Your new smile should give you more confidence in your appearance, especially your smile, but taking care of your oral health is just one part of looking and feeling good.

Now that you have a new smile, it’s time to work on the rest of you. Here are a few nutrition tips to help you feel great, sleep better, and help lower your risk for age-related diseases.

• Focus on your Nutrition: Include at least 8 servings a day of colorful fruits and vegetables. The more color, the more antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the tissues from damage and keep arteries, skin and brain cells more vibrant.
• Add Good Fats and Remove Bad Fats: Saturated fats such as in meat, dairy, and many processed foods are part of a bad diet, you should try to avoid them as much as possible. These can lead to clogged arteries, cancer, and heart disease. Replace them with “good” fats high in Omega-3 DHA found in fatty fish like Salmon. These protect the skin from aging, keep arteries, and brain cells sharp. They also help boost your mood. Try to eat at least 2 servings a week of fatty fish.
• Go for the Grain: Refined grains can add inches to your waistline and raise the risk for heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. Whole grains lower the risk for all of these problems. Eat 100% whole-grain breads, brown rice, oatmeal and other real grains.
• Choose Real Food: Avoid all processed foods. The more a food is processed, the higher it’s caloric value and the lower it’s content of fiber, vitamins and minerals.
• Supplement Right: Take a multi-vitamin to fill in the gaps on the days when you don’t eat properly or have an unbalanced diet. Also, take extra calcium and magnesium. Most nutritionists agree, even in Texas, we can’t get enough sun, so we need 1000 units of Vitamin D daily and Fish Oil or a DHA supplement as well.
• Regular Exercise: 30 minutes of fairly strenuous exercise 3-4 times per week raises a person’s happiness quotient, lowers risk for all diseases, and slows the hands of time. Walking briskly, bicycling, swimming, or dancing, are all good physical activities.
• Moderate alcoholic intake, especially red wine has been shown to relax people, help with digestion, and heart disease.
• Of course, all forms of smoking are discouraged, as they lead to heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, and other diseases for you and those around you.
• And most importantly is good mental and spiritual attitude which makes life seem worth living, reduces stress, and makes others want to be around you.

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