Staying Fit and Healthy

There are numerous books, websites, magazines and almost daily newspaper articles giving us advice on how to stay fit and healthy. The last thing you may feel you need is another guide to it, especially when the advice seems to change on a regular basis. One week we're supposed to eat cabbage, then the vegetable of choice is broccoli and so on. No wonder many of us throw our hands up in despair and just get on with our lives.

So what we are trying to do in this short Guide is to give you some of the basics; things that won't change as regularly as the weather in a British summer. You will then find links to other sources of information as you go through the Guide so that you can find out more about the relevant topic should you wish to.

There are four strands to keeping healthy and fit:

• Keeping physically fit so that we can enjoy our everyday life to the full
• Trying to mend ourselves when we become ill
• Adapting our lifestyle to meet our physical capabilities
• Staying mentally alert so that our brain doesn't deteriorate; the body and the brain are similar: 'If you don't use it, you lose it'.

We will examine these strands in the Guide so that you become aware of some of the issues. That's the objective: to make you aware. Then, if you want to find out more, you can follow our links and gain more information about any of the topics that you want to.

Indeed, the first thing you might want to do is to have a look at our very own Healthwise section. Helen Franks writes a monthly article on all sorts of topical issues and you can click on the Index to see what's available. There may be something that is of special relevance to you or you might just like to browse through some of the articles to get a feel for the kind of information that Helen provides.

It's stating the obvious that we all want to stay healthy, but there is even more reason to do so as we move into our 50s, 60s and so on. We want to enjoy our later life - we deserve it, having worked hard all our lives. When we stop working (or if we decide to continue to work) , we ought to be able to enjoy every moment. In order to be able to do this, two of the things we need are our physical and mental health. So it is worth doing a little bit in order to maintain them so that we can get the most from our later years. We explore how to do this in the other pages of this Guide, as well as looking at how to go about repairing ourselves if we become ill.

We all need to work at staying fit and healthy. However, we're not talking about starting an Olympic athlete-type training programme. What we are saying is that a little bit of effort, which can be very enjoyable if you do things that suit you and are within your own capabilities, will give you great benefits.

So have a look at the pages of the Guide by clicking on the links in the box and find out how to help yourself enjoy your later life to the full by being fit and healthy.