In Vain or Envision? Your Future is in Your Hands!
My Biased Opinion : A Case for a Holistic Approach to Health.
Your current state off affairs may support a less than ideal, pessimistic view of yourself; one where your past efforts seem to have been in vain! It takes faith to envision and imagine a better future for yourself.
It is fundamental to appreciate that regardless of your beliefs, your life should idealy reflect them. Your life should be an accurate reflection of living out your beliefs.
From my Christian perspective we are clearly instructed to put Biblical instruction into practice (nurture and care for your physical body).
Understanding Stress Is Key.
A simple way to understand stress is: it is the difference between your expectations /intentions and your current reality. The bigger the difference is between the two the more stress you will experience.
So What Does This Mean For Your Health?
How can you enjoy your life if you are at odds between your intentions and expectations for yourself and your actions. Your personal beliefs should be reflected throughout your day in all you do. The greater the correlation between your beliefs /intentions /expectations and your actions the less stress you will be creating for yourself.
Let me illustrate this with two practical examples:
Nutrition and Exercise
If your intention is to lose weight and exercise /train regularly but you continue to eat too much, poor quality food, too often and don’t participate consistently in any physical activity, you know your actions are steering you in the direction of ailing poor health as you age. This is the opposite direction to your good intentions and you have just increased your stress.
On the contrary, if you improve your nutrition and exercise consistently your intentions/ expectations and actions are aligned and your stress will be minimised.
I trust that by now I don’t need to make a case for the compounding beneficial effect on your health of combining your nutrition (healthy diet) with adequate physical exercise.
Putting Your Faith In Action?
Sticking with this example (nutrition & exercise), one day of healthy eating and training will not secure a significant improvement to your Healthspan, living a healthy long life. It takes faith (belief in the future outcome without current evidence) and consistent persistent effort over time before you will see the desired outcome.
In other words, the bathroom scale does not back up your efforts immediately. This does not mean you are not making improvements.
Patience and perseverance are required to stay the course, and instilling beneficial new habits are essential to ensure the outcome you envisioned for yourself.
Now after a week or two of consistent effort you climb on the scale and your weight has increased, not exactly the outcome you were hoping for!
Why? Well you are altering the composition of your body, reducing fat% and increasing muscle % which is great. Without the knowledge that muscle weighs considerably more than fat you would be excused for feeling despondent and ready to pack it in. Don’t fixate on weight (mass) if you are looking to improve your health! The weight will come off in time if you stick to and introduce the right habits.
Time For A Software Upgrade? In Christian Speak “Renew Your Mind”
Your Healthspan is an intricate relationship between your spirit, mind (soul) and your body (nutrition and physical exercise).
Think of it like this: you were created as an incredible machine. Now use your imagination to envision yourself in the future. A future full of purpose and meaningful contribution. One where you love yourself and can love others too!
This can best be achieved if you have good health! Now its time to upgrade your software (renew your mind), fuel (appropriate healthy nutrition) and train accordingly (what does your future self require?) Let me make it clear, your training program and nutritional plan should be designed to acheive your specific desired outcome. You get to direct the change in your health.
“Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, you can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.” — unknown
It is never too late, forget the past, your action today will impact your tomorrow. Take consistent small efforts to ensure you get there.
Try a novel approach, put your faith into action in your life, practically apply Biblical wisdom. It’s time to love yourself so you can love and serve others.
We have designed our 3inOne Kickstart Challenge to help you start your journey to holistic health. To prove to yourself that you can succeed and impact your future health positively.
We should all strive to live with a renewed mind in a healthy strong body.
Let’s reduce stress in our lives, let’s do our best to walk our talk!
