Healthy food, nutrition, and living well go hand in hand. The food and activity choices you make today affect your health and how you feel today, tomorrow, and in the future. Most diseases today are the result of highly processed food replacing the vital nutrients our basic diets comprised in the past. Heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes, chronic fatigue, anemias, all have a basis in diet. By making good, healthful choices in what we put into our bodies the risk of these illnesses decreases. Adding an activity to include exercise in our more sedentary lifestyles further decreases those risks.

Yes, we have all heard that diet and exercise are necessary for health, but how many actually practice that advice? Most people want to change their old habits, but don't know how. In this natural health article, you will find an easy, simplified method for changing how you look at diet and exercise.

One of the most difficult habits to break is the unhealthy, quick fix approach to food. For example: After a breakfast consisting of coffee, you go to work. After about an hour, your stomach begins to remind you that there is nothing in it for energy and you get another cup of coffee and a dough nut. The caffeine and sugar gives you a brief lift, but as noon draws near, your blood sugar has reached an all-time low, and your body is now demanding you eat. You grab a hamburger and fries with a soft drink at lunch. Around three, you suddenly get sleepy, lethargic, and get another cup of coffee or a soft drink. By the time you get home, you have a headache, are bone-tired, have no desire to cook something healthy for dinner, so you opt for a frozen entree and another soft drink. Later you snack on potato chips while watching television.

Sound familiar? One precious point that most people do not realize: you are the keeper of your body. If you treat it badly, it will eventually break down somewhere. When you are twenty, worrying about extra pounds or high cholesterol, or any excess strain on your body seems trivial - until you turn thirty or forty. Suddenly all those unhealthy choices come back with a vengeance. No one deliberately makes the choice to have a heart attack, or stroke, or any of our modern day ills. But, we do make the choice to respect our bodies. Every time you choose to eat unhealthy, your body suffers, and those choices will come back to haunt you. So, what's the answer?

1. Look at food as life, not something that "tastes good" and fills the void. Natural, basic, healthy food is the fuel that sustains the natural, basic, healthy body.

2. Save money and buy basic, natural food (or better yet, growing your own food), it is far cheaper, healthier, and body-satisfying than fast-food and "quick prepare" foods. "Quick prepare" means anything that contains more than 4-5 ingredients, comes in a package or can, and is far from the basic, original food.

3. Never go to the grocery store hungry. You are far more likely to buy junk food, or quick prepare.

4. Go to the produce section first! Buy fruits and vegetables that come from local farmers whenever possible. Next, buy breakfast cereal that is closest to the whole grain. Oats, wheat, and combinations like Granola-type cereals have the most nutrition. Besides fruit and vegetables, other good snacks are Granola bars, a healthy alternative to that dough nut, or whole wheat crackers, a perfect substitute for potato chips.

5. Re-invent the sack lunch! Take time to nourish your body by preparing/cooking basic foods. See our Healthy Recipes for help here.

6. Shut off the television and get up and exercise for at least 30 minutes per day. Our Outdoor Activities pages have many helpful suggestions.

Follow those simple steps, choose Natural Health, and break unhealthy food habits. Besides being healthier and stronger today, with more energy, your body will be healthier in the future, less likely to develop serious illnesses, and you will live longer.

DO eat healthy fats. One of the best healthy fats is Olive Oil. Olive oil is proven to improve circulation, which will protect your heart. Studies have shown that Extra Virgin Olive Oil actually reduces the amount of anti hypertensive medication used to treat high blood pressure. In other words, it helps lower blood pressure. Olive Oil has antioxidant properties that destroy free radicals, which can protect the body from cancer. Combine Olive Oil and Tomatoes, and you double your healthy lycopene intake plus increase the antioxidant activity in the blood.

DO eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. According to the CDC, fruits and vegetables contain essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber that help protect you from chronic diseases, and are critical to promoting good health. They also provide energy and the nutrients your body need to keep going during a busy day. Eat that rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day and your body will reap the reward of health!

DO include fiber rich foods! Fruits, vegetables and grains contain fiber. Fiber reduces cholesterol, which keeps your heart and arteries disease free, keeps your colon healthy and reduces the risk of colon cancer, helps you lose weight, and may have a role in preventing prostate cancer. Many chronic diseases benefit from a high fiber diet, diabetes, for example.

DO read the ingredient list of prepared foods. There should be no more than 4-5 total ingredients, and the primary ingredient, for example Oats, should be the first ingredient listed. Labels show ingredients by amount, the highest amount of something first, then the next highest, and so on. If Oats is third on the list, then it isn't the primary ingredient, and you are not getting what you want.

DO exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day. An important finding: Match your personality to the type of exercise. Exercise has to be fun, FOR YOU, not because someone said they enjoy it. Walking is probably the most simple and beneficial exercise there is, and it is available to nearly everyone. If you are a "social" person, walk with a partner or group, if you are less "people" oriented, go by yourself, or walk the dog (if you don't own a dog, offer to walk your neighbor's dog!). Other exercises for "social types" are:Team sports, baseball, football, soccer, etc.; Multi-person activities, tennis, golf, martial arts, dancing, group workouts, etc."Less social" types enjoy: Bicycling, Tai Chi, Yoga, swimming, skiing, etc.Whatever "floats your boat", do what you enjoy, make it FUN.

Again, the CDC sites that diet and exercise have a primary role in the prevention of chronic diseases. We, as keepers of our bodies, should always look at that wonderful machine we have and only put what is pure, natural and basic into that machine to keep it working at its fullest potential. By doing so, our health is assured and a long, productive, enjoyable life.

See Healthy Living Tips for more information on how food affects health and disease.