Lifestyle choices can and do dramatically affect health. Beyond the yearly physical, men of all ages are beginning to look at their health from a preventive standpoint rather than a “fix-what’s-broken” mentality.
5 Steps to maintaining, improving and optimizing your health
1) A yearly physical is a good place to begin to assess health. Blood work can be telling of what is happening right now in the body. If your values are in the normal range and remain there year after year that is excellent. It is what you do in-between yearly physicals that will determine how healthy you remain.
2) Beyond the yearly physical, a thorough assessment of blood work is the next best step to maintaining or even improving your current health. An assessment of blood work based on optimal rather than normal values can shed some light on what to do over the course of the year to stay healthy or improve your current health.
3) Reviewing your diet to insure that you are getting adequate protein, vegetables and fruits each day is an essential component of health. Protein needs will vary with activity levels. Getting protein with each meal is a good starting point. Also eating 5-13 serving of vegetables and fruits each day for essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
4) Exercise is a large part of health. Building and maintaining muscle mass as well as getting cardiovascular or aerobic exercise each day will prevent many health problems.
5) Finally, the best way to stay healthy is to take action to prevent disease. Prevention includes preventing injuries by warming up before and after exercise, eating the appropriate foods to feed and fuel your body. Prevention is also about protecting your brain by keeping stress at a minimum as high cortisol levels correlate to decreased mental acuity and eating lots of fruits, vegetables & good fats that feed your brain. Prevention is also keeping vision at its best by eating fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants and nutrients that feed and repair the eyes. Finally Prevention is about your ability to digest the foods that you are eating. If you eat and have heartburn, indigestion, GERD, flatulence, belching, etc then you have a digestive problem and the foods that you are eating are not being digested, absorbed and used properly by your body. The best way to remedy faulty digestion is to drink plenty of water, drink water 30 minutes before meals, chew your food thoroughly (20 times or more before you swallow) and eat slowly. If you do all of the above and continue to have digestive difficulties, then a digestive enzyme such as Zypan will help your body digest properly.
