Ten Tips to a Healthy Lifestyle

Living a healthy lifestyle is really not all that difficult. You have to be willing to make some changes gradually to your current life to reach the point of living healthy. Focusing on the 4 major areas of your health - diet, exercise, behavior and emotional well-being - will help you get there. If you eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, make behavior changes, and take effective steps to manage your emotional stress, you will be living a healthy lifestyle. Here are ten tips on how to achieve and maintain it:

1. Plan on eating more fiber every day, then do it. Nutritional guidelines now recommend we get 35 grams of fiber daily. Eat more vegetables and fruit. When you eat breads and cereals, make sure they are whole grains and high fiber.

2. Drink more water. Experts recommend at least 6 to 8 cups of water a day, more if you exercise. For every 20 minutes of exercise, drink another cup of water. Water rinses out toxins and is believed by some to keep your skin looking clear.

3. Be sure to move your body. It is hard to find someone who exercises too much, although they are probably out there somewhere. Utilize spare moments in the day by moving around and doing something. This leads to the next tip...

4. Get a pedometer and wear it every day. Fitness experts recommend we get 10,000 steps per day, provided our doctors approve. So, start walking. Walk inside your house, walk around in your yard, walk down your street and around the block.

5. If walking is not for you, join an organized exercise class or program, again, with your doctor's approval. With a zillion classes out there, there's just no excuse not to try something. Yoga, spinning, Tai Chi, aerobics. What's your pleasure? Choose one and go.

6. Changing your behavior is not the easiest thing to do. It requires thought and commitment--taking a vow to yourself. So do it, acknowledge that you are worth the time, effort, and trouble. Write down your "plan" and stick it up on the refrigerator. Re-read it every morning and every evening. Following this step can be the first step in changing your behavior.

7. Staying in touch with your emotional self is an important aspect of living a healthy lifestyle. Acknowledge your genuine feelings to yourself and with others. In essence, talk openly about how you feel.

8. Then, live in congruence with your feelings. If you feel angry or frustrated with someone, talk with them about it (appropriately) and listen to what they have to say. Dig down deep to figure out what you really want out of life and then--as cliché as this may sound--make it happen.

9. Do what is necessary emotionally to be honest with your self about how you feel. When you do, you will have a sense of well-being, which is so important to a healthy lifestyle.

10. Last, but not least, learn to manage your stress in healthy ways. This is the crowning glory of living a healthy lifestyle. If you practice the other 9 tips, you will know when you are stressed out from overwork, being in an unhappy relationship, or for some other reason. Then, use this self-awareness as the impetus to manage the stress. Some methods to do so are allowing yourself some down time, exercising regularly, getting together with friends, and seeking out others for support and guidance.

Your willingness to lead a healthy lifestyle is the first step toward it. Then, focusing in on the above tips, one at a time, will help you eventually achieve it. Go ahead, you are worth it.