How to Live Longer With a Healthy Diet and Some Exercise

I guess we all want to know that magic formula to help us lose weight whenever we want. We would all love to discover that simple solution that would help us to live longer and much healthier lives. But unfortunately we all know that there just aren't any shortcuts to having good personal health.

If you really want to live longer then you must have a healthy diet and some exercise at least. It will not happen with trick diets or magic pills - that's for sure.

To be honest it is really not very surprising that we want to find quick shortcuts to good health and a better lifestyle. By eating a healthier diet and following a regular, but not strict, exercise routine can seem like hard work. And of course they both take time and effort to succeed. In today's society of quick fixes it seems that diet and exercise just do not do it quickly enough for most of us. So most personal health plans just fail.

However if you can manage to eat a good healthy diet and stick to your exercise program you will actually lose weight, improve your health and as a consequence you will feel better physically and mentally too. Really there is no great secret to having a healthier lifestyle. You just need to burn up more calories than you do now and eat less too. Basically it is a fairly simple formula to follow.

Your first step to living a longer life from diet and exercise is when you begin eating in a healthy way. For starters you must avoid all fast food restaurants however much you crave them. It is better to only eat out only occasionally as a very special treat. Try and cut out deserts as they usually mean you over eat. But instead focus on eating plenty of vegetables, fruit and aim for leaner meats.

Please understand though that dieting does not mean starving yourself. That is a recipe for trouble and potentially bad health!. Also it doesn't mean cutting out your favorite foods. If you're in love with pizza you do not have to forbid yourself from ever eating a slice of your favorite pizza ever again. Just be sensible and make sure you only eat pizza occasionally from now on.

Also do not be tempted to try one of the trendy diet plans that get advertised. If you are lucky you could lose weight using a plan like this, but what will happen after you leave that diet plan? The weight you lost inevitably comes back, often sooner rather than later. Be warned also that it is actually impossible to follow most of these diet plans for a very long time. So thick bout what you are doing and just try eating healthy as the first step as this is something you will then be able to do for the rest of your life.

But just eating a healthy diet on its own is not going to be enough to get you there. Don't kid yourself, because to really live a long and healthy life you must also exercise. Sorry, but this is the hard truth we hate to hear. Any type of physical activity will burn calories and most will strengthens muscles, improve your balance and help make your heart stronger. And if you are healthier then the stresses of daily life will start to disappear too.

Plan before you act! So, before defining your own personal health plan and exercise regime, first take a closer look at your own personal lifestyle. If you have not actually worked out regularly for a few years then make sure you start to exercise slowly. Don't do too much at first. A good personal health plan in this situation should be started by taking a long walk every evening to see how you get on. Or if you feel fitter then this you may cold start going for regular bicycle rides, every day or so.

As your stamina begins to build up and your endurance improves you will be able to increase the frequency and the intensity of your exercise workout sessions. You could try jogging instead of just walking. You could join a local gym and do circuits on their specialist machines. You could also buy some weights for use at home and incorporate them into your personal exercise program.

However this whole process of getting fitter and healthier does take time. But the good news is that if you can stick with it then you will build up your stamina and then you will start to see the results that you wanted so much. The same commitment will be rewarded if you make the effort to eat a healthy diet too. So before too long you should be seeing a much healthier person when you look in the mirror every day. And that will give you a much better chance of living longer!

So in order to do this right we need to think and make some decisions before starting out on our own personal health plans, but we should not ignore this important step. Exercise and diet are key, so learning how to eat a balanced diet is an essential component, but remember that without exercise it is unlikely to help you lose weight or give you a longer life.

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