4 Components of a Healthy Lifestyle

 

The four basic components of optimal health are outlined below.

1. MOVE WELL

Our bodies have an amazing ability to protect us from injury by making changes to our movement patterns. Take something as basic as spraining your ankle. We've all done it, but what happens right after? You limp. That's your body's way of limiting movement sure you don't injure it further. That is a helpful adjustment to make for the short term, but when we have a chronic nagging ailment like low back pain, shoulder pain or knee trouble, we often develop new "protective" movement patterns that are much more ingrained. That's why it's important to have a health professional screen your movement patterns before you start an exercise program.

I start all my clients off with a Functional Movement Screen (an assessment used by most professional sports teams, the military, fire and police personnel). I do this so I can identify and address:

limitationsasymmetriescompensations

... all of which can wear down your body and lead to pain and injury.

2. MOVE OFTEN

Adopt a regular exercise program to get all the benefits that go along with exercising regularly, such as:

improved strength and staminahigher levels of energyimproved immune systemreduced risk of many diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and many forms of cancer

Not everyone needs to see a trainer 3 times per week, but if you spend most of your time sitting down all day, you definitely need to offset those hours of inactivity by taking part in some type of exercise activity or program.

3. EAT WELL

You already know this, I don't need to tell you how important it is to eat a diet with many vegetables, fiber, and lean protein. But do you know what foods are best for your body type and your goals? Instead of counting calories and measuring the number of carbs you eat each meal, try following a few basic principles that are easy to adopt. Fad diets aren't the answer here - they leave you feeling deprived and won't serve as a good long term solution. Learn the effects different foods have on your body. Eating the right foods at the right times can not only optimize your metabolism and hormonal response, it can also leave you feeling satisfied and full! Try adopting these principles, one at a time. Pick the easiest one first, once it's a habit, move on to the next easiest.

Eat every 2 - 4 hoursEat a serving or 2 of lean protein with every mealEat at least 2 servings of vegetables at every mealLimit carbohydrates to post workout mealsBalance your fat intake (saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated)

4. EAT OFTEN

Starving yourself actually slows down your metabolism and causes you to store more fat. Eating the RIGHT FOODS in the RIGHT QUANTITY at RIGHT TIMES can actually speed up your metabolism, reduce the amount of fat your body stores, and can increase the amount of fuel that goes to build calorie burning muscles.

This may have been a review for many of you, but now it's time to put it into practice! Here's to a healthy 2013!

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