By Rich Carroll
Those of us who are continually improve our health read a great deal about health optimization. Most of what we read in the normal media revolves around treating symptoms of diseases rather than preventive maintenance measures. More of us are now more interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle that addresses the foundational causes of disease. The results are harder to determine, but not getting sick in the first place is better than curing the disease once it has taken residency in our body.
Below are five strategies that if we put into our lifestyle that we will dramatically improve our health on a long-term basis.
1. Eat healthy fats. Fats are a necessary part of our diet; they are not the "four-letter" word we perhaps have read about.
But you have to know what fats will be healthy. Also, most healthy diets will look to reduce carbohydrates, and as you do this you must replace these non-vegetable carbs with healthful fats. These would be obtained from foods such as avocados, olives and olive oil, nuts and cold-water fish such as salmon.
2. Drink pure water. This is without a doubt our most important food. Toxins have to be flushed from the body continually, and having a constant intake of clean water does the flushing. This is vital to cleanse the liver, kidneys and the bloodstream. And don't forget the water you shower with. When you drink impure water your body has a fighting chance to filter impurities through your digestive system, although even that has its limitations. But the skin and lungs also can absorb a lot of toxins.
3. Quality sleep. Even though amount of sleep that is needed is highly individual, most people need about seven to eight hours of good sleep a night. Many times we hear of people who say they only need three or four hours a sleep a night and they seem healthy. We have also heard of people who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and seem healthy, until their health crashes. Poor sleep has been linked to weight gain, diabetes and risk of heart disease and cancer.
4. Intermittent fasting. For help with weight loss and related health issues, this may be the real up-and-coming answer. It is because it helps shift the body from burning sugar and carbohydrates as its primary fuel to burning fat. It really isn't hard to get started. You simply allow more time to pass between your last meal of the day and your first meal the following day. Eight hours is the absolute minimum time, but it will be more effective the longer you can go (up to 16 hours) the more fat you will burn.
5. High intensity exercise. Granted, any cardio exercise is going to be of benefit. But there are going to be limited benefits to sitting on a reclining machine peddling away hoisting donuts into your mouth. The health benefits you can get from high intensity training offer much more than regular cardio, and you can get them in two or three 20 minute sessions a week. If you're not familiar with high intensity training, look into it as there is ever-increasing research as to how good it is for our health.
In the article we talk about intermittent fasting. Read more about this by clicking here. Also, intense aerobic training has also been talked about recently as something that can help everyone's health. Rich Carroll is a writer and avid health advocate now living in Chicago.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rich_Carroll
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