We all have probably heard this absurd objection to a living a healthy lifestyle, “I don’t want to live a long life anyway”. To many people the thought of living a long life is frightening when so many others are seen to be suffering and miserable having to live for years or even decades with chronic incurable disease.

Despite spending trillions of dollars each year on drugs, doctor visits, hospitalizations, and other dangerous procedures, the health of people around the world continues to deteriorate year after year.  More people are suffering with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, depression, arthritis and other serious conditions than ever before in history. There are an estimated 1000 million overweight and obese people on the planet including our children who are fatter and sicker than ever before.

Any wonder many people would not want a long life when there is a 95 percent chance of ending up with a chronic disease and having to suffer your life being at the mercy of doctors and other people just to exist.

But it does not have to be this way and we can live our lives without the fear of ending up like this.

Many of us do not realize that we have great influence over the quality of our life and we can actually choose to improve its quality by taking proactive steps to stay free from chronic disease. One of the big things we can do to stay healthy is with a program of proper exercise.

We used to think that not exercising was unhealthy and we didn’t think that a lack of vigorous activity can greatly increase the chances of developing a chronic disease. That assumption has been proved to be wrong.

Not enough muscle building and maintaining exercise is one of the big risk factors for the formation of chronic disease. Imagine how bad it would feel to be confronted with the fact that the way you live your life is the cause of becoming an invalid?

When the doctor says go and get strong and fit, they are not just telling patients to do that to improve their health; they are actually telling them how to avoid a disease that is stalking them waiting to pounce.

When extra fats and sugars from our highly processed, poor quality foods don’t clear the bloodstream by being burnt up for fuel for physical activity they end up in places where they shouldn’t be. This can cause problems for the body’s metabolic functions setting the stage for disease.

How easy to avoid all of this and simply become an active person so your body stays on an even metabolic keel. Your exercise program should contain mostly strength training exercise as muscle tissue is where excess sugar (glucose) is burnt so it is important that you engage your muscles with the right activities.

The good news is that just changing this one thing can be enough to make the difference between a comfortable older age and a miserable one. Imagine how good it will be not to have to worry about sickness and just focus on keeping our good health so we can prolong the enjoyment of our life by living longer free of chronic disease.