Three common causes of blood clots are obesity, dehydration, and lack of physical activity.

The good news is that these problems are relatively easy to fix by improving your diet, drinking an optimal amount of water, and getting regular exercise.

Improving your diet means avoiding refined foods, including sugar, salt, oil, and flour. The quickest way to lose weight is to avoid all refined grains and sugar in processed food products.

Time and again, I’ve seen these simple dietary changes result in increased metabolism that leads directly to weight loss.

The next most important step is to ensure you are getting adequate hydration. Dehydration predisposes a person to obesity and blood clots. Thickened blood, which is common with dehydration, is much more likely to clot.

Every patient I see gets asked about his or her water intake. The vast majority of patients — especially those with chronic illnesses — simply don’t drink enough water, and therefore exist in perpetual states of dehydration.

To make sure you are getting enough water, simply divide your weight in pounds by two, and the resulting number is the amount of water you should drink each day, in ounces.

If you are particularly active or tend to sweat more, you may need more water.

Exercise can improve anyone’s health, and help relieve any illness. That includes lowering the risk for blood clots.

Our bodies are not designed to sit all day, be it at a desk or on a couch in front of the TV. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that inactivity increases the risk of blood pooling in the body.

And stagnant blood is much more likely to clot than flowing blood.

Human beings need physical activity. But that doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym and spend hours on a treadmill each day. Walking is a perfectly good form of exercise.