image of a red flower Open main menu Close main menu

Healthlad.com

Go

Healthy Life Choices

Healthy life choices makes us feel great and bring us a wonderful body and skin, a lot of energy and stamina, self confidence, sleep at night, good relationships, a good intimate life and most probably a long pleasant, healthy and disease free life.

We have to make healthy life choices for physical activities and exercising, and for the brain. We have to take care of our social and intimate needs and last but not least of the food we eat.

Food is first and most important on our list of healthy life choices.

We can exercise as much as we can, but if we do not eat the right stuff, we will not make many progress. Not with losing weight or lowering our cholesterol level nor with increasing our physical or mental state and abilities. There are long lists of healthy and unhealthy food, sometimes the information is conflicting. Insights change as research advances. For example, to lose weight, it was thought to ban as much fat as possible from our diet to achieve that. Fat-free simply neglects the fact that abundant “sugars” are converted by our body into fat and then stored in our cells.

Today, it appears that some people benefit from a low-fat diet, while others benefit more from a low carb diet. Low carb and especially no carb diets have an important side effect: it reduces our cholesterol levels and often in a spectacular way that cannot be achieved with cholesterol reduction medicines.

We all know the problem with diets: it is temporary. Diets designed to lose weight fast, include unhealthy and limited choices. Most people return to their old eating habits after they reach their dieting objectives. As a result, they will be back were they were soon, or even worse.

The body remembers the diet period as a period with low food supply. Once the food supply returns to higher levels, the body tends to keep more in stock to be able to deal with a future period of low supply. As a result people end up fatter or heavier than they were before they started the weight loss program.

To arrive at and to keep a healthy weight, we need to adopt healthy eating habits. Once healthy eating becomes a habit, it does not take any effort any more. Your healthy eating habit will bring you many rewards: you will arrive at your ideal weight, you will look good, you will feel very energetic, you will sleep well and you reduce your chances to get all kind of severe diseases like diabetes, obesity, cancer or heart disease very much.

A good healthy life choice for food, is following the principles of a diabetes diet. Avoid sugar, refined products and processed meat, eat the right fats, lots of vegetables, legumes and fruit, drink lots of water and eat at regular times.

There is food that has particular health benefits: Almonds, to start with.

Delicious almonds roasted in the shell
Almonds reduce the risk on heart and cardiovascular diseases, they help lowering the cholesterol level, and almonds protect against diabetes.

Black beans are great for your cardiovascular system, they help prevent from certain types of cancer, your digestive system benefits from it, are good for your nerves and avoid impotency.

Eat blueberries if you want to boost your brain. Additionally, blueberries help to prevent cancer, are good for your heart and for your blood pressure and make your dry skin soft.

Broccoli has a long list of benefits: it works against arthritis, prevents from cancer, reduces the blood pressure, improves your kidney functions, works against aging, improves the immune system and protects your blood vessels.

Not everybody likes them because of the smell, but cook them the right way and there is no smell at all: Brussels sprouts is very healthy stuff too. They help in weight loss diets and they help to prevent inflammatory responses at the early stages. Chronic inflammation is the root cause of diseases like obesity, cancer, heart disease and many more.

Bulgur, and especially the “whole” version include many fibers, vitamin B6 and iron. It is good for your skin and your muscles, it lowers the risk on cardiovascular disease and it supports your immune system.

Chia seeds are packed with fibers and omega-3.They have many health benefits. Among them are: reduction of the risk on thrombosis and abnormal heart rhythms.

A very healthy but often overlooked food is dark chocolate (72% cacao and more). Small amounts improve the blood flow, that is beneficial for your heart, your arteries and your brain. Dark chocolate contains polyphenols that have the same positive effects on your heart and vessels as red wine has. It reduces the blood pressure and the chance on getting diabetes. It can protect against cancer and it slows the aging process. Furthermore it hardens the tooth enamel.

A healthy fat is unheated extra virgin olive oil. It helps to protect your body against inflammations; it is beneficial to your heart and it protects the blood vessels; it reduces the cholesterol levels in your blood; it reduces the blood pressure; it is good for your joints; and it reduces the risk of getting several forms of cancer.

To reduce your blood pressure, flax seed should be on your list of nutritients. Flax seed reduces the risk on skin cancer, function as an anti-depressant, are beneficial for your liver, assist in combating prostate cancer and lower your cholesterol levels.

Besides being cheap, lentils have many healthy properties. Lentils help you to lose weight, they are rich in fibers, help to prevent birth defects, reduce the risk on coronary artery disease and stimulate your digestive system in a positive way.

One of my favorite food is oatmeal. Eat oatmeal, preferably cooked with sugar free soy milk. Add some fruit like blueberries to make it taste better. Oatmeal helps to reduce your blood pressure, to lose weight, to reduce your cholesterol level and to support your cardiovascular system.

Are you looking for plant proteins? Quinoa is your answer: it offers all essential amino acids. Quinoa might work anti-inflammatory, which means it might reduce the risk on inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and Chrohn’s disease and also cancers and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore it helps preventing obesity. Quinoa is gluten-free. The fibers in Quinoa may reduce your cholesterol level and it helps improving the health of your heart. It fits in a diabetes diet and in a diet against hypertension.

Cardiologists say red wine is good for your heart and blood vessels. According to the most recent recommendations of the Dutch health institute (2015), we should limit our alcohol intake to 1 glass per day only (= 2 United-Kingdom units). Polyphenols in red wine do the good work. Some red wines contain much more polyphenols than others. There is still a lot of research and discussion ongoing on about the overall health effects of red wine, because alcohol affects other body parts like the liver and the brain in a negative way. And alcohol is addictive and it reduces your physical and mental performance levels. Polyphenols are the substances responsible for positive effect of red wine.

Instead of drinking wine, eat walnuts, dark chocolate, cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, pears, honey, beans, lentils, black tea, green tea, white tea, parsley, broccoli, celery, cabbage, onions, olive oil, whole grains and apples.

Spinach seems to work anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous. Also because of the iron contained in spinach it helps the body to restore energy quickly, to increase vitality and to improve the quality of your blood.

Probably the longest list of health benefits is the one for apples:

While ordinary potatoes are not good for your health as they increase your blood sugar level too much, sweet potatoes are really good stuff: they suppress cell damaging, may protect against heart disease, is beneficial for the nerve system, improves your bone health and maintains a healthy water balance, helps keeping your skin and muscles healthy and may help people breath more easily by fighting asthma, hay fever and allergies. Sweet potatoes fit into a diabetes diet.

Both fresh and canned tuna are beneficial to your health: improves your cardiovascular system, helps lowering your blood pressure and helps you in controlling your weight. On the negative side, however, there is mercury in it.

Walnuts (skin included) are beneficial for your cardiovascular system, as it prevents blood cloths and more. It reduces the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer. Walnuts contain rare and very powerful antioxidants that help to prevent atherosclerosis (thickening of the artery walls). They are good for diabetics (type 2), they help to reduce weight, improve productivity in men and several studies suggest walnuts improve our brain functions.

Bread from refined wheat, like white bread and many brown (colored) bread have little nutritional value and send your blood sugar level into the sky and makes you fat. 100% whole wheat bread fits in a diabetes diet, has low impact on your blood sugar level, helps you control your weight and helps avoiding gum disease, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. Be careful when buying, because many “whole wheat” bread and whole wheat crackers contain additional ingredients like sugar and other wheats.