Here are tips 5 through 11:

  • Wack some weeds. Getting in your yard and doing most any kind of cleaning is going to be beneficial to your health. Stop riding your lawnmower. Walk! Pull some weeds (with both hands), rake some leaves, plant some flowers or sod some grass. You’re burning several hundred calories an hour!
  • Stand for something. If you think about it, you spend a lot of time sitting during the day. Could you perform a lot of what you’re doing standing or moving? Give it a try. Just develop the habit of getting up and moving around intermittently. For example, learn to pace while you’re on the phone. It’s activity, and you probably need more of it.
  • Snack healthy. Find a favorite fruit. Eat a handful of nuts. A handful of carrots or almonds, a few slices of an apple or a bowl of grapes is an infinitely better approach to those cravings. Lose the potato chips and the empty calories. This is both addition by subtraction and addition by addition!
  • Play! Have a kid of any age? Throw the football around. Shag fly balls with each other. Shoot some hoops. You’ll love the benefits to your heart and lungs. Plus, it’ll keep your brain sharp.
  • Find a healthy friend. Having a companion with whom you share your health aspirations gives you a much better chance of success across the board, as opposed to that friend of yours that you just get together with to eat or drink. It’s true in health as well. You’re probably the average of the five people you most hang around!
  • Stop smoking. You didn’t really think I would leave smoking off the list, did you? Speaking of invisible health, the more invisible smoking is, the better. I don’t care how you do it, just do it. Every cigarette is costing you about seven minutes of your life. In one fell swoop, eliminating cigarettes from your life will produce as many benefits as most anything else you’ll do.

Give it a try. See how many of these 10 tips you can incorporate into your life.