What does getting healthy involve? I’ll tell you. It’s a consistent healthy lifestyle that gets you healthy and keeps you healthy.
I know many people’s main goal is to lose weight, and that is a big mistake. When you focus on losing weight, then you aren’t really concentrating on getting healthy. I know that may sound a little weird, but if you were healthy you would not be overweight.
If you find yourself 10, 20, 30 or even 100 pounds overweight, then we need to get you on the healthy track. All that extra weight is just a symptom of the big problem. That big problem is that your heart, lungs, blood vessels and every organ in your body haven’t been used to their optimal abilities.
Humans are all designed to be cardiovascular animals. We are meant to move, hunt and survive. In our society, it’s easy to lose the desire to stay active because we don’t need to in order to eat and have a roof over our heads. We can simply be lazy. We have too many choices, and with too many choices usually comes picking the choice with the least amount of effort involved.
I suggest having a plan. You need one no matter what you are trying to accomplish. It’s no different with getting healthy and staying healthy. It’s your choice to eat the brownie or the broccoli. It’s your choice to get some exercise or watch TV.
Just think of it like this: You get to eat only a certain amount of calories per day, so you want to make those calories very nutritious. If you eat a brownie, then you’re not only decreasing the number of calories you have left to eat for the day by a lot, but you’re also not getting any nutritional value with that brownie. With your remaining calories you may not be able to supply your body with enough nutrients to operate at its most efficient level.
You should treat yourself on occasion, but if you can stick with the 85/15 rule, then your treats will taste so much better and you won’t be sacrificing vital nutrients for your taste buds. Eat 85 percent of your food with quality in mind, and 15 percent of your food can be things that are less nutritious and more for tasting pleasure.
We should all be active or exercising at least five or six days a week. That means that you have a designated plan of getting exercise. Gardening and doing the dishes don’t count. Hiking, jogging, bicycling and other things like that are what I’m talking about. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. That is so true. If you want to live a long time, then you better keep those joints well-oiled by moving.
Set some goals. Be consistent. You will be rewarded, but only if you are diligent. It’s hard work being fit and healthy. Personally, I could eat brownies for breakfast, ice cream for lunch and pie for dinner, but I choose not to go that route because I have more respect for my body than that.
Just make the choice to change and you can do it. Start small by substituting some of the poorest quality foods you eat with something more nutritious. Start getting a little more active. If you just do it every day, you will notice a change in a very short time — and then you’ll be hooked.
— Dr. Bob Wilcher is a chiropractor and personal trainer in Santa Barbara. He owns Killer B Fitness, a personal and group training studio also located in Santa Barbara. Contact Wilcher at www.killerbfitness.com or 805.448.2222.