Never before has there been so much talk about healthy living. The newspapers are packed with stories about the latest dangers and hazards to our health — from mobile phones to sugar, mercury fillings to artificial sweeteners, genetically-modified foods to noise pollution. The headlines can leave you feeling confused and overwhelmed, but above all, powerless.

In reality, choosing to live a healthier lifestyle is a choice that any of us can make. It's not about reacting to the latest scare story, banning certain foods or products from your life and adopting an extreme, all-or-nothing approach — it's about balance and moderation.

It's not about being perfect, it's about being a little more health aware, and doing the best you can on a daily basis. After all, it's not what you do for the next seven days that's going to affect your health for the next seven years; it's what you do for the next seven years!

Due to this overwhelming interest on living a healthy lifestyle, Well@Pfizer — an online health education resource platform — has been launched by Pfizer South Africa. Well@Pfizer provides South Africans, with healthy living information that is relevant for South Africa and practical enough for people to start incorporating healthy habits into their lifestyle.

To help those who are genuinely looking to make changes in their life, for themselves and family, here is a list of steps to show how you can begin a journey down a path that leads to a healthy lifestyle.

Step 1:

Sit down, by yourself, with a friend, spouse, relative, or whomever you plan on sharing this path with, and honestly look at your life. Make a list of different 'headlines' that fill your life, i.e. eating, exercise, work, family, finance etc.

Step 2:

First things first. You cannot begin somewhere you're not, so you have to first figure out where you are starting from. With each of your headlines, figure out where you are, for instance:

Family: Spend a couple hours with wife and kids when I get home from work. We usually watch TV. Take kids to soccer games on the weekend.

Eating: Coffee for breakfast, fast food three times a week, microwaved food twice a week, a lot of fruit, home-cooked meal on weekends, too many potato chips…

Step 3:

Look at your list. Look at your headlines and descriptions and see where you are. Think about where you want to be, and figure out how to get there. For the example:

Family: I would like to spend more 'quality time' with my family. Maybe play a board game or play outdoor game like soccer with the on the weekends, or when I get home, instead of TV.

Eating: Eat something for breakfast (will help to boost metabolism, and give me more energy). Try to cut down fast food to once a week, or switch to a healthier fast food options. Try to eat more home-cooked meals (don't really have the time, but maybe I can cook more than I need on the weekends and microwave the leftovers during the week).

Step 4:

More times than not, simply not doing things is our biggest enemy. Excuses are easy to find. It's not hard to live a healthy lifestyle, but you just have to do it. Be serious about it, for yourself, and your family. Each change you make in your life will benefit you as a person, your health and general wellbeing.

As I said before, it's about balance. Start slow, but start. It's not a matter of cutting out all snack foods, running marathons, and needing to be a millionaire, it's about making adjustments in your life to increase your overall wellbeing.

Now that you have the steps to kick-start your journey towards your healthiest life, here's how to change your diet.

Eat a healthy diet

Eating a nutritious balanced diet is perhaps the lynchpin of healthy living. Not only does it keep all your body systems working efficiently, it also provides energy, protects your heart, helps prevent and fight off disease, maintains a healthy body weight, contributes to healthy skin, hair and nails and even influences mood. Most of us eat too much processed and refined food (containing excess sugar, fat and salt) and not enough whole grains, fibre, fruit and vegetables.

Take action

• Take a daily pill. Most people benefit from a daily multivitamin and mineral complex, particularly if we don't eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables each day, if we regularly miss meals or rely on highly-processed foods.
• Up your anti-oxidants. These naturally-occurring compounds fight disease-causing free radicals in the body and are found mainly in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Vitamins A, C and E and the mineral selenium are powerful anti-oxidants, so foods rich in these micronutrients are a great place to start.
• Eating more fruit and vegetables is one of the simplest things you can do to enhance your health — and up your anti-oxidant intake. While 'five-a-day' is the well-known recommendation, the ideal is seven to nine portions, according to many experts. Don't get stuck in the trap of eating the same varieties, day in day out. Make it a rule never to leave the house without having consumed one of your five a day, and always have another one in your bag, lunchbox or car.
• Avoid trans fats. Increasingly, evidence is building to suggest that this type of 'manufactured' fat is more harmful even than saturated fat — no safe level has been established. Read food labels and avoid products with the words 'hydrogenated vegetable oils' or trans fats on.
• Switch to wholegrain and brown versions of rice, pasta and bread. These are more nutritious in terms of their vitamin and mineral content, and also contain more fibre than white varieties.
• Eat more fish. There is strong evidence that the 'omega-3 fatty acids' in oily fish helps to protect against heart disease. Eat sardines, salmon, herring, mackerel or fresh tuna once a week, and another type of non-oily fish once a week.