Have you ever thought that about the secrets to a longer and healthier life? We give you here two secrets to help you live a longer and healthier life.

For a longer and healthier life, a good diet and regular exercise are the only secrets. Though only cutting back on calories or only exercising helps, a combination of both will benefit you many times over. Either one has their own set of health benefits. If you do both simultaneously, just imagine the benefits. Exercise burns calories, lowers stress, and strengthens the body. But it can’t do much about what you eat. If you are stuffing yourself with unhealthy foods, exercise can only help to a point, not beyond that. Thus, exercise and diet go hand-in-hand. Both will help you keep the weight gain and most health complications at bay.

Diet doesn’t mean you have to start starving yourself or dive into a crash diet. When we talk about diet, we mean a permanent healthy change. Not a temporary change for short term benefits. According to www.dictionary.com the origin of the word “Diet” is based on the Latin word ‘Diaeta’ meaning “a manner of living; a way of life”. A good diet is a lifestyle change that promotes good health in the long term. A good diet must include several food groups because one single group cannot provide everything the body needs for good health.

Exercise performs an action to restore or enhance one’s health. Our body’s physiology requires exercise to maintain both the physical and hormonal balance. Internally it increases lung capacity and strengthens the heart muscles.

A successful fitness plan should be able to offer you flexibility as well as a structured routine to compliment your fitness level. This should be the key to keep you motivated. Your goal should be fitness and not simply weight loss because the main incentive to lose weight is to be healthy. Going after only weight loss might deprive you of key elements like exercise and nutrition that might make you look thin, but not necessarily fit and healthy internally.

Make a healthy diet and regular exercise a permanent part of your lifestyle, to benefit from it in the long term.