What is Lifestyle Medicine and How It Can Improve Your Health While Saving You Money
Many common diseases that affect Americans are largely preventable, yet healthcare costs continue to rise each year, with a majority of the cost being due to preventable diseases. Conditions including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension make up a large portion of health care spending and often require lifelong management with the use of medications and frequent medical visits. Lifestyle medicine is an evidence-based approach that focuses on addressing the root causes of these conditions and not simply treating the symptoms. Improving daily habits related to nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, and other lifestyle factors can greatly improve health while also lowering long-term medical expenses (Bodai et al., 2017).
To better understand lifestyle medicine, let's take a closer look at its definition and principles.
Lifestyle medicine is an evidence-based specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions to prevent, treat, and, in some cases, reverse chronic diseases. It doesn't rely on medications or procedures. Lifestyle medicine focuses on empowering individuals to improve their health through sustainable behavior changes.
Research has demonstrated that lifestyle-related factors contribute to many chronic diseases. In fact, studies suggest that nearly 80% of all chronic conditions are influenced by lifestyle factors (McGinnis, 1993). This makes Lifestyle medicine a powerful tool for modern healthcare. Really, the goal of lifestyle medicine is simple: Identify the root causes of disease and address them with long-term sustainable lifestyle improvements.
Why Lifestyle Medicine Matters
The United States spent $5.3 trillion on healthcare in 2024 (American Medical Association, 2025). Chronic diseases account for a majority of these costs. Around 60% of Americans live with at least one chronic condition, and many individuals rely on multiple medications to manage these issues. Although medications and medical procedures certainly have their place, and we are not downplaying their importance, lifestyle medicine aims to reduce the need for these interventions by addressing the underlying drivers of disease. To improve their lifestyle habits, they often experience improvements in:
Blood sugar
Blood pressure
Cholesterol levels
Body composition
Overall quality of life
Energy levels
Over time, many of these issues lead to more doctor visits, increased medication use, and higher healthcare costs. Don't skip your annual, but hopefully we can help you stay out of the doctor's office the rest of the year.
The Six Pillars of Lifestyle Medicine
Lifestyle medicine is built around six interconnected pillars that support long-term health.
Optimal Nutrition
Diet quality plays a major role in chronic disease risk. A nutrition pattern centered on minimally processed foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds provides the nutrients needed to support metabolic health and reduce inflammation.
Physical Activity
Regular movement is critical for cardiovascular health, metabolic function, and maintaining muscle mass. Most adults benefit from at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, along with resistance training to support strength and longevity.
Restorative Sleep
Sleep is essential for recovery, hormone regulation, brain health, and immune function. Adults should aim for 7–9 hours of high-quality sleep per night to support the body's repair and maintenance of optimal function.
Stress Management
Chronic stress can harm nearly every system in the body. It contributes to issues like cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and depression. Learning effective stress management can greatly improve both physical and mental health.
Connectedness
Strong social connections and a sense of purpose help people live longer. They also improve mental health and reduce the risk of chronic disease.
Risky Substance Avoidance
Limiting or avoiding harmful substances such as tobacco, excessive alcohol, and other drugs is essential for long-term health and disease prevention.
Lifestyle Medicine Coaching at Success Fitness and Training
At Success Fitness and Training, we wholeheartedly believe that improving health goes far beyond a workout. That is why we offer lifestyle medicine coaching to help individuals develop sustainable habits that support long-term wellness.
Our coaching approach focuses on helping clients implement practical strategies for nutrition, exercise, Sleep, stress management, and overall lifestyle habits. We don't like quick fixes. We actually prefer to focus on building systems that help you improve your health in realistic, sustainable ways. By addressing the root causes of many chronic health issues, lifestyle medicine coaching can help individuals improve energy levels, reduce disease risk, enhance physical performance, and potentially lower long-term medical costs.
If you want to learn how lifestyle medicine can help you, our team at Success Fitness and Training can guide you. Small lifestyle changes, applied consistently, can lead to big, long-term improvements in health and quality of life.
Written by Hunter Covelski, who holds a Bachelor of Science in Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine and is currently working on a master's in Integrative and Functional Medicine.
References
American Medical Association (2025). Trends in health care spending, American Medical Association, 17 April. https://www.ama-assn.org/about/ama-research/trends-health-care-spending.
Bodai, B. I., Nakata, T. E., Wong, W. T., Clark, D. R., Lawenda, S., Tsou, C., Liu, R., Shiue, L., Cooper, N., Rehbein, M., Ha, B. P., McKeirnan, A., Misquitta, R., Vij, P., Klonecke, A., Mejia, C. S., Dionysian, E., Hashmi, S., Greger, M., . . . Campbell, T. M. (2017). Lifestyle Medicine: A Brief Review of Its Dramatic Impact on Health and Survival. The Permanente Journal, 22(1), 17–025. https://doi.org/10.7812/tpp/17-025
Jones, D. S., Podolsky, S. H., & Greene, J. A. (2012). The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine. New England Journal of Medicine, 366(25), 2333–2338. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp1113569
McGinnis, J. M. (1993). Actual causes of death in the United States. JAMA, 270(18), 2207. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1993.03510180077038
