Health and fitness are often inseparable. While some people can be out of shape, staying fit is often one of the prerequisites of staying healthy. Eating a healthy diet and exercising daily can help you accomplish both tasks.
When our great-great-great-grandparents were young, there were few of the modern medicines known today. There were also far fewer conveniences of today’s modern world. Simply doing their often required more daily exercise than most Americans alive today gets in a year. While they often succumbed to diseases such as infection and those we conquered long ago with modern medicine, because of their labors, their level of physical fitness lasted well into their senior years.
Our ancestors not only didn’t have the advantages for the health and fitness of medicine, but they also had limited selections of food compared to those found in the market today. You can go into almost any market across the country and find exotic, out of season fruits and vegetables. While the price is often slightly higher than the locally grown produce, it’s often within reason for most people’s budgets.
We are lucky for all the opportunities to maintain our health and fitness today, but most people don’t take advantage of every opportunity available. Entertainment has changed from physical activities such as swimming and surfing on the weekend to surfing the web. The only parts of the body exercised, in that case, are the eyes and the fingers.
The availability of healthy food hasn’t made a dent in the health and fitness of the US. The reason is the empty calories fast diet that most Americans follow today. While the waistlines for Americans are growing, their physical well-being is getting worse. A constant diet of fast foods and empty calories are clogging the arteries and stealing the health of Americans nationwide. The epidemic is preventable, but most people don’t practice the necessary eating and exercising habits to do that. They continue to stuff their bodies with foods high in fat and low in nutrition.
There are easy options for health and fitness. Eating at a fast-food restaurant is convenient and often the only way most people can get a meal during the day. Making the right selection of foods at the restaurant can make a difference between a healthy life and one fraught with illness and physical problems.
Most fast-food restaurants now offer healthy selections such as fruit or salads. Simply changing from a burger and fries daily to a fresh salad each day can make you far healthier. It will lower your caloric intake and provide phytonutrients, nutrients from plants, often missing in our daily diet.
You can make other simple changes in your quest for health and fitness. When parking in a store lot, don’t circle the lot until you find a parking spot next to the door. If the lot is crowded and the weather is nice, park in the first available spot and walk. You’ll save both gas and increase your exercise. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. If you work on the 44th floor, that might be quite a climb if you’re not in shape. Take the elevator to the 42nd floor and the stairs for the last two floors, until you’re ready to increase your floor count. You can make simple changes in your life to increase your health and fitness.