Healthy Lifestyle Choices for Women: Exercise, Diet, and Quitting Smoking

Exercise 

Regular exercise can help prevent diseases that commonly affect women, including heart disease and stroke. It can also help relieve symptoms of conditions including high blood pressure, depression, and type 2 diabetes.[4] 

Not all of us exercise the same way. To build an exercise plan that matches your personal needs and lifestyle, check out the Move Your Way activity planner. According to the guidelines, this physical activity should be in addition to your normal daily activities. 

 

Diet 

Often, healthy eating is affected by things that are not directly under our control, like how close the grocery store is to our house or job. Focusing on the choices we can control will help us make small changes in daily life to eat healthier. 

As women, we have unique nutritional needs and may need more vitamins and minerals depending on our life stage. Some general recommendations are below: 

  • Calories: On average, adult women need between 1,600 and 2,400 calories a day.[5] 

  • Vitamins and minerals: Certain vitamins and minerals are important for women’s health, including calcium, iron, folate, and vitamin D. Foods that contain these nutrients include leafy greens, colorful vegetables, fish, eggs, whole grains, and fortified cereals.[6] 

Want to know how many calories you need each day based on your age, height, weight and activity level? Check out this tool. You can also learn more about what vitamins are essential to your diet and the quantities you should be eating here. 

 

Smoking 

Women can face unique challenges to quitting smoking, and typically try to quit more times than men before they quit for good.[7] The benefits of quitting are enormous and immediate for women. Just two weeks after quitting, you’ll be able to breathe easier and may notice that you’ll be able to do more exercise without running out of breath. In the long run, you’ll lower your risk of: 

  • Heart disease. Heart disease can lead to heart attacks, chest pain, and stroke. Within 10–15 years of quitting smoking, your risk of heart disease may be the same as non-smokers. 

  • Stroke. The longer you are smoke free the more your risk of stroke goes down. Within 5–15 years of quitting, your risk of stroke may be the same as non-smokers. 

  • Lung cancer. The longer you are smoke free the more your risk of lung cancer goes down. Within 10 years of quitting, your risk of dying from lung cancer will have decreased by half. 

  • Dying early. People who smoke die about 10 years earlier than people who don’t. Quitting can lower your risk of dying from smoking related illness and diseases.[8] 

 

If you smoke or vape and are trying to quit, check out these free quitting tools from Smokefree.gov.