35 Years Is Enough
When you ‘retire’ it is not time to sit down and watch the world go by. It is time to go re-read your favorite 10, 20 or 100 books, to re-learn all those things that may have slipped slowly away over the years. It’s time to re-connect with old friends and make new friends. It’s time to start a new business or donate your time to a great cause. It’s time to visit a few 3rd world countries and see how many people you can help. It’s time to improve learn, and re-learn.
If you are thinking, “Hey, I don’t have enough energy to do some let alone all of the aboveâ€, well, then maybe you need to re-fire yourself by setting a goal to generate more energy. I am talking about rebuilding your body and mind through a regiment of physical exercise and a super-charged diet. Eat more and more fruits and veggies. Set a goal to stop sitting around just watching TV. Get up and move about. You’ll see that the movement itself, whether it’s walking, running, hiking, tennis, bowling even just playing pool, will energize and re-fires you all by itself.
Then once you have some of that renewed energy running through you, get back to living, not retiring. You have so many more years yet and so much to do.
Living Healthier in the Now
Most of us have some health related goal or area of improvement that we are working on or hope to work on very soon. Keeping yourself mentally and physically aware while exercising and eating by using the “living in the now†concept I’ve been talking about in the last couple blogs, can get you through a strenuous workout as well as help you eat right all while increasing your enjoyment of these activities.
For most of us, getting through an exercise routine is a struggle. But if you are completely attentive to your movements instead of thinking about how you’ve never yet been able to keep up an exercise routine or letting your mind wander to how much nicer it would feel to be lounging on the couch, you aren’t as likely to quit in the middle of it. Just keep focused on the feeling of your muscles moving and listen to your breath as you control your inhaling and exhaling (a primary concept behind yoga and its distressing effects, by the way) and soon enough you will have completed your routine or finished that 30 minute run and are feeling great.
When it comes to food, it’s all about being mindful of what you eat, how much, and how you eat. When you reach in the fridge for something, consciously decide what will contribute to your well balanced intake for the day and choose your best options. Stop eating directly out of the box or bag and lay out a small portion on a plate that you can then take to a table or out onto the porch to enjoy. Choose a place with no TV or computer or anything else to distract you. Taste your food, becoming aware of every flavor and texture, and chew completely. You will find that eating “in the now†is much more enjoyable. It will also slow down your eating so you fill up on less food and will help your digestion by having food well broken down before it hits your stomach.
“Living in the now†will help you by not only increasing your appreciation of the sensations of exercising and eating well but will also help you attain your goals for a better, healthier life. You’ll feel great because of your accomplishments along with gaining the long lasting and compounding effects of the bliss that comes with being consistently happy in the moment.
Being Healthy: Your Umbrella Goal for Life
During the last few weeks, I’ve been talking about health and the benefits of a good diet and hopefully it’s inspired you to eat better. The question is, are you, or will you be committed to it, not just for the near future but for life?
Getting down to an ideal weight and getting off junk food are great goals but your hard efforts will be wasted if you don’t make it a modification to your lifestyle rather not just a temporary change.
As I mentioned about the CRON diet last week, these healthier eating habits can lengthen your life—an actual fountain of youth! But if you can’t keep it up, it probably won’t get you halfway near the 140 years that the CRON scientists believe a healthy person can reach.
If you lose 30 pounds then gain back 20 a few months later, lose another 10, gain another 15, and keep this yo-yo dieting going, you aren’t helping your health at all. In fact you’re stressing your system. Same goes for the ‘occasional’ junk food meal. Can a coke addict get high just once in a while?
The bottom line is, you have to decide that you want to live healthy–determine the specific weight you want to reach and stay at, commit to eating healthy, minimally processed, whole foods, and keep active. Look at this commitment as a commitment for life, an umbrella goal that will support every other goal you make but giving you the health and energy to pursue all your dreams.
So be good to yourself these next few weeks and aim to eat and live healthy for the rest of your life. You can start by reading Chapter 10: An Umbrella Goal for Life in my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. As I explain, 42 days is all it takes to form a new eating habit. After that it’s just a little bit of vigilance.
Use the goal planning tips in my book and you’ll certainly get there. Do this for yourself, your family, and, of course, for the success of all your dreams.
The ‘Fast’ Way to Great Health
Have you started thinking about your New Year’s resolutions yet? I hope your health is on the top of the list. If the chilling information about junk food and its addictive qualities from last week’s blog didn’t get you motivated, how about the wonderful news that you can boost your energy, enhance your mental acuity, decrease pain, lose weight, eliminate fatigue, and feel young again in just a few days? You can do this. I have. With fasting.
I fast for just 48 to 72 hours every 3 or 4 months to get these huge benefits and know that it is key in making me feel younger and keeping myself healthy.
Fasting is simply a period in which you abstain from food but drink fluids in sufficient quantity to take care of your thirst and physiologic requirements. With no food coming in, the body no longer has to focus on digestion and getting rid of the toxins that come in with the food.
Instead, the body will turn to breaking down malignant substances, repairing damaged tissue, and cleansing itself of the toxins that have built up in your tissues over time. As damage is repaired and the toxic load is reduced, your cells are able to function at more efficient and beneficial levels. This optimal functioning at the cellular level is the source of the many benefits of fasting.
Keep in mind, there is a right way and a wrong way to fast and it’s not for everyone. Before you try fasting, get your doctor’s okay and then get his or her recommendation for a fasting regimen or a reputable book on the subject that can guide you.
Next week, I’ll let you in on the one diet that can actually help you live longer as well as better. And don’t forget, I talk about many of these things in my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. If you don’t have your own copy, get it now to help you focus your New Year’s resolution. If you do have it, give a copy or two to friends and family and help them grow their passion for living.
Kicking the Junk Food Habit
Last week I talked about keeping focused on your health during the holidays. But why make this just a holiday focus? We are faced with poor food choices all day long. We’re grabbing trans-fat laden pastries for breakfast, dashing through drive-up windows for lunch, and are lulled into the eating out of boxes for dinner by their ease and convenience.
The thing is these empty, processed foods have a cumulative and addictive effect that gets harder to kick the longer we allow them to persist in our diet. Fats and sugars are primary culprits. There have been studies that show that sugar triggers the production of the brain’s natural opioids which we respond to in the same way as other addictive narcotics—with a craving that just increases each time we have some. Significant fat intake, on the other hand, has the affect of increasing our resistance to leptin, the chemical that signals us to stop eating. Now put the two together … it’s no wonder we crave everything super sized!
The end result is we gain weight, the empty calories actually drain us of vital nutrients, we lose energy and the unhealthy feeling we end up with saps our motivation to push forward with our goals and dreams. It’s no way to live.
So if you haven’t already, kick the addiction and start paying attention to what you are putting into your body. Just take a moment to assess your healthiest option when you are out to eat and plan to keep fresh, lean, and whole foods available at home and at work so you don’t feel forced to succumb to that easily accessible junk food. You will feel so much better and get so much more done.
Next week I’ll talk about some specific healthy habits that have not only helped to kept me healthy but have increase my zest for life. And while planning your gift giving this season, keep my book, “How To Ignite Your Passion for Living†in mind. There is nothing better than giving a gift that will help improve the lives of your friends and family.
