A healthy, balanced diet is an important factor in maintaining your body's health.  Extreme dieting is never recommended, nor are diets that rely heavily on only certain foods.  Increasing your daily intake of vegetables and fruits will not only result in increased nutrition, it will also make you feel more full and likely reduce your intake of fats and excess calories.  Read nutrition labels on packages to be sure the foods you eat do not contain excessive amounts of fats (particularly saturated fats), sodium or sugar.  Vitamin supplements can help make up for some gaps in one's diet (i.e. consider calcium supplements if your diet is low in calcium), but vitamins and minerals absorbed through foods are always best.

 

Suggested useful nutrition-related websites:

 

Harvard School of Public Health - this site created by the Harvard School of Public Health provides an excellent resource on helping you select healthier foods and the latest news on findings in the field of nutrition.

 

NutritionData - this helpful website offers a variety of nutrition advice, including a calculator to help estimate your recommended calorie intake based on your sex, age, and height.  It also provides calorie information on popular foods from fast food chains, tips on healthy weight loss, recipes and more.

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Maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly is the key to good health. Regular exercise can also reduce your risk of:

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• Heart disease

• Stroke

• High blood pressure

• Unhealthy cholesterol levels

• Type 2 diabetes

• Metabolic syndrome

• Colon cancer

• Breast cancer

• Falls

• Depression

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It is important to try and find a way to incorporate regular exercise into your daily schedule, whether this means parking further away from your office and/or using the stairs; or including your children in physical activities for busy moms or finding at-home exercise options.  Finding an exercise buddy often helps increase motivation and makes exercising a more social activity.  In addition, if you don't belong to a gym, find other indoor exercise options for bad weather, such as walking around the mall or fitness videos at home