What are some easy tips to help improve one’s health?

The key to a permanently lean physique is making lifestyle changes involving sound nutrition and regular exercise. Forget about those metabolic boosters or fat burners, or those celebrity diets, and anything from late-night infomercials. The following tips can help you to begin a healthier lifestyle.

• Exercise whenever possible. There’s boundless simple ways to burn extra calories each day: walk up the stairs or take the long way to where you’re going, walk the dog, do yard work, ride a bike. The possibilities are endless. The key is getting out and moving around and break a sweat.
• If you’re hungry, eat. Wherever, whenever, especially early in the day. Too many times, people put off breakfast and even lunch. This will only lead to bingeing, when there won’t be extra time to burn off excess calories.
• Learn to differentiate between hunger and craving. “Am I really hungry?” Especially late at night, a trip to McDonald’s or the fridge may eliminate short-term needs, but it won’t be helping your waistline. Drink a couple glasses of water first. If you’re still hungry 10 minutes later, eat a fruit or vegetable.
• Limit fat intake to less than 20% of total calories. This can be done by looking at the food label in the grocery store before you buy it. View the fat percentage based on calories, not the weight of the product. Beware of all products containing hydrogenated oils, butter/margarine, lard, cream, etc.
• Avoid large, gut-stuffing meals. Consume 5-6 small meals each day, starting within an hour of waking up.
• Eat balanced meals. Avoid eating too much from 1 food group.
• Stay away from fried food. Almost anything can be replaced with a great tasting, healthy non-fried option. Fried foods are especially high in saturated fats and sodium, and many other unhealthy additives.
• Stock your home, briefcase and office with compact and convenient minimeals. Water-packed tuna, hard-boiled eggs, fruits, raw veggies, nutritional bars.
• Guzzle water like a racehorse all day long. Water has many, many benefits. Healthy looking skin, reduced feelings of hunger, and so on. Don’t drink enough and your body will begin to retain it by going into survival mode. Drink enough and your body will get rid of the excess.
• Chew food thoroughly. The slower you eat, the sooner you’ll feel full.
• Avoid alcohol, which is loaded with empty calories. That is, unless you like beer guts.
• Combine weight training (3/wk @ 45 min ea session) with 30-45 minutes of daily aerobic exercise. Nothing burns fat faster than aerobic activities (walking, jogging, running, biking, hiking, swimming. Weight lifting is essential because it adds lean muscle mass, which burns more calories than fatty tissue.
• Do aerobic activities first thing in the morning, before breakfast. The body’s initial energy source is carbohydrates in the form of glycogen, followed by fat, then protein. After at least 6 hours of sleep, your body has burned most of the glycogen stores, leaving fat as the primary fuel. However, if you train too hard you risk dipping into the protein bank.
• Monitor your heart rate during aerobic activities. Determine your maximum heart rate (220 - your age). Then determine your target heart rate, being 65%-75% of your max heart rate. This is the area of optimal fat-burning efficiency. While exercising, take your pulse for 10 seconds and multiply by 6.
• Understand the law of thermodynamics. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed”. The ONLY way to burn fat is by burning more calories than what you have consumed.

As with before beginning any regular exercise, visit your doctor for a check-up.

Contributed by Darren Liebman and Mike Eddington