You want to live a long life, but if you’re like most Americans, you’re not doing nearly enough to make sure that happen. Our life expectancy has never been longer, and yet it’s never been more difficult to thrive in old age. Sure, the potential is there, but a long and prosperous life doesn’t happen by accident. Social security isn’t enough, your children will move away, and financial instability will cripple you if you don’t insulate yourself from the inevitable danger.
Yes, aging is scary.
But it could be so much better. Money and health are threaded together in your life’s tapestry. While you have no control over your genetic makeup, you have the full reigns over your behavior.
Don’t Fall Into The “Easy” Trap
Modern society has cemented our need for ease and convenience. Processed foods and drive-thrus on every corner send the message that we’re foolish to fritter time in the kitchen, or that it’s OK to put cooking wholesome foods on the back-burner of life.. We are busy, after all.
But overly-processed foods are packed with unhealthy chemicals. While they may preserve the foods themselves, they are a slow decay on the human body. Many of these chemicals are indigestible, causing the “nutrition” in these pseudo-foods to be excreted from the body, rather than used. You need carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids to survive, but if you want to thrive, then they must come from natural sources.
Fast food is an unhealthy menace, depriving your body of the true sources of energy it needs for optimum health. When you eat these types of foods, your body struggles to find the necessary nutrition in them for you to stay healthy, and ward off disease. This leaves your body vulnerable.
Physical Vulnerability Opens the Door to Disease
Diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are all linked to diet and nutrition. Even though there’s a genetic factor, diet and exercise are what determine whether or not the gene will be turned “on.”
Diseases will chew through your bank account and swallow your life.
With money already a serious issue for the elderly, healthcare can make staying within budget nearly impossible. And waiting until you’re older to take care of yourself is Russian Roulette to your body, and your bank balance.
Start Now
Take care of your body today and it will take care of you and your wallet later. Starting today, learn to love healthy, whole foods and regular exercise. Fill your body with the nutrients needed to fight disease and keep yourself healthy on the cellular level.
This is so much easier said than done when modern life highlights ease and convenience. Learning to love the things that take time and effort can seem daunting, but it’s necessary in order to protect the bottom line of your health and life.
Feeling Better, Not Tasting Better
The first step to protecting your wallet and health is to focus on the feeling your body has after you’ve eaten, rather than the taste of the food while it’s in your mouth.
The lab generated food most of us were raised on tastes different from whole and natural foods. Changing your palate takes time, patience, focus and dedication. You’re not eating for the party in your mouth, you’re eating for peace of mind now and a full wallet later.
Even eating right isn’t enough if you’re not moving your body.
Back in ancient times, food was scarce and exercise abundant. Today, we have the opposite problem. We must actively seek exercise, like our ancestors had to actively seek food.
Exercise keeps our hormones in check, while helping to build our bones and keep our immune systems healthy. Combined with a healthy diet, regular exercise reduces your chances of developing wallet-debilitating and life-threatening diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. The University of California at Berkley reports that you can reduce your chances of developing heart disease by 35 – 55% through exercise alone. Those are strong numbers to buffer your wallet with.
Eat right and exercise regularly to make for a happier today and a longer, wealthier tomorrow.
What prevents you from eating right and exercising every day?
{ read the comments below or add one }
Just according to me health insurance has dual benefits , First it can save your money in big health problem or any major accident. Secondly you can save your income tax as well.
The easiest way to eat healthy is to shop the perimeter of the store. I prefer shopping farmer’s markets because there the temptation of prepackaged food is not present.
And a second step is to park as far away from the door as you can before you start shopping the perimeter of the store. That way you get a bit of a walk in and out of the store.
I’m always amazed that people think they can get healthy by just dieting. Or just exercising. The two need to be combined people, come on now! You have to eat healthier and work out more if you want to lose weight, be healthy, etc. It doesn’t hurt to have good genes too 🙂
I really enjoyed this post. While it may look like eating fast food is the inexpensive choice, the cost will catch up to you in the long run in doctor bills and hospital visits.
Great post. It’s true that getting sick can hurt you financially – between doctors’ bills, prescriptions, and even special equipment. There is also the lack of productivity – when you are sick, you cannot work as much and lose money that way. Additionally, obese men and women have a difficult time taking care of themselves and their families. Obviously there are certain circumstances that are beyond some people’s control, but at the very least we should be encouraging people to start young with a good education of how to eat right and stay active. It may be slightly more expensive to eat the most healthy food than regular old junk food, but it doesn’t have to be! You don’t have to buy all independent, organic, over-priced foods to be healthy. Education is the key – and the younger they start the better.
First of all, I resent the implication that eating well means sacrificing taste. Clearly the author has never tasted my fantastic pseudo-ratatouille, eaten home-made hummus, enjoyed a fantastic mushroom risotto, or so much as enjoyed a perfectly-ripened piece of fruit. Even vegetables, if they are cooked properly, can taste delicious–one of my boyfriend’s favorites is steamed broccoli. No salt, no pepper, no oil. Just plain steamed broccoli. And y’know what? It tastes pretty darn good. Food should taste good. What’d be the point of eating, if it didn’t?
Secondly, while I applaud any effort to get people away from processed crap, I also resent the implication that all processing is bad. Frozen veggies are fresher than the fresh ones–unless you pick it yourself, they usually are. Canned veggies aren’t as good as fresh ones, but they’re still better than none. And as far as “unhealthy chemicals” go, we’re a long way removed from the days of boiling milk with baking soda to preserve it, when cocaine was a perfectly acceptable food additive, and when sulfuric and hydrochloric acids were used to preserve meats. And do you have any idea how many chemicals there are in coffee, tea (even–especially green tea), chocolate, and red wine? These mild poisons are supposed to be good for you in moderation, but I am almost certain that the ingredients list on the most well-preserved Twinkie is dwarfed by the list of chemical compounds found in a glass of red wine.
Lastly, it’s important not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good, here. Sure, you may have the time to cook gourmet meals for your family and the money to attend a yoga class every Tuesday morning. That’s not to say it’s not possible to be busy working and have a fulfilling home life, but writers like Tania marginalize the reality that most people have to live with by saying, “Well, if it were really important to you, you’d change” rather than giving advice that would actually help you change.
While I definitely agree with all of your points, I think the meaning of the article is open to interpretation.
I did not see any indication that healthy food has to taste bad, but instead the word used was “different.” People might have to adjust to the different taste. For example, my family uses a lot of salt in their food, so when I cook without salt, they don’t like it even though I think it’s a lot better than their over-salted food. If salt was considered healthy and I would need to eat it, I would have to adjust to the taste of salty foods and learn to like it, just like the people used to a lifetime of insane amounts of salt having to convert to a lesser intake.
As for the processed foods, the article seemed to focus on fast food and overly processed food loaded with chemicals, which to me is something like TV dinners or pre-made varieties created for convenience.
Obesity in children has been on a rise once again! I have a 15 month old son and I managed to lose all the baby weight in under 6 months…
I would take him to the park and run (using my jogging stroller) and I would see all of these overweight kids sitting around and doing nothing. A complete lack of activity! Here I was 30, running to lose weight while trying to manage my son at the same time.
It amazes me how times have changed. I’m going to try to keep my son as active as possible!
Great post! 🙂
Yea, in the last few decades, obesity has been on an alarming rise. Even though fitness and healthy living has seen a good bit of popularity in recent years, the obesity problem remains at large. I often worry myself about the preservatives and other chemicals in the food I eat daily. I try to eat fruits and mildly cooked vegetables as much as possible to counter any illeffects of chemicals.
-Jean