Food is Fuel

How and when did unhealthy become the new acceptable norm.

Who is to blame for the gluttony and sloth epidemic? We can blame the food industry. We can blame the legislators. We can blame big Pharma. Or can we work out how we go about taking some ownership of our own health, or unhealthiness?

As one of my favorite colleagues, a talented trainer who holds a Masters in Fitness and Nutrition says, “I don’t need to tell you the difference between a snickers bar and a stalk of broccoli. Get back to me if you need more help with that”. If you are unhealthy, have a dangerously high BMI, require a litany of medications to stay out of danger, or can’t easily get yourself up off the floor *, suffice to say your lifestyle is killing you, and YOU are ultimately responsible for your lifestyle……..And if you have a child at home, the way you shop, eat, and live sets the stage for their heath and their future levels of fitness, illness and diet related disease.

The desire is there in all of us and often people are strangled by guilt. Random strangers often stop me (in the grocery store, parking lots, at school meetings), to unload their litany of excuses for why they are not in great physical shape. They feel the need to confess and make a promise to a total stranger who must obviously hold the power of absolution and facility to hear their decree of renewed absolve and grant it possible. And indeed, I can, I can be your information resource. I will be your biggest cheer-leader and life-coach, your confessional and the holder of your goals and dreams. But the journey starts with your own internal resolve to make a change. Make a commitment to yourself first – only then can I get to work.

Excuses don’t get results. Hard work gets results. I give the same information to anyone who approaches me:
Consistency is key.
Diet revamp is essential.
There can be no excuses.
Prioritize.
Food is not for pleasure, it is fuel.
Find your WHY.

Tuck that information in your back pocket, take it out and unfold and read it as needed. Train your body not because you hate it but because you love it. Food can be the enemy or it can be your life fuel. Train for life, train for joy and train with intent. Imagine the body you want to live in, healthy, free from pain, mobile and efficient, lean and mean. Start taking steps to get there. Find someone who can boil down the insurmountable task to doable bites. Start taking bites until you stimulate the appetite for huge mouthfuls of health and vitality. It’s addictive. Let the joy of movement be your drug of choice and your guilty pleasure, it’s the only one that reverses the downhill spiral of neglect. After all, if you don’t take care of your body where will you live?

Need more help with that? I’m the one wearing the “Squat , cos nobody wrote a rap song about a small behind” T-shirt, waving frantically from my here, my YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram pages. Let me help you at any step along the way. LET’S DO THIS!!!

(*In 2012 The floor sit to stand up test (without using your hands) was shown to be a viable indicator of longevity. It involves strength, mobility, coordination, and balance etc. More recently tweaked to take onto consideration a person’s genetic predisposition to diseases and conditions it still holds water as a valuable yard-stick. Go ahead and try it.)