The Most Effective 7 Keys Of Healthy Eating (Key No 2) "Activity"

Balance Food You Eat with Physical Activity—Maintain or Improve Your Weigh:

The formula seems so simple: To maintain a healthful weight, the number of calories you eat must equal the number of calories you burn.
Yet, in recent years, the number of overweight American adults has jumped to one in three. At the same time, Americans spend $30 billion each year on diet plans, products, and potions.
Clearly, as a nation, our ability to achieve and maintain a healthful weight is out of whack. If you need to lose weight,

you’ll find specific advice in “Overweight,”
This section will help you determine whether your current weight is healthful. You’ll also learn the importance of physical activity for either maintaining or improving your weight and for its great health- enhancing benefits.
Benefits of  Staying in Balance :
Sure, you want to achieve a healthful weight to look good. But, keeping extra pounds at bay throughout your life positively impacts your health, too. Weight gain increases risk for several serious conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, gallstones, osteoarthritis, and some cancers.Because of these risks, a good philosophy is “don’t gain … maintain,” says obesity
expert Dr. St. Jeor.
If you are already overweight, there’s good news. Losing just 5 to 10 percent of your body weight—or about 12 pounds for someone who weighs 165 pounds—can help reduce your risk or improve your condition for health problems such as high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes, says Dr. St. Jeor.

Rating Your Weight :
So, how do you know whether your weight is healthful? Perhaps you’ve tried comparing the number on the scale to a numerical range on a weight chart. Scales and charts provide general guidelines. They don’t provide a complete picture of whether or not you’re at a healthful weight. The scale, for example, does not tell you how much of your weight is from unhealthy amounts of fat versus muscle, bone, or fluid.

The Activity Factor :
Physical activity helps keep your weight in balance by burning calories and revving up your metabolism so you continue to burn extra calories for up to several hours. Being

Can 150 calories really make much difference in your weight? You bet it can! Consuming a calorie excess of just 150 calories each day—the amount of calories in
one can of soda or a small bag of chips—can add up to a 15-pound weight gain in a year! On the flip side, achieving a daily deficit of 150 calories through extra physical activity or cutting back a bit on what you eat could mean you’ll be 15 pounds lighter this time next year!

active also promises an impressive array of health benefits, says Steve Farrell, Ph.D., associate director of the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, Texas. These benefits include strong bones, muscles, and joints, and reduced risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, colon cancer, and osteoporosis. And if that’s not enough, activity just plain makes you feel good by reducing feelings of depression and anxiety, and by promoting a sense of well-being.
With all that activity has to offer, you’d think we’d all be bounding out the door for a daily workout. Not so. The fact is, more than 60 percent of American adults aren’t physically active on a regular basis, and one in four adults isn’t active at all. What gives?
For starters, cars, computers, and remote controls. “We’re a sedentary society,” says Dr. Farrell. “We drive instead of walking, work at a computer or surf the Internet after school, and transform into TV couch potatoes by night.”
Many people avoid exercise because they still believe the old “no pain, no gain” exercise cry from the 1 980s. Forget all that

nonsense, says Dr. Farrell. A 1996 report from the U.S. Surgeon General says you can reap health benefits and burn extra calories from just a moderate amount of physical activity each day. And meeting this goal is easier than you may think.
Moderate activity is defined as any activity that burns about 150 calories a day, or 1,000 calories per week. “Moderate Amounts of Activity That Burn 150 Calories” on page 23 shows several options for fitting moderate physical activity into your day. For best results, choose a variety of activities that you enjoy and that fit easily into your lifestyle. (And hallelujah! Household chores such as raking leaves and washing windows count toward your total.