I am really healthy.. how do I stay that way??

     Popular media and modern medicine would like us to believe that lifestyle diseases like obesity, cholesterol and diabetes (and even cancers) are hereditary, and that we have no control over our future health.  While there is a percentage of hereditary endocrine disease, a more likely scenario is that we have made the same lifestyle choices as our parents and thus are prone to the same lifestyle diseases as them.

While our future health really is in our own hands, how does one achieve optimum health when our lifestyles are more toxic today than ever before? Food, so very abundant, is generally nutrient-poor, preserved, coloured, flavoured and genetically enhanced. It's enough to make you want to head for the hills!

Particular to lifestyle diseases, there are certain things we can do to help ourselves.  Patrick Holford speaks of the 80/20 rule: doing the best you can with what you have 80% of the time allows your body to deal with the 20% that is living in the 21st century.

How do we start the 80%? it's quite simple really..

• Drink more water
• choose fresh over processed: make your own juice, soup, gravy and pudding
• Excercise!  if you have no time to excercise now, where-ever are you going to find time to recover from the resultant diseases of sedentary lifestyle, like a stroke, embolism or heart-attack??
• If it is Diabetes you are avoiding, remember to add healthy snacks, brown and whole carbs and avoid the traditional 'sugar-free' options: these are usually loaded with fat or, even more scary, lots of artificial sweeteners that are not at all good for us.
• If it is cancers you are avoiding, it is essential to keep the diet alkaline by eating much much more fruit and veggies, healthy grains and seeds and foregoing the acidifying meat and dairy products.
• If it is obesity that is your fear, remember that people who live 'on diet' seldom sustain weight loss, and we always want the things forbidden to us.. calorie management and learning to incorporate healthier and more sensible options into your daily lifew will work much more efficiently for you.  

It pays to take care of your diet before it's too late..