Motivation to Make Healthier Choices
“We absolutely have within each of us the power to prevent or significantly decrease our risk for the majority of the top killers and contributors to disability in the world.”
Oof, isn’t that a powerful statement? It’s from a podcast I listened to this week with Dr. Austin Perlmutter, MD that got so many wheels spinning in my brain.
Here are two main points from it that stood out to me:
Your health is a reflection of the sum of the choices that you make over an extended period of time. For example, it’s not because you ate gummy bears or a kale salad today that determines whether you will or will not develop diabetes. Many of the common chronic diseases, like heart disease, diabetes or Alzheimer’s, are a reflection of the lifestyle choices made over decades.
Our society is structured to create chronic discontent that strongly contributes to sickness. If you binge watch Netflix, scroll social media, consume the processed foods and drinks that are marketed to you, you are not engaging in behaviours that lead you towards better health. You are engaging in the behaviours that make big companies more money. These choices affect your physical and mental health, which often leads to making more unhealthy decisions, creating a vicious cycle that can be tough to break. Almost everyone knows that it’s good to eat healthy and exercise and get enough sleep, but it can be really hard to make those choices if you are constantly tired, depressed and/or sore.
You can look at this information from two different perspectives. You can choose to be angry and discouraged. Or you can use it as motivation to make more of the choices that do move your health forward - like exercise, engaging in meaningful social interaction, practicing mindfulness and meditation and eating whole foods (I like the description of “food that comes from the ground or has a mother”).
It may not always be considered “cool” to engage in healthier behaviours, like going to bed at 10pm so that you can get up early to exercise or not drinking alcohol like you used to or spending time on the weekend prepping healthy meals. That’s okay though. That’s a reflection of how other people feel because you are doing something different than them. It’s helpful to find people who are doing what you are doing so that you are surrounded by encouragement and example - that’s why I love my FASTer Way community.
While you don’t have the ability to prevent absolutely all disease, you DO have the power to live in a way that significantly reduces your risk of developing it… and even more importantly, enhances your quality of life so that you can enjoy the time you have, however long that is.
Here is the link to the podcast interview that inspired these thoughts for me. I would love for you to have a listen and let me know what you think.