Essay Example on Achieving Healthy Living: Exercise & Healthy Eating

A healthy lifestyle is every person's dream. However, for one to have a healthy life, they must do regular exercise and regulate the number of calories they take depending on their needs. Exercising regularly, always go hand in hand with eating healthy. There is a need for people to combine the use of physical activities and healthy eating to achieve fitness and a healthy lifestyle. The purpose of exercising is to reduce weight, maintain the desired body weight, and even add weight if it is below the required standard. A healthy lifestyle requires mental preparation and to be able to appreciate the importance of healthy living. Maintaining a healthy life is not easy, but it is worth every bit, and it does not have negative impacts when done right.

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Exercising has both short-term and long-term benefits to the human body. Short term benefits are instant, and they include better sleeping, energizing the body and mind, blood diversion, the anticipatory response, among others. Exercising improves the sleeping cycle, and even though it is not scientifically proven how, but exercising helps with brain rejuvenation, therefore, enhances sleep. Physical activities also energize the body and mind. The first few days may be tiring, but after a few exercising days, the body gets used to it and therefore boosts the body's energy. Another short-term benefit of exercising involves blood diversion. When one is at rest, the heart pumps blood to organs in the digestive system. However, the muscles need blood too, and that is where exercising comes in. It leads to faster heart rates that facilitate pumping of blood to the skeletal muscles; therefore, oxygenated blood gets to the muscles and the entire body efficiently. The human body also experiences anticipatory responses because the mind triggers the body even before the exercising begins.

There are also long-term benefits associated with exercising. They include maintaining desirable weight, improvement of mental keenness, reduce depression and anxiety, improve the general quality of life reduces blood pressure to the standard required, increase the chance of living longer, among many other benefits. Exercising controls the body and helps in achieving the desired body weight due to the burning of calories through the activities. A person can also use exercises to maintain body weight and balance it with calorie intake. Physical activities improve the ability of the mind to stay keen and focus due to improvement in mental strength. When a person exercises, the brain produces endorphins, which are hormones that help in positive thinking facilitating a reduction in stress level and therefore combating depression and anxiety. Exercising improve the body function, including blood circulation, thus more comfortable to do day to day activities resulting in a better life. Improved body functions also reduce the chances of getting diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, among others. These improvements translate to a healthy life, therefore, increasing the chances of living longer. An increased level of exercise reduces the risk of dying by about 20%-35% among men and women (Warburton et al., 2006).

There is no such as a healthy lifestyle without healthy eating. A healthy life needs both the combination of exercising and eating well. If a person exercises regularly but does not practice healthy eating, he/she is doing nothing. A healthy diet is essential to both gender and also age. Research shows that following a healthy diet reduces the chances of getting cardiovascular diseases by 80% in both genders but especially in women in the world (Skerrett & Willett, 2010). People should be mindful of what they eat and how they eat. Some of the benefits on conscience diet include: firstly, is controlling calorie intake and therefore maintaining a healthy body. Secondly, it reduces depression and anxiety, bad eating habits, and food cravings that can be detrimental to the body. Finally, it improves overall health by reducing the chances of getting cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Different physical activities require different amounts of calories. Intense exercises will require a higher uptake of calories since the body is capable of using a lot of energy, which translates to the calories required.

Conclusion

In conclusion, exercising and healthy eating is the key to wellness and a healthy lifestyle. Exercising has several benefits ranging from short-term to long term and, when combined with the benefits of a healthy and conscience diet, will lead to a healthy life. Everyone must realize that for a healthy world, each one and every person has to put in practice exercising and healthy eating.

References

Skerrett, P. J., & Willett, W. C. (2010). Essentials of healthy eating: a guide. Journal ofMidwifery & Women's Health, 55(6), 492-501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmwh.2010.06.019

Warburton, D. E., Nicol, C. W., & Bredin, S. S. (2006). Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association journal = Journal De L'Association Medicale Canadienne, 174(6), 801-809. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.051351