80 Percent of All Deaths Are Lifestyle Related

This is the statistic that gets me up and going in the morning. Simply stated, we have a say in determining whether or not we are going to get one of the aforementioned diseases. All we have to do is live a healthier lifestyle than we have been living. And even a little bit helps. Just adding a regular walk to your daily routine will add several years (healthier years) to your life. Cut a little sugar, do a few push ups, it all adds up.

These are the major lifestyle factors that take healthy years off our lives:

• Smoking
• Obesity and Sedentarism
• Drinking Heavily
• Chronic Stress

The key is to make as many small changes as we can to get the greatest effect. Swapping marathons for couch time would be a definite improvement, but if we are still doing the other bad things, we really won’t get the results we are hoping for. In fact, being a chain-smoking ultra-marathoner might actually take years off our lives.

But just quitting smoking, cutting back on our drinking, getting a decent amount of activity every day, eating proper diet, and maintaining a healthy weight will give us all the results we desire. But whatever changes we decide to make, we need to start making them today.

“The best time to start was twenty years ago, the second best time is today.”

So, we can continue down the path we might currently find ourselves on, or we can make fundamental changes to our lifestyle. Do we want to be in the 80% group that will face multiple health afflictions and be “lucky” to reach their 60’s or 70’s, or do we want to be in the 20% group that will enjoy a healthy, strong, and fit lifestyle well into their 80’s, 90’s, and beyond? The choice is ours.