Seven Tips to a Healthy You

If it's optimum health you want. Follow these rules and go for it!

1. Lose weight if you need to.

Make this a huge health priority. Every extra pound puts you at a greater risk of cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis.

2. Do not sit around.

Get 45 minutes of activity a day if you are trying to lose weight or keep it off - and that includes just about every adult.

3. Eat tons of fruits and vegetables.

We wish we could go to a cancer research conference and see all the scientists with lunch platesHealthy diet suggestioneaped with vegetables and fruits. Eat nine servings a day - it's easier than you think!

4. Get more good fats.

That means monounsaturated fats in olive oil, nuts, and peanut butter, and omega- 3 fats in canola oil, flaxseed, and fatty fish such as salmon. Avoid saturated fat (as in cheeseburgers!).

5. Cut way back on sugar.

Every day, we eat an average of 21 teaspoons of added sugars. For starters, trade your soft drinks for iced tea, plain or sweetened with just a touch of honey.

6. Switch to whole grains now - just do it!

Evidence is mounting that we're eating far too much refined starch (white flour foods) for our own good. For example, women who eat mostly "white bread" diets have more breast cancer and diabetes.

7. If you drink alcohol, drink only a little.

You know the rule about one drink a day for women, two drinks for men? Even that may be too much. A study of more than 40,000 qdults found that people with lowest risk of dying were women who averaged less than one drink a day and men who averaged less than two drinks a day.