The Mayo Clinic's Plan For Life

With so much medical information out there, it's sometimes tough to make the right choices for a healthier lifestyle. How can one know what to do to lead a healthy life?

The Mayo Clinic, one of this country's leading medical institutions, has a new book, "The Mayo Clinic Plan." It's filled with practical information about diet, exercise and lifestyle choices to help lead a healthy life.

More often than not, it's the woman of the house who sets the tone for the entire family when it comes to these important lifestyle choices.

"Women often make the health decisions," the Mayo Clinic's medical editor-in-chief, Dr. Donald Hensrud, told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm "They do more of the shopping and cooking and should use this information and the power they have to improve their family's life."

But the flood of sometimes contradictory health information such as new studies, ads, and expert claims can be very confusing.

"The latest study tends to get the attention," Hensrud said. "People need a perspective on overall health. What we try to provide is credible and accurate information and a perspective that people can use to apply this information in their everyday lives."

Hensrud also points to the need for the right attitude to successfully adapt to a new lifestyle.

"A lot of times when we hear 'healthy' we think it's drudgery. One of the things I hear in my office — I work in weight management — people come in and say, I've got to go on a diet," Hensrud said. "And if you think about that, that's negative, it's restrictive and therefore it's going to be temporary. If they approach it in a different way, it doesn't have to be drudgery. People say when they are more active, they feel better. They should listen to that. That can be motivation to keep up these health habits."

"The Mayo Clinic Plan" tries to provide information to help people get started. Through practical suggestions, the hope is it will motivate people to maintain the right attitude to undertake these changes.

The book intentionally breaks things down into small steps. It's not overwhelming.

"Small steps are attainable. People are more likely to feel successful in that and the collective effect can be very powerful at making multiple small steps," Hensrud said.

One of the first things the book encourages is no surprise and certainly nothing new: increase daily activity.

"We've engineered physical activity out of our lives," Hensrud said.

"Look for opportunities to get activity throughout the day. Any activity is good activity," he added. "People are familiar with some of these things, take the stairs, park farther away, but the 21st century suggestion is don't use e-mail to talk to a friend down the hall. Go and walk and talk with them. When you are on your cell phone, make an excuse to take a walk while doing that. Take a walk break at work. There are many things people can do. By the end of the day you've burned up more calories that way than in an exercise session."

The book also stresses managing weight through good nutrition, some suggestions: