Add 11 Years to Your Life

We’ve known since the ‘80s that the following seven healthy habits could add 7 to 11 years to your life:

• Regular physical activity
• Adequate sleep
• A nutritious breakfast
• Regular meals
• Weight control
• Abstinence from smoking and drugs
• Moderate use of (or abstinence from) alcohol

Don’t believe me? See for yourself

It seems as though everyone should be jumping on the fitness (life extension) bandwagon – yet, our country has never seen so many deaths caused by obesity and poor health.  How is this possible?

While we have been bombarded with information about health and fitness, it also seems as though we live in a world full of competing messages – and all of it is aimed at us.  While you are viewing a documentary on health and fitness or “big food” on your television screen, you will also be attacked by television commercials featuring sugary desserts that “just melt” in your mouth.  How about reading those great health magazines that give you wonderful ideas and health and fitness and then advertise unhealthy and, at times, dangerous food products that are not even FDA approved.

Unfortunately for us, manufacturers spend millions each year on analyzing us – our thought patterns or natural tendencies and our seemingly natural love of all things “junk food”.  They then turn these findings into weapons against us.  The diet industry is not much better – forever harping on our weaker points, while trying to make money off of the misery.

We live in a world of contradictions and the onus is on us to sort through all the “crap” and all the “true” information that comes our way and to somehow filter it to get to the true meaning of the words health and fitness. Granted, this definition might vary slightly from one person to the next, but there are some core realities about health and fitness.

The first one is that nothing healthy comes out of eating fast food and junk food.  While it might taste good, it will only taste that way for a few seconds, and then you are stuck with the reality and the fact that you just ate enough calories and fat grams to last you for days – not to mention all the salt and sugar you have ingested.  This is NOT healthy.

The second one is that as we continue in our sedentary worlds, we are getting more and more overweight and so are our children.  Obesity is a precondition for many of the preventable causes of death in the developed world.  And inactivity is a major underlying contributor to obesity.  It is time to turn off the television and the computer and start moving that body – remember that your kids follow your lead – and their kids will follow theirs.

Finally, health and fitness is about feeling good, strong and lean.  You know it, now go live it.