Your weight, your blood pressure and your body mass index are good indications of your overall health.
Yet, it goes further than this. You should understand how well your body is working, too. Do you have any physical limitations? If you physically can’t lift things for fear of hurting your back, this would be a potential problem to be considered.
If you have problems with your legs, your neck, your arms or anything else, you should address these specific concerns. The best place to start is to work with your doctor to determine why you aren’t physically fit in those areas. That way, you can improve your overall health and then improve your particular situation with informed help.
Food plays a significant role on your health. Foods are the fuel that your body requires to do a good job at the tasks that you ask it. In our example of your body as a machine, look at the way food works. The food you consume is the fuel that your machine needs.
If you don’t give it quality food, it won’t perform the right way. Have you ever gone to put gas into your car and gotten to a really bad gas station where the fuel wasn’t up to standard? It slows your car down. You don’t get the gas mileage that you are used to and you may even need to perform maintenance on your car to repair it. It would be even worse if you used kerosene instead of gas. Or if you forgot to change the oil.
In your body, healthy food is just as important. If you consume the wrong foods all of the time, your body will not be able to perform as well as if you gave it the highest quality foods. It will break down.
Without good nutrition, your body can become ill faster and perhaps not recover.
Your body does not heal as quickly from injury. And you cannot buy a new one.
Your blood pressure rises, your heart rate increases to unhealthy levels.
You are more prone to limitations physically as well as mentally.
All sorts of problems arise from not eating a healthy diet. But, what is healthy and why is it healthy?
Vegetables are among the highest nutrient rich foods out there. They provide high levels of antioxidants that helps to heal your body, improve your physical fitness, and they are very low in calories, meaning you can eat more.
Fruits are sweet so they can solve sweet tooth hungers. They also provide you with antioxidants and all types of nutrients that give your body the fuel it needs.
Whole grains are also an important part of a healthy diet. Unlike “white” foods, whole grains give you much more nutrition. They don’t cause weight gain like “white” foods. Making simple changes from bread to pasta to potatoes allows you to get the tastes that you love but without the added calories, fats, and sugars that cause health issues.
Water intake is important. If you do not get enough fluid, you end up retaining more water, rather than less. Your body goes into dehydration mode, causing you to keep in all that you can. Consuming enough water means your system is hydrated, you’re eating les,s and that means you aren’t getting as many calories from other liquids.
Meats are important parts of the diet, too. You need protein but you don’t want to get it from fatty meats. Improving your diet to include only lean meat will allow you to cut down on the intake of cholesterol which will ultimately clog your heart, minimizing blood flow to your body.
If you don’t do anything else, improving these five areas is all you need to do. The good news is that you don’t need a lot of work to make serious improvement.