What is a Healthy Lifestyle and How Do You Get One?

Lifestyle is a word that is bandied about everywhere. In fact, it is beginning to lose its meaning because of it. We have lifestyle magazines, lifestyle houses, holidays, pets and clothes. According to one dictionary, lifestyle is ‘the way of life of a particular person or group’. Still pretty broad. Tells us what we knew already and doesn’t answer the question at all.

So let’s narrow it down even further. What is a healthy lifestyle and, more importantly, how do you get one?

Simply put, a healthy lifestyle is a way of life that lowers your personal disease risks as much as possible. We can never completely eradicate disease risk. We are born with some, our genes give us others and simply being alive puts us at risk. Take cancer for example. If you have a couple of first degree relatives like mothers or sisters who have died from breast cancer, you may have the gene yourself and should seek medical advice on how to manage your risk.

Other risks are more straightforward and this is where the magic word, lifestyle comes in. You are very much in control because you make the choices. Lifestyle really means how you choose to live your life. You can make bad choices like sun bathing for hours covered in oil or you can make good choices like being sun smart. You get to decide.

We’ll stay with cancer for the minute. While some risks are hard to control, others are literally dead easy. Take smoking for example. Or obesity. Here are two lifestyle choices that can really influence your personal disease risk. By choosing not to smoke or live in a smoky environment, you lower your risk of cancer. By choosing to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, you lower your risk as well.

So how do you go about having a healthy lifestyle? Number one is to make small changes but make them last. There is no point to cleaning up your act totally and having it last a week. That’s what New Year’s resolutions are for! You have to make changes that you know you can keep up for your whole life.

Giving up smoking would be a good place to start. This is a biggie though and you may need help. Talk to your doctor, buy a self help book or have a look online. http://www.outsmartcigarettes.com.au/ is one of many options for would be quitters. And did you know that even after 48 hours your disease risk starts to fall!

Don’t diet if you are overweight is another important point. Confusing? Let me explain this one a bit more. A diet is something that you ‘go on’ for about a week or so and then abandon altogether to go back to bad old habits and regain all the weight that you lost plus some more. This is a vicious cycle and it is not going to achieve anything at all.

No, the way to lose weight permanently is to change your lifestyle.

If you are a chocoholic, try to downsize your portions. If you are a takeaway fiend, wean yourself off gently. Don’t go cold turkey if you have been living on takeaway for thirty years. Begin by dropping one meal a week and replacing it with something healthier and preferably home cooked.

Can’t boil an egg? Never fear! There are courses that can turn you into an ace cook offered all over the world. Try your local adult education centre or grab a DVD. Have a look online too. There are some great resources, easy to access and well priced. Try www.goodfoodsecrets.com

Try exercising a bit at a time. If you have been sitting down for most of your life, considering the London marathon isn’t the best idea.  Try a walk around the block after dinner instead. Team up with a friend for a walk and talk. Park the car further away and grab some incidental exercise while you shop or pay bills. These are little changes that really add up and have a great impact.

So that is the idea. Make little but positive changes. See the benefits and enlist the support and partnership of friends and family. Live healthier – that’s the real meaning of lifestyle.