like blueberries, strawberries, oranges, grapefruit, other fruits rich in vitamin C, leafy greens, carrot, tomato, cheese, milk, fatty fish, herbs, and spices help improve your immunity.

6. Boosts Brain Health

Healthy eating boosts brain health and elevates your mood. Foods loaded with omega-3 fatty acids (olive oil, fatty fish, fish oil, nuts, and seeds) help maintain the cell membrane and normal brain function and facilitate synaptic plasticity.

7. Improves Digestion

Whole ingredients like vegetables. Fruits, whole grains, and functional foods like probiotics are essential for maintaining good gut health and improving digestion. Dietary fiber is found in fruits and vegetables. Humans cannot by themselves digest it, but the good gut bacteria ferments it, helping them live.

Dietary fiber also adds bulk to the stool and improves bowel movement, thereby reducing constipation.

8. Strengthens Teeth and Bones

Eating healthy also helps strengthen bones and teeth. Fish, milk, tofu, soy, leafy greens (except spinach), oranges, soaked beans, and nuts are a great source of calcium. You must also get morning sun or eat egg yolks, liver, and saltwater fish for your daily dose of vitamin D for the strengthening of your teeth and bones.

9. Delays Aging

Eating healthy foods has a direct impact on how fast you age. Fresh greens, fruits, lean protein, fatty fish, whole grains, green tea, herbs, and spices are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids that help flush out the harmful free oxygen radicals from the body. This, in turn, helps maintain the DNA structure and slow down the aging process.

10. Improves Skin Health

Unhealthy oily junk food leads to breakouts and acne. The key to getting healthy skin is drinking water, green tea, coconut water and eating fruits, vegetables, fatty fish, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.

You can switch regular water with infused water. Try sipping detox water infused with various fruits, lemon, and ginger. Consume foods loaded with vitamin A, C, D, and E and omega-3 fatty acids, and avoid trans–fats and sugary foods. Also, maintain good hygiene, and you will start seeing an improvement in your skin.

Benefits of healthy living

Making changes to improve your health can lead to benefits for your body, your mind, your wallet, and even the environment.

1. Prevents disease

Healthy habits can reduce the risk of various diseases, including those that may run in your family. In terms of exercise, as little as 11 minutes a day may add years to your life.

2. Saves money

It’s always smart to see your primary care physician for an annual physical exam. This is especially true seeing how some health conditions, such as high blood pressure, are “silent.” This means they don’t have any symptoms, so unless you are checked, you usually don’t know you have the condition.

However, the healthier you are, the less likely you will have to see a doctor. This could save money by reducing co-pays, the need for prescriptions, and other treatments.

3. Lengthens lifespan

Healthy habits promotes living a longer life. If, at age 50, you’ve never smoked, maintain a healthy weight, are regularly active, follow a healthy diet, and keep alcohol to a moderate consumption, you could live up to 14 years longer. Effecting this in our lives can lengthen and increase your lifespan.