Overview
The most effective ways of preventing a wide range of health problems and of promoting general good health, enhancing physical, mental and emotional well-being are the most basic ways. These include the kind and amount of food you eat and the amount of physical activity you get.
 Why Exercise?
Maintaining body weight within an average range for your height is probably the single most important aspect of feeling good and looking healthy, as most gay men already know! Next to regulating the number of total calories you eat, physical activity is the most important method of maintaining a healthy weight. Now, “exercise” doesn’t mean living in the gym 24/7 because any physical activity like sports, lifting weights, running or even walking that moves your muscles and raises your heart rate for 15 minutes 3 or so times a week qualifies as “exercise”. Any regular physical activity performed a few times a week will give you most, if not all, of the health benefits of much heavier workouts. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and this applies to too much exercise too.
Obesity is rapidly becoming the Number 1 health problem in the U.S ahead of heart disease and cancer. More than 50% of Americans are now overweight, one-third are medically obese and we are getting fatter and fatter as a Nation all the time. Even being overweight by 10 to 15 pounds dramatically increases rates of cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, cancer and other serious health conditions, so kudos to you gay men out there who are trying to lose that last 10 pounds! So important is regular exercise that it even has effects separate from overall weight. Recent studies have shown that the death rate of diabetics in the U.S. who do not exercise is seven times higher than diabetics who do exercise regularly regardless of how much they weigh. That is a 700% higher death rate for those who do not exercise!
Apart from the enormous benefits of weight control that exercise provides, in a world where most of our work and play time is spent sitting in front of a TV or computer monitor, being physically active has many other health benefits. Studies show that moderate, regular exercise improves circulation and muscle tone (including heart muscle), it improves metabolism of food, improves insulin and thyroid function and increases production of feel-good pheromones and essential hormones like testosterone that helps us feel healthy, energetic and sexy. Exercise definitely increases an all around sense of health and well-being that always shows to attract the men you want to attract. As with all complementary therapies, any major change in the physical activity you engage in should be checked out with your doctor beforehand.
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 Diet and Nutrition
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What are the essentials of diet and nutrition?
The most fundamental way of getting and keeping good health is by eating a well-balanced diet with enough calories to support your individual-level of activity. Given your body’s basic energy level, regardless of the dietary habits you have or the special diets you may be on, if too little is eaten you will lack energy and lose weight. If you eat too much you will gain weight and become obese over a period of time. Even a few hundred extra calories a day eaten over a period of 5 or 10 years can had 10 to 50 pounds of extra fat.
There are innumerable food fads and special diets that may or may not work for you to balance your food intake and metabolism. As with all alternative or complementary therapies to improve health, dietary and nutritional changes should always be discussed with a dietician or your health care professional. There are many fad therapies like macrobiotic diets, fasting, vegetarianism, taking high doses of wheatgrass, omega-3 fatty acids, garlic, kombucha tea, lycopenes or grape seeds. Not only may these diets and supplements not work for you but they could actually be harmful to your health. The benefits of many dietary and nutritional supplements have been shown to be substantial, but as with most herbal medications, should be used with caution in consultation with health professionals as a complementary therapy and never as a substitute for a well-balanced, nutritional diet.
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