Healthy Living Guide

There's really no secret to staying fit and being healthy. It doesn't cost anything extra. There are no pills to take or equipment to buy. In fact, it's so simple that the Fitness and Nutrition Industry will do whatever they can to make hide the truth.

It's a smart diet and regular exercise. And it's free.

But what is a smart diet? Do I need to subscribe to a special fad - eat only brussel sprouts for a week? No. It's actually published by the USDA and the HHS. It's so easy to follow that almost everything you eat has a nutritional label that maps right to the recommendations.

The hardest part is collecting the data from what you eat and how much you exercise to track your progress. At least that used to be the hardest part. Now, there's an app for that. Actually a lot of them.

You'll need two different types of Apps or trackers.

1. A Food Tracker: Lose It! and myfitnesspal are the two most popular. Lose It! is easier to use. myfitnesspal has more food items in it. But they are both good. All you do is record what you eat - and it maps it against the USDA guidelines so you can see if you've had too much fat - or not enough protein.
2. A Fitness Tracker: This may already come bundled with your phone. the iPhone 6 and newer Android models have it built in. Just turn on the app (iHealth or Google Fit) and it will start tracking your steps and activity. The downside of those two are that they are rather under-featured. I prefer the FitBit. They have a bunch of models, a robust community, a great app - and you wear them on your wrist.

Dave Hampton