Living longer and living healthy

Healthy Living

There are so many books out there giving instructions on how to lose weight and the fats in our body. I do think they are all effective if followed the right way. You see, dieting as we refer to this technique does not really mean to stop eating. We can eat the good food and still lose weight. Decreasing the weights and the fats in our body takes time and most of all discipline and will power.

As we age, our metabolism slows down. Not only this, our body produces least amount of hormones which are much needed for our body to function the way it should. And this makes our body catch up with our biological age. And if we don’t take care of ourselves well enough, our body becomes older than our real age. Thus, to be healthy we then have to take care of the special organs in our body for us to live longer.

There are reports of places where people are older and yet their bodies were younger than their biological age. They call it Blue Zones – places in the world where people live to 100 and staying healthy which was identified by Dan Buettner a journalist after 5 years of study in partnership with National Geographic. They are: The Italian island of Sardinia; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California; Costa Rica’s isolated Nicoya Peninsula; and, Ikaria, an isolated Greek Island. All these places attributed to their happy life from their lifestyle. They have faith in God; they leave their worries behind by doing things that they enjoy doing, sharing friendship and love with their chosen community or social network, eating healthy diets, daily exercise, and relaxation. Most of them have vegan diets of tofu – beans, nuts, goat cheese, yogurt, broccoli, green tea, and clean water.

Here in our country, almost all food are processed or if not, the fresh food goes through rigorous traumas for the sake of health compliance, which is good in a sense. But I have started creating my small garden backyard and some pot gardening for herbs, fruits, and vegetables that I love to have. This makes me sure that I am eating the real organic food.

So for me, to sum up the context of the message of blue zones is to live a stress free life. Of course we cannot avoid stress but it is how we react to them that make the whole situation different. This is because study shows that stress causes diseases in our body and could even kill us. It raises our blood pressure making our blood thicker causing stroke and heart failure. Stress they say is the culprit of increased body fat; you can pretty much tell how much stress you are dealing with in your life by the fats you store in your body system.

Dr. Oz, a heart surgeon and Oprah's physician once said, broken hearts could literally kill us. I agree with this totally. I had a very stressful friendship-relationship years ago and it was so chaotic and nerve racking that I always felt chest pains at the time, cried a lot, and suffered insomnia. Not only that, my hair started falling. In trying to survive from that trauma, I discovered reading and actually enjoyed that so much, then finally arriving here in my long-time plan, writing.I practiced yoga and meditation relaxation at least twice a week for body flexibility and energy. I tell you, I was a mess for almost 2 years. I thought I was not going to make it here.

Getting over lost friendships are difficult for me. It's because I want it for the long run. I get affected with disloyalty, bullying, and mistrust.This is why we have to chose our friends carefully, have a healthy connection with family and friends. And, most of all make sleep a very important part of your daily regimen. A good 6-8 hours of sleep makes us alert and keep us thinking straight.

From these information, I have developed an idea to keep me guarded; I ask myself each time I place food in my plate if it is good for me, for my life and for my future. And if the answer comes out NO, I definitely skip it. I keep reminding myself what I have heard from nutritionists to void fizzy drinks as they all say, especially in alcohol, that, it could eventually damage the liver causing it to be inflamed because sugar drinks goes to the liver and overwhelms it with complications.

Of course we have to eat a sensible diet that are right for our body like; eating less animal meats and eating more protein in vegetables. Nutritionists attest that eating raw fruits and vegetables keeps our body systems clean and healthy and increase our metabolism. By eating small servings of food 5-6 times a day, it not only keeps us from craving junk foods but also stabilizes the sugar in our body and maintains our energy level in a normal phase all throughout the day. And these nutritionists added that if you take out the whip cream in your coffee, you can lose 10 lbs in one year even without the exercise.

I have discovered from my own experience that stretching and staying active increased my energy and I sleep better all through the night. I heard a doctor said that if you exercise at least 30 minutes a day, it decreases your body weight by 10% and reduces our chance in developing diabetes by 58%.

We all know this that doctors keep urging us to take our 5 important daily vitamins which are: green leafy vegetables and fresh fruits for fiber, Vitamin D, Calcium, and Omega-3, and Water.

They remind us to boost our cardio system by working out and increase our strength training, and get at least 5-10 minutes of sunshine outside - daily to decrease the chance of getting affected with cancer by at least 5%-10%. And that; the ideal glucose in our body must be less than 100, our blood pressure 90/70, our pulse 60 and under as we wake up. Our neck size must be for men 17” and 16” for women; this is to avoid apnea, a deadly sleeping problem.

All in all, I still would say; staying healthy is all about lifestyle.