Let’s keep it real and not lie to ourselves here. Look in the mirror!
Maybe there was a time when you could have gotten away with barely doing the minimum. Probably in your late teens or early 20s you could have been inactive, eaten terribly and still had the appearance of being fit and enjoyed a certain amount of relative vitality in your life. But times change and your lifestyle will or has caught up with you. The brutal truth is that health has to be earned every single day through conscious decisions and deliberate actions. Not only does health and vitality have to be earned, the opposite is certainly going to kill you. Wow, that’s harsh. Think about. Talk about no rest for the weary.
We are perhaps the most fortunate generation ever, depending on how you look at things, to benefit from the rapid advance in science and technology that has allowed us to finally come to an in-depth understanding of how the complex organism that is our human body really works.
The mapping of the human genome was completed way back in April 2003. This means that basically we now understand the blueprint for building a person. This sequencing of our DNA and understanding of our genes has greatly aided medicine and health sciences.
With this information, we have been able to figure out our individual genetic predispositions to sickness and have an in-depth understanding of what genetic and environmental factors make us sick or help us to live long, healthy lives.
We all carry certain genetic traits and predispositions in our DNA like our physical characteristics, making us the unique beings that we are. However, in our DNA we carry the genetic predisposition to terrifying things like cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, heart disease etc. We now understand that the combination of a genetic predisposition and the right environmental factors is what leads to us falling ill with the aforementioned scourges of the human race. Fortunately, most of the information about what environmental factors make us sick or keep us healthy is now common knowledge.
For example, we should all be aware that smoking causes lung cancer, and that too many simple sugars in our diet over a sustained period of time leads to insulin insensitivity and to diabetes. I am sure many of us are even tired of hearing about the benefits of exercise and a healthy lifestyle expounded upon constantly. Yet sadly, people continue to ignore them until it becomes a case of too little too late. Furthermore we are now able to have our entire individual DNA analysed to tell us exactly what health risks we have a higher or lower chance of contracting down the road. Basically there has never before been a time like this, a time where we no longer have the excuse of ignorance when it comes to being unhealthy.
Today, levels of obesity continue to rise with the tendency towards a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. Looking at the top 10 leading causes of death worldwide according to the World Health Organisation, coronary heart disease, which is the build-up of plaque inside the arteries of the heart, is the leading cause of death worldwide.
Suffering a stroke--which is commonly due to high blood pressure, obesity and smoking--is the second leading killer. If that was not enough to get the point across, smoking is responsible for the fourth leading cause of death;chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is the progressive failure of the lungs. In the developed world, cancer is the second biggest killer. Most of those cases could have been avoided by adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle in time.These facts hit close to home as we all have known people who have suffered from the above. Let’s face it, if it can happen to them, and if we choose to go down that same road it WILL happen to us.
Laziness is a terrible thing.
Despite having the most profound understanding ever in the history of the human race about what sickens and kills us and what slows our aging and maximizes our vitality, we are now as a species more unhealthy than we have ever been before.
During the recent downturn in the world economy, it was interesting to note that the only two sectors that continued to grow were defence spending, and surprisingly, healthcare. That fact tells us that aside from preparing for and killing more people, a high and continually growing number of people were sick. Pause for a minute to think back on the people you saw in the last half-hour. Were they bastions of health? Doubtful. My case in point.
The healthy earn their health and longevity every single day. It is never final. They do it through a constant, disciplined process of making the right choices when it comes to their diet and lifestyle. Healthy people seek out healthy, real food and avoid the unhealthy temptations. They also make time to consistently exercise. This is not just about staying alive. Being conscientious when it comes to your health will ensure that you are able to have a greater measure of vitality in your life, that you will be active and able to fully enjoy your life instead of suffering painfully through it.
We have all heard the adage that “we are what we eat” or “garbage in, garbage out”. I personally love and abide by this quote from Hypocrites who was the ancient greek founder of modern medicine. It goes as follows: “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.”
I read labels and don’t put in my body or on my skin any of those long chemical words, preservatives or dyes that we have become accustomed to seeing in the processed, so called “foods” that we eat. I work hard to take care of my body and optimise my health, not just to aid in my athletic training, performance and recovery but also because I plan to take care of this body in case I live to be old.
It is the only one I have. Through the sport of swimming and my travels because of it, I have been fortunate to have met and been inspired by many ageless individuals who constantly redefine for themselves what society’s definition of how an 80, 90 or 100 year-old should look and act by the impressive physical and mental feats they are still capable of achieving.
You don’t have to earn your health every day. Most of you are so fortunate! You GET the opportunity to earn your health everyday. I assure you that right now, there are countless suffering, sick and dying people everywhere who would do anything to be in your shoes or to go back in time and still have the chance to earn their health everyday before it becomes too late.
When you really think about it, we humans are so confused; we willingly trade our health for money and fleeting minor pleasure but then would desperately trade all of our money and suffer terribly to regain a fraction of it. What’s really important here? Once you have your health you can do anything!