Live life healthy or just live happy?

By Yahoo! SHE Staff | Yahoo! SHE

It’s not possible to live happy if you’re not healthy. However, there are some people who have equated healthy living with an agonizing life where one eats nothing but oat bran and vegetables. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—if that’s what makes you happy. But if it isn’t, then it’s baffling why you would associate healthy living with that scenario alone.

You have to understand that a healthy life is not exactly a life of deprivation. It only seems that way because—at least in this aspect of our lives—most of us acquire bad habits first before we learn good ones. We learn to enjoy fastfood before we’re told that we’d be candidates for heart attacks if we ate it everyday. We get hooked on the taste of fried food before we find out that feasting on greasy stuff would make us pile on unwanted pounds. We enjoy junk food before we’re told that they’re not really good for us.

It can’t be denied that fried food and chips taste good. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be craving for them in the first place. But while they may transport us to grease heaven or processed food nirvana each time we munch on them, we have to understand that our bodies will give up on us if they’re all we eat. We all know is. It’s not rocket science.

We admire people who’ve pledged to live healthy lives in every way. They exercise, they only eat organic produce, and they’ve quit junk food. In a perfect world, we’d all have their will to reject all unhealthy temptation. However, this isn’t a perfect world. It’s good to aim for perfection—but it’s best to get real and do commit to a game plan that you can keep up with.

That being said, the general rule is for you to put limitations on—as well as checks and balances for—your so-called bad habits. If you must have fastfood, decide that you would only have twice a week at most. If you like fried food, make sure you only have it every other day. If you crave for junk food, enjoy it only once a week. In addition to eating more fruits and vegetables, you have to get moving. It’s nice to sit back and relax—but being healthy requires “sweat equity” as well. You have to work for it. Walking for an hour each day is a good way to start.

Bottom line: Living healthy doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve signed up for punishment. It only means that you have to be better at controlling your cravings for things that are bad for you. Now, shouldn’t that make you happy?


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