Living Healthy Really Is Within Your Reach

Life is tough, and to meet its demands we have to stay at our best.  We now know that there are four basic lifestyle choices that we must make in order to attain and maintain optimal health.  These are known as HLCs (Healthy Lifestyle Choices) and they are:

1. Not Smoking
2. Maintaining Healthy Body Mass
3. Adequate Exercise
4. Proper Nutrition

These choices seem simple at first glance, but implementation can at times be very difficult.  Not smoking, for example, is already very well publicized, but for the nicotine addict that one can be nearly impossible to handle.  We have learned that nicotine is as addictive as heroine, and that is why smoking cessation is such huge business.  Nonetheless, about 12 times as much money is spent on statins, a class of heart medications, than is spent on smoking cessation even though smoking cessation is 17 times more effective in treating and preventing heart disease, according to the World Health Organization.

That's just one example and the media is replete with information regarding that topic.  The remaining three HLCs are even more complex and over the next weeks I will embark on a series to help demystify the healthy lifestyle.  It really is easy to do with minor adjustments to your current lifestyle.  You will still be able to eat at restaurants, watch TV, play on the computer and have a real life! It comes down to the 7 Rs, as we will discussing in coming weeks.

So, come back next week as we learn how to eat a normal meal, like enchiladas or fried chicken, in our first installment

EAT RIGHT!