Day 114- What Is Health?

What does health mean to you? If you were to randomly ask a population of people this question you would be guaranteed to get a variety of answers. To many people health means waking up every morning and being able to get out of bed. To others health may mean that they don't have to use their sick time at work, or that they are able to show off their six-pack abs at the beach. Health might also be what you have been taught to think is healthy by the marketing companies. Eating cardboard boxes that contain labels claiming to be "healthy and natural" really is not the image of health that we should be taught.

If you were to ask me what I believe health to be you may be surprised with my answer.

Health to me isn't just about being able to get out of bed each morning, or being able to use my sick time from work for more fun activities. Health isn't really even about having a fitness model body. Health to me is so much more than that. Health isn't always about how I want to feel in the present, it is also how I want to feel in the future. Health is about learning how my body works and fueling my body with things that it needs.

Many people wait until they start to see or feel symptoms that their health is declining before they pay attention to their health. They go about eating whatever they feel like, thinking that the low energy, GI issues, difficultly getting a good nights sleep, or mood swings are just a part of life. It may also be that people don't care about what they put in their bodies because they don't notice any symptoms at all, which must mean of course that they are healthy, right?

Here's is an analogy for you: every three months we take our car in to get the oil changed and a check-up. In between those three months we might not notice anything wrong with our car, it drives fine, we can't feel that it's low in oil, or that the air filter needs to be replaced, but when the mechanic opens the hood they are able to see everything that we may have not noticed. Yes, it may be a pain to take the time to have this procedure done, and of course it costs money, especially when extra items need to be replaced. But let's say that you decided not to change your oil on a regular basis, or to have regular maintenance check-ups done on your car. Think of all the issues that can arise when you neglect the vehicle that gets you to where you need to go on a regular basis. Eventually the oil in your engine is going to dry up, when this happens it can destroy your engine. What happens when your engine stops working? The vehicle that usually gets you from there to here is no longer an option. What do you do then? You either have to replace the engine or get a new car, both of which are way more expensive than the cost of an oil change.

So apply that analogy to your own body; is it more expensive to spend extra money now on good quality "real" foods? Or to wait until you have to have the expensive by-pass surgery or other lifesaving procedure? We need to treat our body better than we treat our vehicles, because not only are our bodies helping us get here to there, but they also can't be replaced as easily as our cars can, no matter how much money you have.

We need to focus on eating the right foods, learning about our bodies, and making healthy choices, because although many of us don't feel the consequences right now, they will eventually catch up with us down the road. Health isn't how we feel on a day to day basis, it goes deeper than that. Take the time and money to treat your body as though it is the only one you have, because face it, it is.

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP