4 Easy Ways to Live Healthy in July

By REDBOOK

Get healthy this month by eating more eggs, reassessing portion sizes in your cookbooks, and more!

1. Embrace the egg. Eggs have gotten a bum health rap over the years, but they're not as rotten as you think. The American Dietetic Association says that healthy folks can have them every day without raising their cholesterol levels—and researchers in Canada believe that eating eggs might help reduce high blood pressure. How? They've found that proteins called peptides—which exist in all eggs but are most plentiful in hard-boiled and fried eggs—seem to work the way some blood-pressure drugs do. So get cracking with this delicious deviled-egg recipe.

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2. Say bye-bye to UTIs. As the mercury rises, so do hemlines, gas prices—and your chances of getting a urinary tract infection. UTIs become up to 17 percent more common for every 10-degree increase in temperature, a recent Oregon State University study shows. Beat the odds by drinking four to eight glasses of water a day and downing cranberry in the form of juice, dried berries, or extract tablets, says Lauri J. Romanzi, M.D., a New York City urogynecologist. If you think you have a UTI (symptoms include a persistent urge to pee and a burning sensation when you do), call your gyn.

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3. Protect your joints when you jog. Tired of feeling achy instead of energized after pounding the pavement? ChiRunning—a technique pioneered by ultramarathoner Danny Dreyer that incorporates tai chi and builds core muscle strength—helps you relax as you run while putting less impact on your joints. Dreyer, coauthor of the new book Chi Running: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, suggests this tip for a gentler jog: Lean forward slightly as you go, which will help you keep your stride short. The longer your stride, the faster your legs will fatigue and the greater your potential for injury.

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4. Reassess your recipes. It's not only fast-food joints that have supersized our meals: Cookbooks share the blame, according to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers found that over the past 70 years, the calorie count in recipes has gone up nearly 40 percent per serving, due in part to the addition of more calorie-dense ingredients, such as meat and nuts. Recent recipes also yield fewer servings and larger serving sizes—in some cases doubling them. To return to healthy strategies from the past, make substitutions (like low-fat sour cream for regular) and monitor portion size; visit portionsizes.webmd.com for help.