GOOD health isn’t just about healthy eating and exercise – it also includes having a positive mental health, healthy self-image and a healthy lifestyle.
February is Healthy Lifestyle Awareness Month and promotes good nutrition and regular physical activity, encouraging South Africans to make healthy lifestyle choices.
Here are 10 tips to get you started on the journey to a healthy life:

1. Drink more water.

Most of us actually don’t drink enough water every day. Water is essential for our body to function – Do you know over 60% of our body is made up of water? Water is needed to carry out our body functions, remove waste and carry nutrients and oxygen around our body. Since we lose water every day through urine, bowel movements, perspiration and breathing, we need to replenish our water intake.

2. Get enough sleep.

When you don’t rest well, you compensate by eating more. Get enough rest and you don’t need to snack to stay awake. Also, lack of sleep causes premature aging, and you wouldn’t want that.

3. Exercise.

Not just a few times a week, but every day. Movement is life. Research has shown that exercising daily brings tremendous benefits to our health, including increase of life span, lowering of risk of diseases, higher bone density and weight loss.

4. Eat more fruit.

Fruit are a plethora of vitamins and minerals. Do you know that oranges offer more health benefits than Vitamin C pills? Taking in synthetic supplements are not the same as consuming the food direct from nature. Fill your palate with these 10 most nutritious fruit: watermelon, apricots, avocado, apple, cantaloupe, grapefruit, kiwi, guava, papaya and strawberries.

5. Eat more vegetables.

Like fruits, vegetables are important for the well being of our health. Experts suggest that we should have 5-9 servings of fruits/vegetables, and unfortunately most people don’t even have at least 5 servings!

6. Pick bright colored foods.

Fruit and vegetables with bright colours are usually high in anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants are good for health because they remove free radicals in our body that damage our cells.

7. Purge negative people from your life.

Positive mental health is an important part of a healthy life.

8. Improve your posture.

Good posture improves your breathing and makes you look more smarter and more attractive.

9. Say no to oily food.

Reduce your intake of fast food, fries, doughnuts, chips, wedges, and foods that have been deep fried. Not only are they very fattening (1 tablespoon of oil is 120 calories), deep fried food contains acrylamide, a potential cancer-causing chemical.

10. Stop smoking.

It has been extensively proven that smoking is detrimental to health, severely increasing the risk of lung cancer, kidney cancer, esophageal cancer (of our gullet), heart attacks, and more.