Healthy Living
Being healthy means having a healthy heart and a body that functions properly. Healthy living means working to avoid high cholesterol, high blood pressure, being overweight, and smoking. These are some of the leading contributors to heart disease, chronic illness and disease etc. It is important to work towards having a healthy heart, especially since heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in America.
The good news is that high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and being overweight can be can be significantly reduced, and often times eliminated by making changes in our health habits. One of the biggest places to change is our diets, but there is more to it than that; other factors include reducing stress, getting enough rest, exercise and sunshine. However, changing our diets and getting more physical activity are two of the most important things we can to do improve our long-term health.
The bad news is that most of us won't take the necessary steps to improve our hearts and increase our health. Why? Well, it is very difficult to get ourselves to change our health habits. Most people are not ready to make changes in their lifestyle, so they either dismiss or avoid the information that points to this need for change because it feels too overwhelming to do. Or they jump in head first before becoming adequately prepared, and end up failing or getting discouraged.
With the ever increasing ease of getting unhealthy foods vs healthy, succeeding at changing to a healthier diet is becoming harder and harder. For healthy living, take the following steps:
1. Recognize that there is a problem. If you do not know what the problem is, you can't do anything about it. So, figure out why you aren't eating a more nutritious diet. Is it ease? Is it the taste? What is it?
2. Make a decision to change. Here we need to convince ourselves of the importance of making the change. If you do not realize how important change is, you won't have enough motivation to do it. So do your own research, and recognize the effects of your food choices.
3. Prepare. Having a good plan that addresses the obstacles of making the change is the only way to success. For example, decide now what you are going to do when you get a craving for sweets, or when you are in a hurry and your options are fast food, vending machine, or starve. If you make the decision now, before you are faced with the challenge, you are more likely to make the smart choice, like order a salad or hold the mayonnaise, than an emotional one, like getting a double bacon cheeseburger, large fry, milkshake, and large caffeinated soda.
4. Take action. This means implementing your plan, whether that is having healthy snacks on hand, eliminating processed and refined foods, or simply supplementing the gaps in your nutrition in your diet.
5. Maintain the changes you have made. It may take a few years before your changes become automatic and a normal part of your life, but taking small steps and working at not just starting change, but maintaining it, is crucial.
For a healthy body and heart it is imperative that you load up on nutrient rich foods rather than caloric rich. The problem with the modern Western diet is that caloric intake is the main focus rather than the nutrient density of the foods we choose. The foods with the highest nutrient density are the leafy green plants. Such plants provide our bodies with more of the vitamins and minerals needed than do any other food type. One of the best of this group is the leaves, and other components of the Moringa oleifera tree. It is rich in many vitamins including vitamin A, B, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D, E, Folate, Biotin, and more. It also contains the much needed minerals Calcium and Iron, as well as Chloride, Chromium, Copper, Flourine, Potassium, and others to name a few. This plant has all 8 essential amino acids, and many others. By way of nutrient density, and bioavailability of said nutrients, it is one of the best plants you can implement into your daily diet. For a convenient easy way to utilize this plant in your daily life, without having to alter your entire lifestyle, try Zija, the all natural health beverage made from the nutrient rich Moringa tree.
