11 Tips to a healthy lifestyle
Once the English actor and a former model had this to say; that, “Looking good and feeling good go hand in hand, if you have a healthy lifestyle, your diet and nutrition are fixed, and you are working out, you are going to feel good.”
Everyone wants to look good; women especially want to look attractive. It is assumed that a slender, leaner body, and a thinner waistline present that favorable figure everyone is admiring in town. It’s about looking good and feeling good; all this comes with good health. Nutritionists hold to the view that over eighty percent of weight control and cutting weight is achieved through proper dieting. The rest is done through exercise.
No one wants to have that big belly or the over-grown waist. Here are suggestions on how to live a healthy lifestyle.
1. Drink a lot of water
Water is essential to the functioning of the body. In fact, 60% of the body is made of water. It is responsible for removing waste, carrying nutrients, and oxygen around the body. Thus, a lot of water is lost, and therefore, there is a need for constant replenishment. Drinking lots of clean water will ensure the proper functioning of the body organs and hence less complication.
Water is also known for cutting weight. Taking a lot of water before meals make the stomach full, thus reducing the intake of portions. Here the body utilizes maximally what is stored in the body as fats, making you live a better healthy lifestyle.
2. Getting enough sleep
According to research those who don’t sleep/rest well will compensate by taking more food. They have a craving for junk most of which is sugary and rich in starch. Ensure always that you have enough sleep. That will make your body healthy and will even make you active and live a healthy lifestyle.
3. Enjoy A Healthy Style life
Pick things/ events that you feel good doing. Is it going swimming, playing the guitar or playing baseball? Make sure you do it regularly; it will help you in staying positive and taking good care of you. Remember the more positive you are in life, the more adaptable; when you do what you enjoy, life is fun for you and worth living.
4. Eat fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are rich in essential vitamins and fibers. Vitamins are responsible for ensuring an improved immune system. Fibers are responsible for digestion and therefore taking enough ensures that there is no bloating.
5. Eating small portions
Eating small portions regularly will ensure that your metabolism is efficient hence less storage of food. Skipping meals will condition the body into storing fats for usage in times of starvation. That will lead to more weight. Eating small portions, on the other hand, ensures that the body takes in what is required and no excess. Overeating leads to the storage of the food in the form of fats. Therefore check to ensure that you take enough portions and regularly- this will condition the body on what to expect at any given time and thus no much storage.
6. Check on the kind of food you eat
A lot of what you take in the name of ‘energy giving food is out of a crash. It is likely that when you are exercising and reducing the food portions that you will crave for some of these foods. For example, chocolate or soda which give a quick boost to energy. Some of the sweeteners in these foods are hardly broken down hence increasing the weight.
7. Take time eating
Don’t rush while eating. The brain needs ample time to understand when the stomach is full. If food is consumed in a hurry, there is a likelihood that you will take more. Hence a lot will have to be stored, and this counter plays your effort to keep a healthy lifestyle. Your body needs a particular portion of food at any given time. That can only be achieved by taking time while eating.
8. Avoid Starch and sugary foods at all costs
The body needs a certain amount of energy-giving foods- sugar and starch. Almost every food that is consumed has some content of these and therefore taking sugary/starchy foods will lead to a high production of insulin which is associated with lifestyle diseases like diabetes and High blood pressure. Sugar and starchy foods are associated with less satisfaction, and therefore one craves for more. Therefore avoid these as much as possible.
9. Exercise
Exercising is very important for it cuts down weight by burning excess fat and building body muscles. Excess fat in your body is dangerous especially when it accumulates along the blood vessels wall making them thinner. This results in difficulties in pumping the blood hence increased blood pressure. With time, if not controlled, it might lead to stroke and ultimately death. It might be possible to control the accumulation of fats, but regular exercise will ensure that only the required remains in the body.
10. Take stock of your past
Understand the reasons that led to your eating behavior that resulted in your increased weight. For instance, it could be due to some hormonal changes that led to a craving for junk food or maybe out of depression; you may end up overeating. When you have realized the behavior behind, then you are better placed to manage in the future.
11. Reading
Reading boosts your imagination and creativity; where you cannot go physically, books take you there. You walk the imaginable path of the author, and that makes you see endless possibilities. This way, your stress levels go down, and you appreciate more of life. The challenge with many people is the inability to handle the realities of life due to limited understanding/exposure on how to handle. Books expose you and grow your creativity hence you will have an easy time handling even life-threatening issues. Grab that inspirational book.
Mark Twain, the former American writer, and a humorist sum it up for us. That, “The only way to keep your healthy lifestyle is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.” Shed the pounds, watch the calories and above all, choose your diet.
DOES COFFEE MAKE YOU LIVE LONGER?
Does coffee make you live longer? Is coffee good for your health? Studies to give a satisfactory, scientifically proven answers about the health benefits of coffee have been sparse. However, the energizing and revitalizing effects of this have been known for centuries. Legend has it that coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goatherd after he noticed how the berries from a coffee plant made his goats excited. There is another legend that attributes the discovery to a spiritual healer in ancient Yemen who, while being exiled to a desert cave, boiled these berries and was sustained for days. The legend goes on to say that when the ruler heard about the healer and his medicine, he welcomed him back in the country and made him a saint. Even though these accounts are just legends, they started the history of coffee on the right note, as a miracle drug or a beverage that has revitalizing effects.
Is Coffee Good For Your Health?
It does not require much expertise to assume that a healthy person has a higher chance of living longer. So, before we come to the conclusion about whether coffee makes you live longer or not, let us see the health benefits of coffee, and if it has such benefits, how much caffeine should you have a day to enjoy these benefits.
Health Benefits of Coffee
Coffee has nutritional contents
Is coffee good for your health? Coffee has a number of essential nutrients and micronutrients like Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5), Magnesium, Manganese, Potassium, and Niacin. Even though these components are found in a small proportion, a person who takes three to four cups a day may get a significant amount of these nutrients.
Coffee aids in burning fat
Is coffee good for your health? Coffee is one of the few beverages that have been proven by studies to aid in burning fat. Even though the capacity of coffee to increase the rate of fat burning is less in obese people, it is still very significant at 10 percent. On the same line is it proven that coffee also increases the metabolic rate by up to 11 percent. From these facts, we can easily assume the benefits coffee will have on our health, particularly in combating many serious health issues associated with obesity.
Coffee and cancer
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in its review in 2016 about coffee and the possibility of developing cancer, not only found no such association but also found evidence that coffee helps in reducing certain types of cancer occurrence
Coffee and Type II diabetes
The association between coffee and Type II diabetes is a well-researched subject in otherwise sparse evidence of conclusive studies, maybe because of the serious health problem affecting so many people worldwide. Is coffee good for your health? Studies have shown that coffee reduces the risk of developing this disease by 7 percent to as much as 50 percent.
Coffee and Alzheimer’s disease
Unfortunately for many, a cure for Alzheimer’s has not yet been discovered. But, luckily for the younger generation, several studies have suggested an easy way to prevent this disease. It has been shown that the risk of getting this disease is lower by up to 65 percent in coffee drinkers than in non-drinkers.
Coffee and liver diseases
Is coffee good for your health? Research has shown that coffee has protective effects on the liver and reduces the risk of various liver problems like cancer, cirrhosis, fibrosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases, and various other chronic liver diseases. It has also been proven in various Hepatitis C-related patients that coffee drinking lowers the rate of disease progression.
Coffee and cardiovascular health
Although coffee has been associated with increased blood pressure, the increase is minimal and in most cases temporary. Studies have shown that coffee is associated with reduced risk of strokes, especially in women, by as much as 20 percent.
On the other hand, coffee has also been shown to increase cholesterol levels; however, this is largely dependent on the method of preparation and amount of intake. Trials with moderate intake of coffee (3 – 5 cups a day) have shown that this has no effect on the cholesterol level, and it stated that caffeine alone is unlikely to be the cause of such coronary diseases.
Coffee contains antioxidants
Is coffee good for your health? Coffee has more than enough amount of antioxidants in it to keep a person healthy. In fact, it has been proven that a combination of fruits and vegetables don’t give as many antioxidants as coffee does to a moderate drinker on a normal Western diet.
Given these health benefits of coffee, it is not difficult to answer the question “Is coffee good for your health?”. But, what has been proven about the benefits of coffee on health is that like all other things, too much of it is bad. So, you must also know how much caffeine you should have a day. Most studies described above suggest moderate consumption of coffee since the excess amount of caffeine may reverse the benefits and even have undesirable effects on the health of a person. European Food Safety Authority, in its review of caffeine safety, defines moderate consumption of coffee as three to five cups a day.
Does Coffee Make You Live Longer?
From the various health benefits of coffee described above, it would not be wrong if we come to the conclusion that coffee is good for your health and therefore it makes you live longer. Because healthy people live longer than unhealthy ones. However, let’s look into a study that tries to answer this particular question and see if we can find conclusive evidence to support this potential conclusion.
In The Relationship of Coffee Consumption with Total and Disease-Specific Mortality: a Cohort Study, published in Ann Intern Med (2008), which was a study to research the association between coffee consumption and increased mortality, about 100,000 participants were studied. The study, instead of finding proof of increased mortality caused by coffee, found an inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality, after adjusting for other factors like cigarette smoking. Some of the healthiest participants were moderate coffee drinkers.
The results of studies we have described above show that the issues of whether coffee is good for your health, and how much caffeine you should take a day may be a lot easier to answer than whether coffee does make you live longer or not. To find a satisfactory answer, many people will have to take part in a study, one group having to take coffee every day while another group will have to abstain from the delicious beverage altogether for their whole lives. So, until that type of experiment can be conducted, we can conclude that yes, coffee has so many health benefits and if you carefully control how much caffeine you take in a day, coffee does make you live longer.
