Do you know that a healthy lifestyle is as important as the dreams we hold dear? Do you want to achieve more in your professional, social, psychological, as well as in other spheres of life? Yes? Then, read on and find out suitable ways to thrive while leveraging on a healthy lifestyle.

The key factor for healthy living is planning. Why? Because eating balanced meals require adequate planning. Food ingredients are supposed to be readily available, so as not fall into the temptation of eating junk. Moreover, in planning one is able to improvise meals based on the season or monetary circumstance. For instance, a person had plans on eating the following meals tomorrow:

Breakfast – Toasted bread with sardine and tea/yoghurt

Lunch – Semovita and okro soup with red/white meat

– Jollof spaghetti with boiled/fried egg

If this person plans ahead for meals, the chances of actually getting to eat these meals will be greater.

A meal plan consisting of typical Nigerian meals sourced from the Internet.

Planning helps one to eat a balanced meal every time. It seems to be popular culture in Nigeria not to eat balanced diets. Our excuses range from lack of time to lack of money for such ‘elaborate’ meals. Funny enough, planning meals ahead of time solves 95% of the many health crisis ravaging individuals worldwide. This is because people tend to eat whatever comes their way when hungry without considering the benefits or side effect.

•Opting for a balanced, adequate and varied diet is an important step towards a happy and healthy lifestyle.

•Vitamins and minerals in the diet are vital to boost immunity and healthy development,

•A healthy diet can protect the human body against certain types of diseases, particularly non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, some types of cancer and skeletal conditions.

•Healthy diets can also contribute to an adequate body weight.

•Healthy eating is a good opportunity to enrich life by experimenting with different foods from different cultures, origins and different preparation methods.

•The benefits of eating a wide variety of foods are also emotional, as variety and colour are important ingredients of a balance diet.

A balanced diet provides all of the following:

• Energy you need to keep active throughout the day
• Nutrients you need for growth and repair,
• Helps you to stay strong and healthy and helps to prevent diet-related illnesses such as some cancers
• Helps you to maintain a healthy weight.

***To be continued

** This article was contributed by Elochukwu Emeasoba, a DHI volunteer.