Defy convention
Do the healthy thing, even when it’s challenging, inconvenient or considered weird. Take pride in that.

Buck trends
Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s smart or good for you. Enlist fellow trend buckers and create a trend of your own.

Rage against the machine
Use your healthy frustration about the unhealthy status quo to spark creativity and determination.

Celebrate what’s good
Look for signs of progress (beyond pounds lost) and rejoice when you find them. Give yourself a pat on the back every time you make your health a priority.

Repossess your health
Reclaim responsibility for your well-being; own your daily choices; minimize your reliance on the broken sick-care system.

Redefine your role
You are not a “healthcare consumer.” You are a human being. You may be experiencing an illness or other health challenge right now, but remember that good health is your body’s natural state.

Practice medicine without a license
Research your own conditions and treatment alternatives, ask questions, and seek second opinions with impunity. Leverage the expertise of trained pros, but don’t allow it to eclipse your own informed instincts about what’s best for you.

Minimize symptom suppression
Make whole-person vitality, well-being and resilience your goal. Partner with healthcare pros who understand and support your desire to be fully healthy with a minimum of medical intervention.

Safeguard your juju
Don’t let yourself get run down, depressed, negative or reactive. That’s when immunity drops, inflammation rages, and unhealthy tendencies strike.

See the bigger picture
Yes, this is about you, but your well-being also affects everyone and everything around you. When you get healthier, everybody benefits.

Be part of the solution
It’s going to take a lot of strong, clear-headed, high-vitality people to solve the world’s problems. Be one of them.

Go at your own pace
A healthy life is more a marathon than a sprint. So start where you are. Choose sensible, sustainable shifts over instant cures and quick fixes.

Be proactive
If you feel a cold, flu or nasty headache coming on, take evasive maneuvers. Rest. Refuel. Reconnect. Rebuild your immunity and vitality. There’s no heroism in ignoring your body’s needs.

Leverage your big “whys”
Know the specific reasons your health matters to you. Write them down where you’ll see them daily.

Raise your sights
Don’t get sucked in by obsessions with six-pack abs and buns of steel. Don’t play “compare the bodies.” Fulfill your best-self vision.

Learn the skills
Healthy, fit people have learned how to be healthy. Learn those skills, practice them, and you’ll be healthy, too.

Reap the rewards
Look and feel better, sure. But also think better, smell better, give better, love better, live better, be better.

Focus on the fundamentals
Drink water, eat good food, move, rest, relax, connect. Don’t sweat the more complex stuff until you’ve got a grip on the basics.

Fake it till you make it
Don’t yet see yourself as a super-healthy person? Experiment with doing a little of what you’d do if you were already supremely healthy and fit. As often as you can, act as if your commitment were unwavering.

Aim for 85%
You don’t have to make 100% healthy choices all the time. It’s what you do most of the time — day in, day out — that counts. The healthier you get, the easier and more automatic healthy choices will become.

Keep your body clean, inside and out
Toxins, poisons and other gunk have no place in the temple. Avoid artificial flavors, preservatives, colors, fragrances, petrochemicals and other toxic ingredients whenever possible.

Brush and floss
Your teeth and gums are a huge determining factor in your whole-body well-being. They’re also an easy place to start demonstrating your commitment to whole-person health on a daily basis.

Eat fresh
Trade dead, packaged goods for foods that are fresh, alive and full of high-vibe goodness. Figure out where to find them, learn to juice/slice/dice them, and eat them with great pleasure.

Eat more plants
There’s a long list of phytonutrients and other good stuff in vegetables, fruits and legumes that you can’t get any other way. Put plants at the center of your plate for as many meals and snacks as you can.

Don’t fall for fakery
Processed, fake, diet and imitation ingredients burden and inflame your body, contributing to chronic disease. And there’s no clinical proof that artificial sweeteners and fat-free products support weight loss or do any part of you any good.

Learn to cook
Get a dozen healthy, whole-food recipes under your belt, and your life will be forever changed. Start by mastering one.

Have breakfast
Let there be protein, produce, healthy fats and fiber in it. A good breakfast wards off energy dips, brain fog and afternoon cravings.

Watch your reactions
40% of U.S. adults have an intolerance to gluten; 70% to dairy. Know if you’re one of them. Digestive, skin, joint, energy and mood problems may be your first clue.

Beware the USDA Food Pyramid
It is a whole lot healthier for Big Ag and Big Business than for humans. Fill two-thirds of your plate with an array of vegetables, add in some other whole foods you enjoy, and don’t let the rest of the Pyramid’s propaganda confuse you.

Approach ADA guidelines with a healthy dose of doubt
The American Dietetic Association is sponsored by processed-food corporations and staffed by former food-company execs. Their pro-processed-food advice is often colored by that, and their calorie-counting obsessions are profoundly counterproductive.

Go easy on the sugar and flour
These two ingredients (combined with unhealthy industrial vegetable oils) have a starring role in most packaged foods we eat. More than any other culprit, they fuel inflammation, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol and cancer.

Savor what you eat
The foods you rush into your body tend to create more problems than they solve. Take your time and consciously enjoy every single bite. Notice as your hunger diminishes.

Care where food comes from
Know your food’s history, and you’ll want to consume more selectively. Most factory-farmed and industrially produced foods aren’t all that appetizing once you know their origins.

Go for quality, not quantity
An ounce of wonderful is far better than a whole mess of mediocrity. Most beige, starchy and supersized foods are not worth eating.

Move it out
A healthy person poops every day. Twice a day, maybe more. How’s your fiber and water intake? (Also, see #28.) A clogged up colon wreaks havoc on your whole body.

Read labels
Don’t worry so much about the calories, grams and RDAs. Read the ingredients. Most ingredient lists begin with some combination of enriched wheat flour, sugar and oil. Avoid foods like that. Also avoid foods with long lists of ingredients you don’t recognize.

Ignore labels
Most of the marketing claims are meaningless, and a lot of the data is confusing. Most of the very best foods (in the produce department) have precisely one ingredient and, often, no labels at all.

Say no to soda
Both regular and diet soft drinks stimulate a pro-inflammatory insulin response, trigger cravings, acidify the body, decay your teeth and leach minerals out of your bones.

Ask for what you want
If you want extra this, none of that, something on the side, X in place of Y, broiled instead of fried, and everything prepared just so — say so. Being picky about what you put in your body is nothing to be ashamed of. Picky eaters unite!

Drink a lot of water
The health of every cell and synapse depends on it. And when you’re dehydrated on a regular basis —even a little — your metabolism, energy and immunity all suffer mightily.

Filter your water
You’ll drink more when it tastes pure and you know it’s clean. If plain water doesn’t turn your crank, enjoy water with a slice of lemon, orange, cucumber, or a splash of juice. Or try herbal tea instead.

Love what you’ve got
Treat your body with respect and appreciation. Focus on what it can do, not what it can’t. Find something to celebrate, not something to criticize.

Redefine your goals
If you’ve been trying to lose weight and struggling, make it your goal to get superbly healthy and fit instead. And then don’t be surprised when the excess weight starts melting off.

Beware artificial hungers
Notice what triggers your sudden desires and uncontrollable appetites. Stress and anxiety both masquerade as hunger. Find better ways of dealing with them or warding them off.

Identify real hungers
You can’t eat or spend your way out of loneliness, fear, boredom or lack of meaning. Find healthy ways to honor and shift them, instead.

Be human
Cut yourself a little slack now and then, and forgive yourself your unhealthy trespasses. Learn what you can from them, and then move on.

Make being healthy easier
Self-restraint is a limited resource. Do everything in your power to make healthy choices automatic choices and to keep unhealthy temptations out of range.

Don’t believe the hype
Give up on gimmicks, fads and instant fixes. Most miraculous weight-loss schemes do more harm than good, and yo-yo dieting is a recipe for weight gain.

Look beyond unrealistic role models
Find your inspiration in people whose lives and goals have some relevance to your own. Also remember that most of the pictures you see of celebrities and fitness models have been extensively retouched.

Question authority
Big organizations like the FDA, USDA, AHA, AMA and ADA all struggle under real limitations and conflicts of interest. Know and understand them.

Face the facts
Your body is a mirror: It reflects your choices, your priorities, your habits, your attitudes and your quality of life. If you don’t like your body, be willing to change the way you are living.

Maintain a morning practice
Take a few minutes each sunup to set your intentions, take a few breaths, read an inspiring passage and start the day on your own terms. You may be shocked at the difference it makes.

Move your body
Every day, every which-way you can, in as many ways as you enjoy. Movement nourishes your body, clears toxins, and reduces the inflammation that breeds illness and irritation.

Reframe exercise as a privilege
You don’t have to exercise. You get to exercise. Visit a person whose mobility is severely limited, and you’ll appreciate the distinction. Do what you can, and count yourself lucky.

Break a sweat
The more often, the better. Sweat is a signal that your metabolism is switching into a higher gear. Sweat is weakness, complacency and toxicity leaving the body.

Stay strong
More muscle and sinew means more capacity to do anything. Don’t let age, aches and pains, or lack of time be your excuses for abandoning your strength.

Maximize your mitochondria
Every time you exercise, you upgrade your body’s energy-and-vitality factories and build your metabolism.

Find your fitness edge
Flirt with it in ways that feel good and exhilarating. Bursts of high-intensity exercise trigger positive, dramatic changes and help catalyze the body’s healing response.

Get past body envy
Release supermodel and celebrity obsessions. Translate your desire for a fitter, more beautiful body into positive, self-respecting daily action that nourishes you and makes you stronger.

Embrace meditation
There are few life skills that will pay of as handsomely or give you as much peace and healthy perspective. Even a few minutes of meditation a day can trigger positive transformations in your biochemistry, neurology — even your DNA.

Study your systems
Learn how your body works, and respect its genius. The unfortunate fact that most of us aren’t formally educated in how to properly care for our bodies doesn’t mean you can’t learn.

Get to the bottom of your symptoms
Body trouble? Find the source. Root out the cause. Don’t settle for a drug that forces your symptoms to go underground only to pop up somewhere else with a vengeance.

Self-medicate with caution
Get honest about how you’re using alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, pain killers and other drugs to simulate well-being or cover discomfort.

Abandon victim thinking
“Poor me” doesn’t get you anywhere you want to go. Instead, dust yourself off, see the choices that got you here, then reclaim your prerogative to choose your own better way forward.

Sleep well
Rest = recovery, repair and resilience. Exhaustion = illness and messed-up metabolism. Prioritize ample sleep time as the health essential it is.

Breathe deep
In for four, out for five. Oxygen’s good; breathing keeps you alive.

Get off your butt.
Sitting for more than an hour or so at a stretch is deadly. Get up, stretch, walk around. Do some deep knee bends or go climb a couple flights of stairs.

Slow down
Perennial rushing is toxic to the body and mind. Find moments of silence and contemplation where you can just be. Create margins of sanity. Practice the defensive art of scheduling breaks and vacations.

Connect with community
Find ways of being active and involved in some kind of group activity. Joining a group, if you haven’t already, can reduce your risk of dying this year by half.

Heal your relationships
Mend fences, build bridges, forgive trespasses, grieve losses and let toxic grudges go. Then move on. Get help with this if you need to.

Get outside
You need sunshine, fresh air and time in nature. Daily. Grab five minutes in the morning, five on the way home from work.

Respect your environment
Keep in mind that human health depends upon the health of a lot of interconnected ecosystems and the planet as a whole. Make choices that respect that reality.

Embrace play
Fun, novelty, humor and joy are key sources of energy, strength and inspiration. If you’re suffering from a case of fun-deficit disorder, remedy that situation ASAP.

Consume media wisely
Seek out entertainment and information that makes your life better. Choose not to watch, read or listen to stuff that demoralizes or immobilizes you, incites craziness, or insults your intelligence.

Be your own biggest fan
Refuse to bad-talk your body, nitpick your appearance or kvetch about your weight. Find something to dig/love/ appreciate about yourself — just the way you are.

Turn off the TV
Opiate of the masses. Fritterer of time. Fryer of focus. The average American watches several hours of TV a day. How much of your life are you willing to hand over to a box?

Eliminate tolerations
If something’s driving you crazy, deal with it. Noticing and resolving daily annoyances, messes and downers helps free up energy and increases your pleasure in living.

Follow the money
Look at your checkbook register and credit-card statements for clues about where your spending is inconsistent with your healthy goals and values.

Redirect your resources
Take some of the money you’re spending on unhealthy distraction, consolations and indulgences, and re-route it toward your healthy-living priorities instead.

Ditch debt
The stress of being stretched too thin financially is at the root of a great many health ills. Develop the skills you need to master your money and live within your means.

Invest in your health
Money spent proactively on your health delivers far better returns than money spent reactively on treating illness and disease. When healthy choices seem “too expensive,” consider the long-term costs of health-sapping alternatives.

Wise up
Keep seeking new wisdom and mastering new skills that help you take better care of your body and live a more satisfying life. Continual learning and discovery support both health and happiness.

Build on your successes
Look at what has worked well for you in the past, and do more of that. Identify and leverage your strengths. Be willing to learn from your “failures,” too — but refuse to wallow in them.

Surprise yourself
Don’t be boring. Every once in a while, do something unexpected or out of character and see what happens.

Find your tribe
Surround yourself with other healthy, positive, active people who share your passions. It’s a lot easier to thrive around people who are thriving.

Laugh it up
Seek out mirth, glee and merriment at every opportunity. Laughter triggers a cascade of healing, energizing chemicals.

Get a buddy
Do your healthy thing with a pal or partner. Camaraderie and accountability go a long way toward creating success.

Give your best gifts
Developing and sharing them endows you with enthusiasm and energy. Neglecting or squandering them slowly kills you.

Pace yourself
When working hard, take brief rest breaks every 90 to 120 minutes so your cells can recharge. Be kind to yourself, and be honest about how much you can take on at any given time.

Vote your values
Take your healthy convictions to the polls. Share them with your elected representatives. Vote with your dollars, too, to support healthy products, companies and communities.

Visualize the possibilities
What if we lived in a world where the majority of people were healthy and happy most of the time? Imagine that future — then start creating it in your own life, one step at a time.

Follow your bliss
The more positivity and enthusiasm you can build into your life, the healthier, happier and more satisfied you’ll be. Happiness breeds healthiness.

Be responsible for yourself
Own your decisions and actions, no matter what the circumstances. Refuse to abuse or be abused on any level. See challenges and setbacks as learning opportunities.

Take the high road
If you feel yourself getting dragged down or losing traction in your healthy commitments, ask: What’s my highest choice right now? What can I do to make this situation better?

Make time
The hour you give yourself for self-care pays you back three. Think you’re too busy? The busier you are, the more effective and energetic you need to be, and the less time you have to get sick.

Make space
Declutter your house, your office, your car, your desk, your mind. Create room for your chosen future; create space that reflects the way you want to feel.

Focus on action, not outcomes
Live the life of a healthy person, and the results will take care of themselves. Every healthy step is a victory. Every day is an opportunity to feel, live and be better than the day before.

Make it a party
Discover new healthy passions. Revel in new healthy pleasures. Have so much fun getting and being healthy that everyone around you wants to do it, too!

Let go of excuses
Yes, you’re busy. You probably have a lot of priorities competing for your time, energy and resources. But wouldn’t all those priorities be better served by a healthier, more dynamic you?

Show up
No one is going to do this for you. You can’t fake it, and you can’t phone it in. Your body is where you’re going to spend the rest of your life. So make it a great place to live.

Pass it on
Pssst! Being healthy is a revolutionary act. The more of us who stand up for our health and happiness, the more power we have to change the world — one person, one life, one revolutionary act at a time.

 
If you are ready to change your life and stop “spining your wheels” CLICK HERE

by: Megan, selected from Experience Life

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There are “on” days, when you feel creative, focused and full of ideas and solutions, and “off” days, when it’s easy to get distracted and after a hard day’s work, you’ve barely made a dent in your superlong to-do list. If you’re having more off days (totally normal this time of year), here’s good news: Research shows that we all have the ability to enhance our mental power now and for years to come, just by making a few simple lifestyle changes. (It turns out, certain habits that we thought would boost productivity may actually slow us down!) Find out which common habits muck up our cognitive wheels, and how to get them spinning full speed again so you can complete your work faster, get home sooner—and spend more time doing the things you love.

1. multitasking

Juggling multiple tasks is the big thing, as we all text, talk, check multiple screens and try to work at the same time. No surprise, the quality of our work may suffer. “The prefrontal cortex, a region critical to processing info, is optimally designed to do one thing at a time,” explains Adam Gazzaley, M.D., director of the neuroscience imaging center at the University of California at San Francisco. “Think of it as the bouncer at the nightclub of your brain: He’s paid to let in one guest at a time. If they rush the door, things get chaotic.” Dr. Gazzaley suggests that when something requires high performance and focus, shut out distractions. Log out of social-networking sites and email, and turn off your phone. Once you’ve finished that important task, feel free to share your success with friends on your Facebook wall.

2. skipping workouts

After a long day at the office, it’s tough to summon the energy to lace up your sneaks and get to the gym. But exercise is one of the best ways to stay sharp as you age, according to Fred H. Gage, Ph.D., professor of age-related neurodegenerative diseases at the Salk Institute. His landmark research shows that exercise significantly increases the rate of blood flow to the hippocampus, a brain region vital to memory, which generates new cell growth and improves mental processing. Interested? Follow the lead of the adults in Gage’s study, who got about an hour of aerobic activity a day, four times a week. I like to schedule my workouts in the morning before my day gets rolling, so I feel mentally and physically ready for whatever comes my way—and I can chill out after work guilt-free.

3. nutrient shortfalls

Ever wonder why so many philosophers in ancient Greece were making brilliant observations well into old age? We’ll never know for sure, but the Mediterranean diet—high in fruit, vegetables and healthy fats like olive oil; low in salt and red meat—definitely didn’t hurt. Mediterranean-diet followers have a 40 percent lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease, research at Columbia University notes, and other studies have linked this way of eating with reduced risk for memory loss. Experts claim the diet’s powers might be due in part to its inflammation-fighting antioxidants. Try out Med-inspired recipes from Self.com/TK, and enjoy them with a glass of vino—moderate wine consumption is part of the plan. Opa!

4. putting off your dream vacay

One more great excuse to book that flight to Brazil (or whatever exotic country calls your name): Immersing yourself in a foreign culture can enhance creative thinking. Research has shown that people who live abroad are better at creative tasks such as drawing, writing and problem solving. “Outside their cultural context, they’re forced to relearn the meaning of simple things,” says study author William W. Maddux, Ph.D., assistant professor of organizational behavior at Insead, a business school in Fountainbleu, France. For example, leaving food on your plate may be an insult in the United States, but it’s polite in China. “The ability to look at things from multiple and different perspectives leads us to increased creativity, possibly by changing how the brain is wired,” Maddux says. If spending time abroad isn’t an option, learning a new language or becoming an expert on a foreign cuisine may strike that spark for you.

5. weight creep

Seems odd that it has anything to do with brainpower, but excess body fat has been shown to up the risk for memory loss in women. “Fat releases chemicals called cytokines that might produce hormones harmful to neurons,” says study author Diana R. Kerwin, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She advises maintaining a body-mass index of 20 to 24. (Calculate yours at Self.com.) Need help getting there? See tips 2 and 7.

6. lack of sleep

Anyone who’s ever pulled an all-nighter knows that focus, recall and rational thought are shot the next day. And although scientists are still exploring exactly how ample rest recharges our mental batteries, new research from Harvard Medical School indicates it may be related to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that floods the brain during sleep. Dubbed the “energy currency” of life, ATP captures the chemical energy that gets released from metabolized nutrients and makes that energy available for cellular functions. To help ensure your cells get plenty of fuel, aim for seven to eight hours of shut-eye a night.

7. getting stuck in a rut

Picking up any new skill (rock climbing, tangoing, playing piano) may create new neural pathways or connections in the brain, which can keep your mind sharp over time. The key is choosing something you like. “This is not an ivory tower concept: The more you enjoy something, the more you do it,” explains Yaakov Stern, Ph.D., professor of clinical neuropsychology at Columbia University.

8. staying cooped up indoors

The simple act of getting outside and into the sun (after applying sunscreen, of course!) may help stoke your creative juices. One study found that students were better at writing haiku (as judged by expert poets) and exhibited more flexible, original thinking when they were exposed to bright, full-spectrum light for 30 minutes in the morning. “Light affects the midsection of the brain, where circadian rhythms are generated. As a result, it helps lift mood and energy level, which in turn encourages creative thinking,” says the study’s author, Alice Flaherty, M.D., assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

by Lucy Danziger and the staff at SELF

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If you’re feeling as blue as the skies above, you will be happy to know that a few spoonfuls of the right foods may turn that frown upside down! Whole foods contain vital nutrients that provide both physical and psychological benefits. Read on to discover which foods contain those mood-boosters to help you smile your way to longevity.

Fun with Folate

Eat folate-rich foods: Leafy greens like kale, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, turnip greens, bok choy, legumes, sunflower seeds, oranges, melons, beets, and fortified whole grains

Why? Folate, also know as folic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that is necessary for cell division, DNA synthesis, and healthy blood cell production. Research at the University of York and Hull York Medical School has found a link between depression and low levels of folate. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for men and women is 400 micrograms and 600 micrograms for pregnant women. To keep you smiling, increase your intake of folate-rich foods. A cup of cooked lentils provides 90% of the RDA of folic acid. Plus, the fiber and protein will satisfy you longer, stabilize blood sugar, and also promote a better mood. Additional bonuses: Folate can also decrease homocysteine, an amino acid that is linked to heart disease. Low levels of folate can cause anemia, while pregnant women must increase their folate levels to prevent fetal neural tube deficiencies.

Boost Your B6

Eat B6 foods: bananas, chicken breast, garlic, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, sunflower seeds, broccoli, red bell peppers, watermelon, avocados, and potatoes

Why? Vitamin B6 plays a role in red blood cell metabolism, protein metabolism, and synthesis of neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. It also helps maintain healthy blood sugar levels, and increases the amount of oxygen carried to your tissues. Low levels can lead to an increase of homocysteine, anemia, headaches, and depression. The RDA for adults from age 19 to 50 is 1.3 mg/day and approximately 1.6 mg for individuals over 50. The next time you’re feeling down, grab a banana and munch your blues away!

Go Fish!

Eat omega-3-rich foods: fish like salmon, sardines, mackerel, anchovies, and herring, flaxseeds, walnuts, and algae

Why? DHA omega-3 essential fatty acid maintains healthy brain function and is vital for fetal brain and eye development. Current research also demonstrates the association between intake of omega-3 fatty acids and depression. A meta-analysis study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that depression was significantly improved in patients with unipolar and bipolar disorders after taking three daily fish capsules for eight weeks. Eat the oily fish listed above — a 3-ounce serving of salmon contains between 1.1 – 1.9 grams of omega-3 fatty acids. Supplementing with high quality fish oil capsules may be an alternative if you don’t consume fish on a regular basis. Vegetarian sources of omega-3 can be found in flaxseeds, walnuts, and algae. Toss a tablespoon of sunflower seeds or walnuts into a creamy cup of unsweetened low-fat yogurt for a mega mood boost!

Good Carbs, Bad Carbs

Eat good carbs: whole grains, fruits, vegetables

Why? Not all carbohydrates are created equal. Whole grains, fruits, and veggies supply us with prolonged energy, fiber, and multiple nutrients that our bodies need for optimal health. Good quality carbohydrates can also trigger serotonin synthesis. Recognized as the “happy hormone,” serotonin is an important neurotransmitter that affects our mood and sleep. The next time you feel blue, instead of reaching for that bag of chips or sugary cookies, opt for unrefined, unprocessed carbohydrates that will provide you with sustained energy and an improved mood. Toss that muffin and enjoy a whole grain cracker with a tablespoon of natural nut butter for a delicious and uplifting snack!

You can find many more ways to live to 100 in Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways to Live to Be 100, which is now available on Kindle. Also, check out my new book Secrets of Longevity 8-Week Program, a journal that offers the best healthy habits to live to 100.

You can find many more ways to live to 100 in Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways to Live to Be 100, which is now available on Kindle. Also, check out my new book Secrets of Longevity 8-Week Program, a journal that offers the best healthy habits to live to 100.

I hope you eat foods for many long, happy years. I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

—Dr. Mao

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The most important aspect of maintaining a healthy diet isn’t the type of diet you choose, but whether or not you can stick to it. Whether you go low calorie, low carb, low fat or high fiber, you need to be able to eat that way for a long time to keep the extra weight off and enjoy any real health benefits. Everyone who follows a diet has times when it is tough to stay motivated and that is when it is just too easy to give up.

 

In order to maintain a healthy diet, it helps to have a plan so that you know what to do when the initial excitement and motivation of a new diet wears thin. Here are some tips for maintaining a healthy diet:

 

Choose the Best Diet For You
The first thing you need to do is choose the diet that is easiest for you to follow. How do you choose the best diet? All diets require you to monitor your consumption of something. You need to count calories, carbs, fats, fiber or something. Which one is the easiest? That is really up to you.

 

You may also feel physically better following one diet over the others. Feeling healthy will help keep your willpower strong when you are faced with a dietary dilemma. If you really don’t know which diet you would like best, you can always give a diet a two-week test drive. This way you can see how you feel and find out how easy the diet is to understand and follow. Remember to choose healthy foods, no matter which diet you choose.

 

Set Realistic Goals
Put some thought into why you are going on a diet. Are you trying to lose weight? Do you need to reduce your risk factors for chronic disease? Do you want to look good in a swimsuit? Maybe you had a heart attack and you want to do everything you can to see your grandchildren grow up.

 

Your goals are important to you, yet to be successful, you need to be realistic about how to set those goals. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to make huge changes over night. If it took you ten years to gain 50 pounds, don’t pretend that you can lose 50 pounds in three months. You can, however lose five to 15 pounds in three months. Think along similar lines for changing from junk food to healthy food. If you eat a big bowl of ice cream and chocolate syrup every night after dinner, it might be tough to give that up completely and forever. Start with replacing that bowl of ice cream with a bowl of fresh berries two or three times per week. Keep your goals reasonable and you can have the fun of reaching them quickly and setting new ones.

 

Choose the Right Tools
Very few people can follow a healthy diet without keeping track of the foods they eat. Just like you need to keep track of your bills and the money in your bank account, you need to keep track of the calories, carb grams, fat grams, or fiber grams that you take in each day. In order to keep track of the foods you eat, you need to write them all down in a food diary or join an online service like Calorie Count. Keeping track of your diet will help keep you motivated and give you a realistic idea of how much healthy food verses how much unhealthy food you are eating.

 

Find a Friend or Join a Community
Sometimes it seems like everyone else around you is eating what they want and tempting you to go off your diet too. Dieting can be tough when you do it alone. Find someone to go on a diet with you. Having a spouse, family member, co-worker or friend who has similar dietary goals will help keep you both on track. Another option is to join an online community such as the message boards on About.com’s weight loss site or on Calorie Count.

 

Keep Reminders
IIt is good to give yourself a little nudge now and then. Remember those reasons you have for going on a healthy diet? Write those reasons down on a small note card and tuck that card into your purse or wallet. You may not see it every day, but you will find it often enough to remind you about why you are watching your diet. Another option is to find a weight loss quote you like and use it as a screen-saver on your computer.

 

Make Your Bad-Mood-Foods Healthier
Sometimes your mood can have a major impact on your diet. Think of comfort food. What do you eat when you are having a bad day? A banana split? Big greasy burger and fries? A pile of fried chicken? All of these are real diet-breakers because the calories can pile up fast while you are feeding your bad mood. Find some new comfort foods. Make sure they are high in fiber and you will fill up before you eat too many calories. Did you love PB and Js as a kid? Make a healthier PB and J with whole grain bread. Instead of that banana split, how about banana chunks, strawberries and blueberries with whipped topping and nuts. It is just as sweet, but much better for you. Still want that fried chicken? How about just one piece after you eat a healthy salad.

 

Be Good to Yourself
We all slip up now and then. That’s OK. If you fall off the healthy foods wagon, don’t beat yourself up over it. Tell yourself you will do a better job with your next meal and when that next meal rolls around, choose something healthy like baked chicken or fish with lots of green vegetables. Congratulate yourself for eating a healthy meal again and know that you will do it again at the next meal.

 

Get Some Exercise
Physical activity will help you watch your weight, give you strong muscles and keep your heart healthy. Aerobic and resistive exercises will also boost your mood, decrease your appetite and help keep you motivated to eat right.

By Shereen Jegtvig, About.com Guide

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Habits like smoking and not exercising add up to a shorter life span. How to stick with good ones …

Don’t smoke, don’t drink (too much), eat right, exercise. We’ve all heard these credos and try our very best to follow them, but perhaps we now have a little more incentive: an extra 12 years of life. That’s the finding of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in April which found that the risk of dying increases significantly for those who smoke, exercise less than two hours a week, eat less than three daily servings of fruits and vegetables, and consume more than two drinks a day.

Unfortunately, bad habits are really hard to break. That’s why 90 percent of us fail to keep our New Year’s resolutions. So what can we do to increase our willpower? Actually, quite a lot, say psychologists. It’s all about learning to handle those urges that lead you to partake in unhealthful behaviors; handling them the right way actually spurs the development of certain brain regions making it easier to resist future cravings. Try the methods on the following slides.]

1. Think long-term consequences rather than short-term pleasures

When presented with a cigarette, smokers who were told to envision the long-term consequences of smoking (lung cancer, heart disease, early death) were far more likely to resist the urge to light up than those who were told to imagine the short-term benefits of smoking (it feels good, it’s calming), according to a study from Columbia University released last January. The researchers also found the same held true for nonsmokers faced with tempting foods; participants had better control over their cravings when they thought about long-term weight gain, as opposed to the immediate bliss of, say, biting into that gooey chocolate bar. “It’s natural to think about the now rather than the later,” says study author Hedy Kober, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University School of Medicine. “But we showed that people can teach themselves to think differently to the extent that smokers actually found they wanted cigarettes less when they used the ‘think later’ approach.”

2. Pay attention

Practicing mindfulness meditation for a few minutes each day can actually boost willpower by building up gray matter in areas of the brain that regulate emotions and govern decision making. “Paying attention to what’s happening in the moment, what’s going on in your body, your mind, and all around you, can make it easier to tune in to choices you make several hundred times a day when it comes to eating,” says health psychologist Kelly McGonigal who teaches a class on the science of willpower at Stanford University.

3. Distract yourself

Researchers have shown that those who exercise the most self-restraint are better able than others to banish tempting thoughts from their minds. “When a craving hits, lightly squeeze your fist and think about what it feels like,” recommends McGonigal. Next, spend a few minutes focusing on your breathing, how the air is entering and leaving your body. If you have time to go outside for a walk to distract yourself, even better. An opposite approach that also works, says Kober, is to apply mindfulness to your cravings. Acknowledge that you have the urge to grab the chips in the pantry, without passing judgment on yourself or your urges. You’ll probably find that the craving passes in about 15 minutes.

4. Set small, realistic goals

A handful of studies have demonstrated that those instructed to make small changes, like sitting up straighter, were able to raise their scores on lab tests for self-control. While the research isn’t conclusive, setting small goals makes sense from a more-likely-to-succeed perspective. Whatever goal you set for yourself, cut it in half, McGonigal recommends. If you vow to lose 30 pounds, shoot for 15. Set a goal to exercise once or twice a week instead of every day if you’re just starting to work out. “Setting small goals will give you small successes that will motivate you to continue,” she explains. Also, you need to anticipate failure (like gaining a pound after you’ve lost two), so you don’t end up getting derailed.

5. Don’t get too hungry—or too sleep-deprived

Feeling famished lowers your willpower, according to Florida State University researchers who found that those who had low blood glucose levels from not eating performed worse on self-control tasks than those who were satiated. Same goes for those who sleep less than six hours a night. “They’re much more susceptible to giving in to cravings,” says McGonigal. “Sometimes the answer to getting more willpower is to just sleep a little more.” And be sure to eat every four hours during the day to keep your brain fueled with glucose.

6. Give it three weeks

Research suggests it takes about 21 days of following a new behavior—whether it’s going to the gym or avoiding alcohol—to establish those brain connections that make a new routine feel, well, old. “For some people it could be 21 days, for others 15, or for others 30,” says Kober, “but what’s clear is that the more often you practice a different activity, the more likely you are to repeat it.” You should also be aware that one slip-up doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Taking one drink after you’ve been sober for months, she adds, doesn’t automatically set the brain back into a pattern of alcoholism.

by USNews.com

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