… you don’t have a reason to stay healthy.
Sometimes we can get numb to phrases we repeat over and over. I have said the phrase, “the film Forks Over Knives didn’t just save my life but it gave me a completely new one,” at least one hundred times during presentations and interviews. Even though I have said that phrase so many times I have never really thought about that second part very much until I was preparing to teach one of my plant-based classes about keystone habits.
My journey sometimes feels like I am in a pinball machine randomly bouncing all over the place but if I look back I can see just how carefully orchestrated things happened to get me where I am. I feel like I learn how things are supposed to be done after I just stumbled through blindly. You can chalk it up to whatever you want to but I will call it divine intervention. So, let’s talk about that second part.
A completely new life…
I suppose you could frame this for your spiritual, emotional, or physical life and it would be the same principle. I work with many people that adopt a whole food plant based diet and do amazingly well. Results are not only typical but they are expected. I have seen people get results like, weight loss, cholesterol drops, blood pressure drops, increased energy, less joint pain, better sleep, and the list goes on.
For some reason many of the people that get these amazing results eventually go back to their old habits and start eating unhealthy food again and in time all the wonderful and healthy benefits start fading away as they stop eating nutritious whole plant foods. This is so frustrating to watch. It is one thing if people just disregard the power of a WFPB diet but to experience the health and vitality that it brings and walk away knowing full well the effects just baffles my mind.
As I was preparing to teach a class it hit me… Maybe, it’s the second part of that phrase that is the problem for people. See, while I was explaining how habits are sometimes linked together and I gave an example of how I was in a habit of eating an apple instead of a candy bar when I wanted something sweet. I went on to explain that a candy bar would directly affect my fitness program which would, in turn put my goal of Ironman Placid in jeopardy.
I was thinking about that on the drive home and I realized how much I perceived that my life would change from one candy bar. That life I had referred to was my ‘completely new life’ so it made me wonder.
What if I didn’t have to train?
What if I didn’t have goals?
What if my weekends still consisted of sitting on the couch watching TV?
What if the highlight of my weekend was still eating at a restaurant with my wife?
What if we weren’t hiking to see a beautiful waterfall tomorrow?
What if the only thing that stood between me and that candy bar were a few numbers from my blood work and a few pounds on the scale?
What if that filmed ‘just’ saved my life?
What did it actually save it from?
See, here’s the deal. If you think about it getting healthy and feeling fantastic is a little like earning money. You can work to regain your health or work to earn money and at first you may be driven just by collecting that income. My guess is that in time, if you aren’t using the benefits to build a better life, you aren’t going to keep working as hard because there is really no point. You would be a fool to work harder and not cash the checks to build a savings or enjoy new things just like it would be foolish to work hard to regain health to sit on your couch and do what you have always done. The flip side is that if you do decide to invest and build a new life you have some assets to protect. If the assets are valuable enough you will sacrifice what you have to in order to hang on to them, even if it means choosing an apple over a candy bar.
So at the end of the day if you are getting healthy make sure you are investing in a life that is exciting and new. Use your health to do things you have always wanted to do. Set some goals that push you out of your comfort zone. Hike, travel, ride, row, run, climb, volunteer, help a neighbor, go for a walk with a friend, just go do something with that gift you have been given.
Did you know that 151,600 people will not wake up tomorrow? That alone should get your off your couch. You can relax another time, today is a wonderful day, don’t waste it. Grab your health and take it for a walk and while you walk take some time to be grateful for the chance at a new life. Be grateful that you have the ability and can choose to build a new life.
Maybe I should change my phrase to “the film Forks Over Knives didn’t just save my life but it gave me the opportunity to build a completely new one.” At the end of the day, however we ended up where we are, it is our responsibility to build a new life and continuously improve ourselves to become better people in every aspect of our lives. It’s actually a pretty serious concept, it makes that candy bar seem silly, doesn’t it?
Here’s a new video I made. If you think it will help someone, give it a share.
Until next time, Eat plants and move your body, all ya gotta do is a little more than ya did yesterday.
-Tim Kaufman
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For more information on the film I referred to click the link below.
