I believe many people, especially young adults equivocate eating healthy food and working out, to just keeping your body looking good or in order to lose weight. While this may give one motivation to go to the gym, there is much more to eating healthy and exercising. Maintaining a healthy weight is not just for superficial reasons, being overweight often can lead to many health problems and unhappiness.
While of course we all love our potatoes chips and cookies, which are fine to eat here and there, it is important not to over do it. We need to keep in mind the food pyramid, which we were all taught in health class. Maintaining a healthy life style is important and it starts from a young age. Your eating habits often follow you from childhood into adulthood. I, for one, always say, "I'm young, my metabolism is fast, I can eat whatever I want. I will care about it when I'm older and start to get a beer belly," but that is the wrong mentality.
But that is why I am going to try and change my idea of this and yours. I am going to take you back to health class and remind us why we eat healthy and why we exercise.
1) Maintaining a healthy weight
It has been found that approx. 33.8% of the U.S. population is obese. There can be many possible explanation for this. Eating healthy can be expensive and might take a little extra time to make a dinner then to go out and get McDonalds or pizza for the family. Along with this, some people might not be educated in how to eat healthy or how to be productive in your workouts. Any physical activity is better then sitting on the couch and watching T.V. Being educated on proper nutrition is needed daily, it is important to take into consideration the person's age, sex, and the amount of exercise someone does daily. There are many websites such as https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/ that allow you to track your calorie intake. It measures the right amount of calories based on your gender age and how much physical activity you do on a daily bases.
2) Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes
Children at a young age who do not follow the proper diet and who are often overweight are increasingly being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. That is why children at a young age need to be taught how to eat properly so they do not have to fight a lifetime of battling this disease and constantly having to check their blood sugar.
3) Healthy = Happy
I believe being healthy and living a healthy life style definitely brings one happiness in life. Research has shown that by eating healthy and doing some sort of physical activity can actually make a person happier. I don't know about you, but I feel amazing after I have had a nice, hard work out. Pain is temporary as they say, while it might be hard to push through a work out, you know it's going to feel great after it's done. According to the Mayo Clinic, "physical activity stimulates brain chemicals that often leave you feeling both happier and more relaxed." Snacking on the couch will only make you feel gross and lazy.
4) Who needs coffee when you have exercise
Okay you can still drink your cup of coffee in the morning, but it has been shown that with a proper diet one feels more energized to conquer the day. Food commas are real. We all know the feeling after you've just indulged in McDonald's or Taco Bell. In the moment while engulfing that delicious Big Mac, you know you it's only a matter of time until you crash.
5) Life expectancy increases
Research has shown that working out adds years to your life. Come on, who doesn't want to live to they're 106 and see their grandchildren, or even great grand children, grow up.
Overall, I am not trying to be one of those crazy health freaks, but it's good to keep track of what you are eating and exercising when you can. Let's make Americans healthy again.
