Eating Fruits and Vegetables for a Healthier Life

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away Eating Healthy and exercise are essential to the health and well-being of all people. A healthy diet along with exercise can help you live longer, feel better about better food choices; provide you with more energy, help you stay at a healthy weight, and help you fight stress. Do you want to live longer and be healthier? Then make that first step and maximize the benefits from being active and eating healthier. It is important to make sure and eat fruits and vegetables daily, at least 5 servings.

The best way to be healthier is to incorporate into your daily routine eating fresh fruits and vegetables such as: apples, bananas, strawberries, pineapple, blueberries, grapes, carrots, potatoes, peas, and broccoli. This list can go on and on and you will find there are plenty of fruit and vegetables that you will enjoy. “Vegetables and fruits are clearly an important part of a good diet. Almost everyone can benefit from eating more of them, but variety is as important as quantity. No single fruit or vegetable provides all of the nutrients you need to be healthy.

The key lies in the variety of different vegetables and fruits that you eat” (Willet, 2007, Harvard School of Public Health). Doctors and nutritionists highly promote fruits and vegetables because they offer many benefits to being healthy. They are excellent sources of essential nutrients, such as vitamins and anti-oxidants. People who eat diets rich in fruits and vegetables have a decreased risk of several chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. As the saying goes, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away. A healthy eating plan will protect against many health problems and improve the way our body functions. Annabel Bentley, BUPA assistant medical director, has this advice: “As one of the leading independent health and care providers in the country, BUPA is pleased to support this campaign. A balanced diet is one of the best ways to maintain good health and help prevent the onset of some serious diseases. Eating well need not be expensive or complicated and this new campaign is geared to leading people towards the right things to eat. ” Eating healthy can help in living a longer and healthier life.

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It can also strengthen your immune system, which can help in fewer sicknesses. The benefits from eating healthy go on and on and will improve your lifestyle dramatically. Proper eating can even help some have healthy lush looking hair, skin and nails and everyone wants to have beautiful skin, hair and nails. Eating healthy can help in feeling better within oneself. A healthy diet along with exercise will provide the body with more energy and make you feel better about yourself and can help fight stress and depression. Eating unhealthy can cause many health problems.

Besides obesity and diabetes, there is high blood pressure, heart problems, breathing difficulty, anemia, and joint problems all due to extra weight. Healthy eating can help protect people from cancer, heart attacks, diabetes and problems with blood pressure. Blood pressure is the force that pushes the blood from the heart through the arteries in the body. High blood pressure becomes dangerous because is makes the heart work too hard. Even when the pressure is only slightly raised for a long period of time it can damage arteries and cause organ damage.

I personally have high blood pressure and the doctors are constantly advising me to eat better, exercise and lose weight and when I apply their council my blood pressure does improve dramatically. ” High blood pressure is a primary risk factor for heart disease and stroke. As such, it is a condition that is important to control. Diet can be a very effective tool for lowering blood pressure. One of the most convincing associations between diet and blood pressure was found in the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) study.

This trial examined the effect on blood pressure of a diet that was rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products and that restricted the amount of saturated and total fat. The researchers found that people with high blood pressure who followed this diet reduced their systolic blood pressure (the upper number of a blood pressure reading) by about 11 mm Hg and their diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) by almost 6 mm Hg—as much as medications can achieve” (Appel, Moore, Obarzanek,1997, clinical trial).

By making sure to eat a balanced diet then the occasional fatty food or takeaway will not hurt, but it will become a problem if you eat fatty foods everyday. It can be easy to fall into the trap of eating takeaway food every night because most people have busy hectic lives and find that they do not have the time or energy to cook something healthy. “Junk food has become a pillar in modern society. It offers a quick fill, fast service, or you can bring it home to watch a movie with. From chips, pop, ice cream it goes on and on.

There is no nutritional value in any of it. Even the canned produce should be considered junk food. Preservatives are jamming the tops of these containers of fruits in order for them to remain edible for months and months” (Healthy Eating, 2008, Health benefits of food). While it would be nice to take a pill and wake up 15 lbs lighter, the truth is that weight loss takes time and effort as well as a commitment to eating healthy everyday. The best way to begin to reduce the amount of weight people put on would be to reduce any un-necessary fat intake.

Fat intake can be difficult to manage because fat makes food taste so much better. It is so tempting to grab a donut or candy bar when craving a snack, but it can be just as easy to grab an apple or a bag of carrots and your body and your health will reap better benefits from it. “Most people who work at eating better know that the salad bar can be a terrific way to eat out, eat great food and have a healthy meal. There are a few items that can tip the scales as far as fat and calories are concerned, especially if you are trying to watch your weight.

A major offender is salad dressings. ” Doctor Gourmet, (2008). Weight is such a sensitive subject for many people, young and old , which is why it+ does need to be addressed, because people today especially children are becoming obese at alarming rates. Many people think that it is just too difficult to eat healthy, or they do not know what to eat. “What you should eat is actually pretty simple. But you would not know that from news reports on diet studies, whose sole purpose seems to be to confuse people on a daily basis.

When it comes down to it, though—when all the evidence is looked at together—the best advice on what to eat is relatively straightforward: Eat a plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; choose healthy fats, like olive and canola oil; and red meat and unhealthy fats, like saturated and trans fats, sparingly. Most important of all is keeping calories in check, so you can avoid weight gain, which makes exercise a key partner to a healthy diet” (Willet, 2007, Harvard School of Public Health) As for keeping the weight off, avoid the elevator and take the stairs.

If you take the stairs regularly, you will burn more calories. As you do it more often, you will learn that you have more energy. In order to be healthy, we need to learn what it means to eat healthy and to live healthy. The first step is making sure to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis and avoid unnecessary fats in our diet. The best way to avoid fats is by not eating fast food or junk food on a regular basis. Exercise needs to be a top riority in our lives to keep stress away and to feel energized, even if it is as simple as a walk in the park. When it comes to diet and exercise, you have to ask yourself a very important question. How much do you care about yourself? It is up to all of us to make a commitment to set aside a little time each day for exercise. As far as eating healthy is concerned, just focus on each individual day. Do not go to the extreme, because this is setting you up for failure. Just make small changes throughout the day.

At night, simply walk away from that huge slice of chocolate cake. It is all up to you to live a healthy lifestyle. Discipline, control and focus can be hard to maintain when it comes to eating healthy and exercising regularly. It can be hard, especially in the beginning, but it is essential that you be consistent. By being consistent it will get easier and easier to make necessary lifestyle changes. By making these positive lifestyle changes in your life it will go a long way in living a long healthy life for years to come.

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