EATING AND DRINKING HEALTHY

The Basics

Your body needs the right vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients to stay healthy. A healthy diet means that you are eating:

• Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk products
• Seafood, poultry, lean meats, eggs, beans, peas, seeds, and nuts

Limit foods high in:

• Cholesterol, sodium (salt), and added sugars
• Trans fats – Trans fats may be in foods like cakes, cookies, stick margarines, and fried foods.
• Saturated fats – These fats come from animal products like cheese, fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.
• Refined grains – Food products with refined grains include white bread, noodles, white rice, and flour tortillas.

Take note that i'm saying "limit" and not "stop", you do need saturated fats, transfats, grains, etc for your body to receive the vitamins that it needs to function properly. However, too much consumption of these foods can be deadly for your health. Don't starve yourself, eat smart!

A healthy diet can keep your body strong and active.
By making smart food choices, you can help reduce your risk for:

• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Some cancers
• Bone loss

CHEERS!

It's also important to check the amount of alcohol you consume everyday. Nothing wrong with having a few drinks with friends, but too much alcohol intake could lead to more than a hangover or loss of brain cells!

Weight gain: Alcohol is not water. A beer has about 150 "empty" calories that provide few if any nutrients. High blood pressure. Along with being overweight, high blood pressure is associated with many serious health problems. Depressed immune system. Impaired immunity makes you more likely to contract viral illnesses such as flu and infections. 

Cancer: 2-4% of all cancer cases are related to alcohol. Upper digestive tract cancers are the most common, hitting the esophagus, mouth, larynx, and pharynx. Women who drink prior to menopause are more likely to develop breast cancer. Your risk of skin cancer doubles if you drink slightly more than "moderate levels." Some studies implicate alcohol in colon, stomach, pancreas and lung cancer. And let's not forget the liver... 

Liver disease: Heavy drinking can cause fatty liver, hepatitis, cirrhosis and cancer of the liver. The liver breaks down alcohol at the rate of only one drink per hour. 

Alcohol poisoning: Drinking large amounts can result in alcohol poisoning, which causes unconsciousness and even death. Breathing slows, and the skin becomes cold and may look blue. Don't let a person in this condition "sleep it off." Call 911. '

Heart or respiratory failure: Excessive drinking can have serious results. Heart or respiratory failure often means death.

I'm not saying stop drinking, coz we all know that's not going to happen, so instead im saying drink responsibly...drink smart!

GOOD DRINKING

Try to  increase your consumption of natural juices such as orange, apple, carrot, etc as these would give you a lot of vitamins that are good for you skin, bones, eyes, etc. I don't mean buying flavored drinks, i mean the REAL STUFF!

You can personally visit http://healthfinder.gov for more information :)