We all hear that living a healthy lifestyle, avoiding or stopping smoking and weight loss are the keys to living a longer, higher quality life…but what does that really mean in terms of years or your chances of living longer?

It’s sometimes tough to stay focused on things like healthy weight loss when we hear each day about another natural disaster, food infection or other major challenge that threatens us in the short term.

A recent study that appeared over at The Sanctuary highlights a study first published in the Sept 17th edition of the British Medical Journal highlights the single biggest advantage is to those who lead an overall healthy lifestyle where they were 55% less likely to die as early as those who participated in all of the risk factors such as smoking and being overweight.

Another factor though that makes the advantages of healthy weight loss that much more real is the discovery that 14% of the improvement could be isolated to weight loss alone. Only smoking was higher at 28%, so obviously a healthy diet and learning how to lose weight are critical to overall longevity.

So, whether you choose to take on a rapid weight loss program where you commit to rigorous exercise and dieting or settle for a moderate approach to healthy weight loss such as ensuring that you get 30-minutes of moderate exercise each day (fast walking, swimming, cycling, jogging, tennis, or other exercise), the benefits can be very real in terms of avoiding common diseases such as cancer and especially heart disease.