Whatever, Whenever If-Ever— This is the Silent Mantra of the Typical Unhealthy Lifestyle
It is an incredibly unhealthy approach to achieving your goals, and it’s the choice, approximately 97% of the population makes whether they know it or not.
80% or more (up to 95%) of all diseases remain “lifestyle-induced.” That doesn’t need to cause an alarm if you are in the 1%. Still, it should cause alarm if you are in the 99% because the people in the 3% are only meeting basic “healthy” guidelines that are so watered down.
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine says: that 80% or more of all healthcare spending in the U.S. is tied to treating conditions rooted in poor lifestyle choices. Chronic diseases and conditions—hypertension, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, and multiple types of cancer—are among the most common, costly, and preventable health conditions.
In the typical lifestyle, you live overwhelmed, overstimulated, and under-recuperated, which leaves you coping with excess stress in ways that create more stress.
For example, You eat whatever, whenever, exercise if ever, sleep as if you can sleep later, forever (which means not much now), in the typical unhealthy lifestyle and get caught up with ever more therapeutic methods of dealing with stress that further undermine your life potential within you. I.e. Pharmaceuticals etc.
I know it sounds grim, but you are not alone.
According to Michigan State University Researchers: Of the 153,000 respondents, only 3 percent participated in all four healthy lifestyle characteristics or HLCs.
Looking at these HLCs individually, about 75 percent reported they didn’t smoke; 23 percent included at least five fruits and vegetables in their daily diets; 22 percent took part in regular physical activity, which is defined as at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, five or more times a week. About 40 percent maintained a healthy weight, expressed as a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or less.
What’s so messed up is that none of these criteria define a healthy lifestyle. Smoking shouldn’t even be on the list as it’s a human-made addiction, and the rest are watered down to the point that you won’t even experience significant benefits. It basically describes an unhealthy lifestyle.
No wonder few do it. But of course, people don’t live anything more than the typical lifestyle because they don’t know better. They have never been trained in the fundamentals of a balanced, healthy, high-performance lifestyle, aka successful living.|
Lifestyle Coach JAM’s message is simple.
You don’t just want to buy into “passing grades” for being healthy; meanwhile, you’re burning out and trading your health for success because you respond to stress in ways that create more stress. That’s the old world, model, and mindset.
You want to manage your energy for health and higher performance for your success by changing, improving, and optimizing the way you live.
That’s the new world, model, and mindset.
Pilar Gerasimo, the creator of Experience Life magazine (which currently reaches over 3 million people per year), recently wrote the book The Healthy Deviant, A Rule Breaker’s Guide to Being Healthy in an Unhealthy World.
The lead quote for her book perfectly captures the thesis of the book. It’s from Jiddu Krishnamurti. He tells us: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Yep. That’s about right.
In a society where the VAST majority of us are sick, tired, anxious, and depressed, and, well, blah, blah, blah… IT IS NO MEASURE OF HEALTH TO BE WELL ADJUSTED TO THAT SICK SOCIETY.
“Currently, we live in a culture that produces more unhealthy, unhappy people than healthy, happy ones. Right now, the unhealthy lifestyle-to-healthy lifestyle ratio is arguably running about a hundred to one. Suppose you are currently a healthy and happy person in today’s United States of America (or in any one of a growing number of countries now following our lead). In that case, you represent a tiny and shrinking minority. You are, statistically speaking, an endangered species. …
In my mind, these facts raise a rather captivating question: What kind of society makes being healthy and happy so tricky that only a single-digit percentage of its population can hope to pull it off?
The answer is self-evident: A sick society. And within a sick community—one where chronic illness, obesity, drug dependence, anxiety, and depression are rapidly becoming the prevailing norms—what does it mean to be one of the few who buck those unhealthy odds?
It means that you must be prepared to resist society’s standard way of doing business successfully. You have to oppose its rules and defy its conventions. You have to make all kinds of inconvenient and unpopular choices. You have to become a renegade freak sometimes—or at least be willing to think and act like one.
The great news is that this does not require superhuman willpower, single-digit body-fat percentages, buns of steel, or an endless parade of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. What it does require: A willingness to toss some official-looking rule books out the window, suspend some self-torpedoing beliefs and assumptions, and begin doing some things differently. That starts with understanding one basic, disturbing fact: If you aren’t breaking the rules, you’re probably breaking yourself.”
~ Pilar Gerasimo from The Healthy Deviant
One part of the above that we need to point out is this great quote:
“You have to make all kinds of inconvenient and unpopular choices. You have to become a sort of renegade freak.”
It’s still true in many cultures for most of us living in the old world model, in the mode of living a lifestyle with no context, standards, or boundaries. But all of this changes when you shift into a high-performance lifestyle mindset.
Now, once you shift away from the typical unhealthy lifestyle and go beyond just being active for 25 minutes, eating a little healthier, and not smoking, not only does your body mass index transform, you will be on your way.
On your way towards a fitness-oriented and healthy lifestyle and, ultimately, a performance and high-performance lifestyle is the ultimate transformation you seek, whether you know it or not.
