Anyone who wants to ensure they enjoy a life of wellness and longevity must know that exercise and healthy eating are crucial in making that a reality. The trouble is many people have little idea as to what constitutes a healthy diet, and what type of exercise is appropriate.
Making healthy lifestyle changes can mean the difference between making it to retirement in a fit state to enjoy it and reaching retirement in a state of constant need for medical care. For those already overweight and heading for a diabetic prognosis, it has been proven emphatically that lack of exercise and type-2 diabetes are linked in the same way as poor diet is.
It was recently shown by Harvard researchers who spent 22 years studying diabetes that eating two servings per week of brown rice can reduce a diabetic risk by 11%. White rice in contrast actually increases the risk. This is just one of the examples as to why many people get confused and have a poor understanding of how diabetes can be controlled and avoided.
In general, diets high in carbohydrates are not good for weight control and increase the risk for pre-diabetic patients. It’s not just diabetes that is an issue for the overweight, to maintain a healthy heart, healthy eating is a must. Heart disease is one of the biggest killers worldwide and a change in diet to reduce saturated fats and cut out foods that increase cholesterol levels can make a significant improvement in vascular health. Drinking green tea regularly is an excellent way to help this process along.
Develop Consistent Exercise Habits
The type of exercise that would help with those seeking to lose weight, improve their fitness and avoid health complications like diabetes is fortunately not the type of strenuous activity seen at many gyms – especially those kitted out with many weight machines. The idea is not to build muscle, but to burn excess fat, improve respiration and increase general fitness. This means a workout that might include swimming, cycling or any aerobic exercise that does not overly strain the muscles or body in general.
Bodybuilding and regular aerobic exercise is not the same thing, and a strenuous workout without the proper added nutrients will actually damage the body and not result in significant weight loss. This is because strenuous exercise requires fuel to be delivered to the muscles in a readily usable format. Fat is not that fuel and hard exercise such as bench pressing weights will actually utilize unused muscle mass and feed it to other muscles which need it. This is why bodybuilders have to take supplements to add enough protein into their system to cope with this demand and not “borrow from Peter to pay Paul” in the protein and muscle stakes.
Change your unhealthy lifestyle
The idea is to make a lifestyle change that includes this type of exercise on a regular daily basis. Workouts should only last 30 minutes at most and should not result in such a tiring workout that a rest is needed either during or afterward. You want to workout at a pace that raises your heart rate to the point where you huff and puff. Ultimately diabetes can mostly be avoided completely (except for those with genetically induced diabetes) with some exercise and healthy eating coupled with healthy lifestyle changes and a bit of willpower.
In the end, we all get the state of health that we have earned by a lifetime of habits. By developing a consistent exercise habit and adopting healthy eating habits, you can avoid many of the so-called ‘lifestyle’ diseases such as type-2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and some cancers, and enjoy vibrant health into your golden years.
