Top Four Healthy Living Tips

Choosing a healthy lifestyle can bring positive results in just a few days. Almost immediately, you'll begin to look better, feel better and have more energy. You'll start to slow down the aging process too. And if that's not enough, you'll also begin to significantly reduce your risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

What are the top four healthy living tips. According to Dr. Augustus Grant, former president of the American Heart Association, poor diet, excess body weight, physical inactivity and smoking are responsible for the premature death of nearly 1.5 million Americans every year. So, if want to be healthy, you need to eat well, manage your weight, start exercising and stop smoking.

And you don't have to join a gym or go to a weight loss clinic in order to make the necessary changes in your lifestyle. You can get some advice from experts in these areas, but, in the end, you will have to take total personal responsibility for keeping your commitment to your goal. Taking care of your health is a do-it-yourself project. You need to be your own healthy living center.

Starting an exercise program is probably the easiest place to start a healthy living program. It's as easy as taking a walk in the park. Just by taking a brisk half- hour walk four days a week, you can cut your risk of death from heart disease by 34% and of death by all diseases by 39%. People who walk for 3 to 4 hours a week reduce their risk of death by 50%. And walkers can lose over a pound a month without even changing their what they eat.

Eating right, however, will not only give you the energy to stay on an exercise program, it will also help you lose weight and keep it off permanently. The secret is to commit to a sensible eating plan for the rest of your life and not just to lose a few pounds.

Begin by getting off the junk food wagon and eliminating refined carbohydrates - white bread, white pasta, white rice, white potatoes, cakes, cookies and pastry - and start eating 100% whole grain foods instead. Then start substituting broiled fish and skinless poultry for burgers, hot dogs and sandwich meats. Finally, include at least five and up to nine daily servings of highly nutritious fruits and vegetables to your daily menu.

And, last, if you're still smoking, by all stop. Smoking kills. It's not only linked to cancer of the lung and throat, but it doubles your risk of stroke and quadruples your risk heart disease. Smoking also yellows your teeth and wrinkles your skin, making you look much older than you are.