How do I ensure that I follow the right diet for a healthy life?

Across the board if you want to live a long, healthy life is don't smoke. Smoking is the single most dangerous thing that you can do to your body.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

How do I ensure that I follow the right diet for a healthy life? Well, we've learned a lot over the last 20 years about lifestyle that contributes to health and living along,

healthy life. Number one on that list across the board if you want to live a long, healthy life is don't smoke. Smoking is the single most dangerous thing

that you can do to your body for shortening your life expectancy and increasing your risk for a host of things,

including heart disease and cancer. So not smoking should be at the top of the list. As far as dietary intervention goes,

eat more fruits and vegetables. We know that the people who live the longest eat 5 to 7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

The good news is that a serving of vegetables cooked is about a half a cup and raw is about a whole cup.

So it's not as bad as it sounds. But it's very important to try to get 5 to 7 servings in a day.

One of my personal recommendations I think is very important and really helps people is to try to eat more natural food. When you're shopping in the grocery

store if you can stick with produce fruits and vegetables that you find in the produce section and real whole natural foods, eggs, fish, poultry, things

that you find on the outside of a grocery store typically. Again, in the dairy section, the low fat dairy is recommended.

Those things are real. They're real food. And they're not processed. And I think it's the lack of processing.

The fact that they're natural really makes them better for you. A processed food, something to avoid. A large portion of the food that we buy in the grocery store

are made by huge companies and factories. And there's not a whole lot of natural food in them if any. And many of these products the more highly processed

our food is, you increase the amount of chemicals you add and food coloring you add. And it really is turning out-- there's

a lot of scientists and physicians in medicine who are starting to realize that the high amounts of processed

foods are certainly not good for us and probably may eventually turn out to be linked to serious health conditions

that we're bringing upon ourselves by eating these foods. We need to eat more fiber. So fiber is something that if you

have the adequate recommended amount of fiber every day you're going to lower your risk for heart attack in both men and women. And that's really important.

So try to eat foods high in fiber. Limit red meat consumption. There's some confusion here. A lot of people--

there's some debate. Does red meat cause heart disease? Does it contribute to heart disease? My recommendation comes from the fact that people that eat more than three servings a week

of red meat increase their risk of colon cancer significantly. And this is true throughout the world if you look at populations.

So just a safe recommendation, try to limit your amount of red meat consumption. Twice a week is probably as much as you want to do.

And that should hopefully help lower your risk for colon cancer. Eating a handful of nuts a day is a very healthy thing

to do possibly due to the omega 3s that are found in some nuts. It's a small amount. But for some reason, people that eat a handful of nuts a day

live longer than people who don't eat nuts. The same thing is true for fish. Again, eating fish twice a week. People that eat fish twice a week

have lowered their risk for having serious health conditions. They for some reason live a little bit

longer than people who don't eat fish. We think it's the omega 3 fatty acids, the fish oil that you hear so much about.

But for whatever reason fish is a healthy thing to eat on a regular basis. Like I said, I recommend twice a week.

If you're not getting fish twice a week in your diet, it's a good idea to take a good fish oil supplement.

And don't forget to exercise. Exercise, although it's not part of the diet for a healthy life, it's part of a good plan for a healthy life.

So like not smoking, getting regular exercise every day is extremely good for you.

Will help you live a longer, more active, healthy life. [AUDIO LOGO]