Yesterday or maybe I should say all week was a huge eye opener for me. I’ve learned so much that there’s too much to share in this short post. However, I will tell you 2 quick things that slapped me smack dab in the face.Earlier in the day after finishing with my client torture sessions, I did my weekly Costco run to pick up organic salad stuff, organic free range eggs and a couple other items. While checking out, I hear a voice behind me saying…..Hello my friend, how are you today? I turned around and saw one of the familiar perky faces that greets me and sometimes chats with me on my shopping excursions. I can’t remember exactly when we began exchanging friendly words, but I do recall the conversation that started the whole thing off. One day she made a comment on what I was buying. She said something like this…..”man do you eat healthy; don’t you ever eat anything bad for you?” Which I replied, “of course I do”. “I love food and I love my splurges every now and then, just like everyone else.” “But, they’re treats.” Once in a while events. Not an everyday habit. Eating crappy things all the time, doesn’t make me feel good and isn’t good for my machine or anyone else’s.
Each time I’d see her, I would ask how she was doing with her nutrition and more specifically, if she had given up drinking almost a gallon of soda a day (I’m probably exaggerating. I can’t recall the exact amount). Guess what her repeated answers were? No (with a heavy sigh), not yet. I really should, but it’s so hard to quit. Ok, so guess what she said to me yesterday? “I wish I would have started eating better a long time ago. My blood pressure’s out of control and I have to have an angioplasty because one of my arteries is too narrow. Wow! I replied. And then I continued by saying, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? Now I knew she was pretty young, my guess was in her mid 40’s. When she told me her age, I was fricken blown away! My Costco bud is only 30 years old! 30 years old with hypertension and coronary artery disease? After I came out of shock from what I learned, I got it together and replied with encouraging words. Well, try to make something positive out of this. Now you’ll for sure get back on track with your nutrition and the best part of all is, because you’re so young you should be able to reverse these conditions in a relatively short period of time. Does my friends’ story sound familiar to you? Do you fall into her category? Knowing what you should do to take care of your health and wellness, but you just don't.
This then leads me into my second big epiphany yesterday. Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to a group very intelligent folks at their monthly gathering. What I learned there almost blew me away as much as my Costco buds story. The topic they asked me to speak about was “The Mind Body Connection and Exercise”. I had an outline of the topic and stuck to it for the most part excluding the expected side subjects and questions. Well, I take that back. There must have been a lot of side topics and questions covered, because the meeting was supposed to last for an hour and it lasted two. It was all good though, of course. When you get to discuss something you’re passionate about, you can talk about it all day long. After the meeting I and one of my colleagues who attended went down stairs to pick up a couple items. Another bonus, besides meeting some very interesting people was that it was held in the community room on the second floor of one of my favorite grocery stores “Central Market”.
What was funny was, one of the first things that came out of my friends mouth was exactly what I was thinking at the time. “Man it’s amazing what people are thinking about health and exercise.” If you had to group together all the various questions that we discussed into a general category, it would be: “Thinking that Exercise and Wellness is a complicated, arduous task.” Do you think that way? Do you feel that leading a healthy lifestyle is complicated and it takes a lot of time? Well, it’s not and it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time at all. “Done For You” exercise and lifestyle programs like “Cellulite Circuits” lay out easy steps and daily meal and activity plans that help you develop life-long health, wellness and fat loss habits. As many of the gurus say….”Take a little time now by eating right and exercising or Take it later when you have to go to the doctor, hospital, and dialysis or give yourself insulin.”
So do you fall within either of these categories? 1.) Are you aware what you need to do to lead a healthy lifestyle and just don’t do it until you get a big time wake-up call? Or 2.) Do you think being healthy is complicated and involves a lot of time and energy that you don’t have? Please let me know what you’re thinking in the comment section below.