Develop Three Healthy Habits to Live a Long Life

There has never been a time in all of human history where you could live longer and live better than you can today. Incredible advances in pharmaceuticals and medicine and health care enable people to overcome disease and illness and continue to thrive well into the 70s and 80s and even 90s. Perhaps the largest demographic group in America today is people who are 90 and 100 years old or more. And your job is to join this group and to be fit and healthy all the days of your life. For almost the entire history of the human race, longevity was a matter of accident or coincidence. Today, longevity is a matter of design and choice. You can actually decide today to enjoy superb levels of physical health. And by developing specific health habits, you can assure that you live longer and live better than has been possible for any other generation and in human history. The first habit for you to develop is the habit of achieving and maintaining your proper weight. More than 60% of adult Americans today are officially classed as overweight, and half of those are obese, which means 20% or more above their ideal weight. This means that they are, based on height and weight charge, really, really fat. Even worse, there are many millions who are officially classified as morbidly obese. Morbidly obese means that they are 40 and 50% above their ideal weights. They are in danger of dying from being so overweight. Everything you are or ever will be is a result of your own choices and decisions. If you want to change some aspect of your life, you have to make new choices and better decisions, and then you must discipline yourself to follow through on your decisions. Being overweight is very much a matter of choice. No one can eat for you but yourself. No one can put the food into your mouth for you. You only eat as the result of your own decisions and your own actions. Anyone who is overweight is in that condition because they have been unable to restrain themselves in the presence of food for a long time. I had a good friend who dropped about 30 or 40 pounds, and when I saw him, I said, geez, you've lost a lot of weight. He said, yeah, I made an amazing discovery. I said, what was that? He said, I found I never gained weight from anything I didn't eat, and all the weight just fell off. The only way to achieve your proper weight is to develop the habit of eating less and exercising more each day and each week. It's basically calories in, calories out. If you want to lose weight, you've got to burn more calories than you take in. But just as it takes you months and even years to become Overweight, it takes you many months to get rid of the weight. Once you make that decision, don't look upon weight loss as a one or two or three month deal. Look upon it as a one or two or three year lifestyle change decision. You see, it's not easy to lose weight. You it's because you've developed these automatic habits of eating that are so hard to break. You get into a rhythm of eating certain foods and certain quantities of foods morning, noon and night. You become accustomed, habituated to eating snacks between meals and overeating in the evening. Now, it's not easy to break these habits, but it is definitely possible and this is your goal. The second habit you need to develop for a long life full of health and fitness is the habit of eating a proper diet. You have to develop the habit of eating the right foods in the right proportions at the right times and make it a lifelong commitment. Everyone knows that they should eat a more balanced diet containing more fruits, more vegetables, whole grain products, and so on. You've probably heard this a thousand times. In addition to this basic principle, there are several other things that you can do to modify your diet and develop the habits of good nutrition, which will lead to a combination of weight loss and higher levels of energy and fitness. At the same time, in addition to eating a peak performance diet to achieve rapid weight loss and improved functioning, you should develop the habit of eliminating the three white bright poisons from your diet. These white poisons are salt, sugar and flour. This change in your diet is so simple and yet so powerful that every one of my students who tries it is absolutely amazed at how quickly they get noticeable result. The weight just literally falls off when you stop adding salt of any kind to your diet. Stop consuming sugar based products of any kind, candy, desserts, soft drinks, and so on. And don't eat anything with white flour, including pasta, bread, rolls, bagels, donuts, cake or anything else. Those three white poisons will cause you if you stop to lose about a pound a day until you get back to your normal weight. The third habit you need to develop is the habit of effective exercise. Many people stop exercising in their late teens and early twenties. Even people who are active in sports when they were growing up. However, the human body, made up of 610 muscles, is meant to be exercised regularly throughout your life. You need to develop the habit of articulating and moving every joint in your body every single day. This keeps your muscles and joints agile and flexible. Regular exercise assures that you have greater balance and mobility. It helps to diminish the likelihood of muscle or joint pain or problems, especially later in life. Develop the habit of exercising 200 minutes each week. If all you did were to go for a walk, preferably a brisk walk, 30 minutes a day, seven days a week, you'd be one of the fittest people in our society. If you disciplined yourself to ride an exercise bicycle or work out on a treadmill, or swim or jog or engage in any aerobic exercises that get your lungs and heart pumping and you'll dramatically improve your levels of health and energy in a short period of time. The next habit that you need for superb all around health is the habit of proper rest. You need seven to eight hours of sleep each night for optimal performance. If you get less than six to seven hours of sleep per night and you continue to work as hard as you normally do at your job, you'll eventually develop what they call a sleep deficiency. Now you can change the way you feel about yourself and your performance in your work and personal life by simply developing the habit of going to bed early by, say 10 o' clock each night and getting a good night's sleep every night of the week. I have friends who've gone through my coaching program who've increased their sleep from five and a half to six hours to eight and they've lost 10 or 20 pounds. Their mind has cleared the they've got vastly more done at work. They've become more creative. It's the most amazing darn thing when you start to get lots of rest. So thanks for taking the time to listen. I hope you found these ideas helpful. Please Visit me at www.briantracy.com MyNewsLetters and sign up for my free weekly newsletters and let me send you my Goal Setting Guide which will get you on track to make next year the best year of your life.