Everyone has a different path to health or an idea of what “healthy” means. The level of health you reach in life may, or may not, be important to you but, it could impact your longevity, how you age and the quality of life you have over time. Let’s see what tools you can use to become a healthy person.
What are Your Reasons for Getting Healthy?
- It might simply be to look and feel better.
- It might be in preparation for an upcoming event or trip.
- Or, it might be at a more critical level because of family history, a recent diagnosis, chronic condition or sudden trauma.
- You can find the reasons for our founder’s health journey here.
Why Does a Healthy Person Glow?
Ever see that “uber” healthy person on the street, or in your feeds? They sort of “glow,” and you wonder how it magically happened? Hate to bust the bubble, but there’s no actual magic – it reflects a lifestyle of good, consistent choices – these are the key to health. A lifestyle is a way of living and choices get made every single day to create that reality.
READING SUGGESTIONS
How long it takes your body to regrow 19 types of cells and organs, from your skin to your skeleton
- The human body is in a constant state of regeneration
- From the cells in our skeleton to the nails on our toes.
- Some cells are replaced more quickly than others
The Million Dollar Question – Where Do You Start?
Some people are like light switches. They can turn on / off bad habits in a second. Others (the majority), take longer. Becoming a healthy person means changing bad lifestyle habits to good ones takes time and is often done in stages. But, where and how do you start on the path to health?
Stages of Health
Based on years of research, we’ve created a quick reference tool that gives you a:
- Comparison Spectrum: of Food as Pleasure vs. Food as Fuel
- Lifestyle Descriptions: that helps identify your profile and where you are today
- Lists of Books, Cookbooks & Movies: for each stage of your health journey
- See FMTV (Food Matters) for more Movie options
- See a full list of Books, by category
The 5 Stages of Health are Exist, Learn, Act, Practice, and Thrive:
| Stage 1. Exist | More… |
- 10% Healthy
- Standard American Diet (SAD)
- Could apply to any country
| Stage 2. Learn | More… |
- 20% Healthy
- Awareness begins
- Small diet improvements
| Stage 3. Act |
- 50% Healthy
- Actively participate in your health
- Diet becomes important
| Stage 4. Practice | More… |
- 80% Healthy
- Living a healthy lifestyle
- Conscious choices daily
| Stage 5. Thrive | More… |
- 90% Healthy
- Dedicated to a healthy lifestyle
- Becomes a way of life
Start with Nutrition: One of the Highest Points of Impact
Whether your incentive is to look good or for a more critical reason, there are clear statistics around healthy lifestyle and nutrition that support the importance of food. In a nutshell, good nutrition ensures the body has high-quality nutrients it needs to turn over new, healthy cells in the body to keep you healthy and fight off disease.
READING SUGGESTIONS
Your driver is “Looking Good”?
80/20 Food – Exercise Ratio
- Losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise.
- The reason dieting is so much more effective than exercise is because it takes a ton of activity to create a 500 to 700 calorie deficit through working out.
- Essentially, you’d need to run seven to 10 miles a day to lose one pound a week, says Holly Lofton, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine and director of the weight management program at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
- The average person can’t keep this up, especially without increasing their caloric intake. In other words, you can’t exercise out a bad diet.
Your driver is “More Critical”?
Illnesses are Influenced by Diet
- “Nutrient deficiencies and toxicity from a poor diet are linked to nearly all modern health conditions.
- John Hopkins University reports that some 80% of cancer patients are believed to be malnourished, and that treatments used to battle cancer (like chemotherapy) only increase the body’s need for nutrients and very high-quality foods even more.
- You probably know that diabetes and heart disease (currently the No. 1 killer in the U.S. and most industrialized nations) are also illnesses that are highly influenced by one’s diet —the same can be said for allergies, autoimmune disorders like arthritis, thyroid disorders and many more.”
Remember
- Optimal health varies from person-to-person – there’s not one formula that turns a person into the picture of health overnight
- Even if you’re not a Stage 5 on the chart, it doesn’t mean you are not a healthy person
- Knowledge is power – we have the choice to look the other way as we continue bad habits or, learn to make small changes over time that lead to big results
- It’s not always easy but the rewards of a healthy person are huge (mentally, physically and emotionally)!
Action
- Find where you are — understand what to read or watch — then see what happens!
- Take your health in stages no matter where you start