HEALTH IS WEALTH

When I was watching the television, a thought came up to my mind. I wanted to share it... so, I created an account, hoping that everyone would be inspired and benefit from it.

What I wanted to talk about is health.

I admit, I am quite... a lazy person. What I mean by that is I don't usually exercise. Basically, my exercise is just doing household chores. And for someone who is living in a small house, the chores that I do are just the basic ones.

I eat unhealthy foods, like junk foods, canned goods, frozen foods and more. Any food that has a heavy taste and easy to cook.

One day, my relative got sick and was confined in the hospital. I was the one who was tasked to stay with her. We stayed in a ward and met warm people whom we could talk about the reason why we are currently staying in the hospital, and of course share some stories, experiences and so on, to past time.

It was fun, but then eventually, the topic got to the point where the guardian of the other patient in our ward mentioned that he too had a terrible experience just recently.

He was sick. He got diagnosed with—I forgot the exact term for his disease, but anyway it's related to liver. He was confined in the hospital for a while. His doctor said that he got his disease from his lifestyle.

I was shocked. I was asking inwardly, "How could you get sick from a lifestyle?"

For someone like me who's ignoramus in taking care of the body, I had no idea that you could get sick from your lifestyle.

His doctor said, he would've been a healthy middle-aged man if he had a healthy way of living—no chronic, nor hereditary diseases. But this so called unhealthy lifestyle, made him sick.

Just how?

What is unhealthy lifestyle? It's basically, the basic things that I am too lazy to do.

1. Too lazy to exercise.
2. Keeps on eating unhealthy foods. Because I am too lazy to cook complicated dishes. Frying food is easy. Opening a can is easy. Putting a hot water on a cup of ramen is easy.
3. Not sleeping on time. I always stay up all night because I like playing games or watching a series.
4. Over usage of cellphone and laptop. Pretty much because of #3. I'm wearing glasses for my myopia and astigmatism, but the degree of my glasses is increasing at a noticeable rate.

Those are the few things I could list out. But this is just for my case. There's probably a lot more unhealthy things in the world, that people can't help but keep on doing it... because it has already become a habit.

I once read a saying, too much is as bad as too little. And that we should do things in moderate. Excessively doing things is never good.

Going back to the story of that man I met, as I look at him now, he doesn't seem to be someone who's sick. He presently looks so... young and energetic, bubbly, and he has this bright aura, that makes you feel warm inside. He doesn't seem like someone who's going through or has gone through something awful.

So, I voiced out my thoughts.

He suddenly laughed and said, "I already changed my lifestyle. It was hard to suddenly stop doing the things I was used to doing, but it was worth it. I've never felt this light and healthy before."

I became curious... And so I asked if he isn't sick anymore.

He said he just had his regular check-up done before dropping by at our ward. And his doctor praised and congratulated him, for his body is now as healthy as a bull.

So... How do we change our lifestyle?

According to him, it isn't something you could change immediately just because you wanted to.

Of course, wanting to change is very important, but that's not just the 'only ingredient in order to create a whole recipe.'

1. Determination. If you aren't determined then what's the point?
2. Effort. It would take a lot of effort to restrain yourself from doing the things you've been used to doing.
3. Discipline. If you don't have discipline, then you'll be stuck in a cycle. It's pointless to start, when you don't even have the will to finish it.
4. Realization. Self-awareness about the things that would benefit you and the things that would harm you, will help you get through the process. Being enlightened about these few things will help you be firm in your decision in taking the right path.
5. Patience. Doing this will need a lot of your patience. You want to see the result of your hard work immediately? That will never happen. That man already warned me.

After preparing yourself mentally, here are the few steps you could take to achieve your goal in changing your lifestyle.

You need to have the will to exercise. Daily exercise is a must. Start your morning with a 30-minute exercise then gradually increase the minutes by 5 if you can. An hour of exercise is good enough. You can find a lot of video tutorials about different ways of exercising in YouTube if you want something that's not boring.

Start eating healthy foods. Like vegetables, homemade dishes, fruits, etc. Just google easy recipes you could make if you aren't good at cooking. Gradually decrease eating junk foods and other instant foods, until you could fully refrain yourself from eating it.

If you did the first one well, then you could sleep on time. Your body will want to rest on time because it's out of energy and had to be charged full.

These things wouldn't take too much of your time. You have 24-hours a day... allotting an hour or two a day for this, could still leave you a lot of time to do the things that you must do daily.

No one aside from yourself could take care of your own body. If you don't take care of yourself, then who would?

I would like to express my gratitude to that man for making me realize a lot of things. Should I only take action if I already got sick? Of course not. It's much better to start early, than wait for yourself to get sick first, before doing something.

I am currently at the early stage of my #RoadToAHealthyLifestyle program. Wish me luck. :)

Health is wealth. Your body is your wealth. The only way to keep on living freely, happily and free of worry, is if you are healthy.

Realize it.