Learn to Appreciate the Joys and Profits of a Wellness Mindset

Following a wake up call in the hospital the week before Thanksgiving 2007, I remain amazed at how much better it is to focus on wellness rather than sickness!

The wellness mindset places full responsibility for quality health in my hands, requiring me to know and act on what provides and maintains this wonderful lifestyle. The sickness culture encourages me to ignore quality health until my lifestyle deteriorates into almost endless painful diseases. Among my specific cohort, for example, thousands of us struggle daily with lifestyles dominated by various cancers and numerous types of heart diseases, not to mention diabetes and other ailments. Many, maybe even most of us are overweight, often clinically obese. We are more often than not sedentary, aching to retire and, for the most part, waiting to die.

What a tragedy, because it doesn’t have to be this way!

First, consider my personal background. At 65-years-old, I approach the outer edges of advances in knowledge, understanding and wisdom. This age introduces me to one of the finest times of my life. By biblical standards, I remain a “mere boy” because I’m younger than 100-years-old. Yet, because I lived during the final 58 years of the 20th century and now I’m moving through the initial decade of the 21st century, my knowledge, understanding and wisdom becomes increasingly valuable to those who come behind, particularly the “baby boomers. We identify the baby boomers as those 77 million people born in this country between 1946 and 1964 who, among other things, want to feel better, look better and live longer.

What a wonderful, exciting, potentially profitable opportunity!

Therefore, I am developing a 12-point strategy to embrace this opportunity. In this article, I will share an overview of this strategy with you. In subsequent articles I will discuss details. Here’s the overview. It features the first 12 letters of the alphabet:

Avoid Processed Foods

All processed “foods” are calorie dense, nutrient negative and chock full of sodium. I put “foods” in parenthesis because processed stuff-in cans, packages, boxes, or labeled “instant” or “quick” no longer qualify as food, based upon my current definition. I define food as calorie balanced, nutrient rich and sodium sufficient, naturally grown and gathered substances that begin to die the moment you harvest them. Therefore, to eat foods, I must ingest these substances before they die. Rot provides undeniable evidence that the substance is dead. So-called “shelf life,” provided by processing means simply that what you’re buying is no longer food! It will rot as soon as it can, almost immediately after entering your system.

Balance Your Nutrients Intake

Life exists and achieves its optimal purpose in the trillions of cells in our bodies. To function effectively, our cells must receive optimal levels of nutrients when and how they’re needed. For example, six basic nutrients constitute what some wellness experts refer to as the “chain of life.” The following nutrients form this wonderful “chain” that builds the foundation of quality health: vitamins, minerals, proteins, enzymes, carbohydrates and lipid sterols. To achieve quality health, each of us must ingest a well-balanced “team” of nutrients in daily optimal amounts.

Clarify Your Wellness Objectives

Wellness exists as both a mindset, and a clearly defined, measurable state of life. We measure our wellness by establishing specific health objectives. For example, you could decide the following: “I want to achieve and maintain a perfect Body Mass Index.” You might also decide: “I want to avoid hypertension throughout my life.” Further, you could decide: I will avoid toxic lifestyle choices and environments that encourage my cells to deteriorate into free radicals, the foundation of all cancers. “ We can measure those objectives. Measurable objectives clarify your commitment to a wellness lifestyle.

Determine How to Afford Wellness

Many, many people do not elect a wellness lifestyle and culture because they don’t believe they can afford it. Most people buy and eat processed “foods” because they perceive these things in the cans, etc. to be less expensive than organically grown, freshly presented and properly prepared food! Processed “foods” ultimately cost you more because they eventually rob you of the quality health you could enjoy, and they lead you to astronomical doctor and hospital expenditures you could have avoided.

Engage Your Loved Ones and Friends

I see it all around me! People I care about eating the wrong things, passionately, even proudly practicing sedentary lifestyles, and using the same excuses I once used. For example: “People keep telling me to watch my weight, so I’m trying to get it out here so I can see it.” Or “There’s nothing wrong with me being a big man (or woman) , there’s just more of me to love and certain things require more creativity now.” Here’s my personal favorite: “Okay, so I should quit smoking, quit eating so much red meat, start exercising, cut out sweets and processed foods before I die. But if you’re going to take all the fun out of life I might as well be dead.” I hear these excuses all the time. I know how these and other quips reflect a person’s addiction to a sickness culture. I know how challenging it is to shift from a sickness culture to a wellness mindset. Such a shift requires a complete change in perceptions, perspectives and attitudes.

Therefore, I believe it’s incumbent upon all who change to engage others and not sit silently by as they destroy their access to an enjoyable, quality lifestyle. No I’m not trying to be dramatic. Consider my experiences. On the day I went to the hospital, I had to stop and rest about every 50 feet or so that I walked. Since I do not drive, my shortness of breath became a constant warning that something was wrong, but I ignored it far too long. During the past five years my weight ballooned to almost 300 pounds as my body retained more and more fluids because my heart was malfunctioning. Gradually my blood pressure climbed higher and higher. I began trying to sleep sitting up because an unbearable pressure in my chest attacked me whenever I would lie down. I was living a miserable lifestyle, but I continued eating wrong, not exercising and making excuses for the obvious evidence of my poor health. Daily I continued destroying my access to an enjoyable, quality lifestyle.

I finally went to the hospital because friends, people who care about me, engaged me, literally forced me into a philosophical corner. Two of them, particularly, challenged me one Wednesday night following Bible study. “You are going to the hospital tomorrow aren’t you,” one said. “I want you to promise me.” I muttered a flimsy sounding excuse. “No, I insist,” my friend said. “You must promise me to go to the hospital tomorrow.” I tried using the transportation excuse, and another friend chimed in: “I will drive you. In fact, I will be at your apartment at 10am tomorrow and I will knock patiently on your door until you let me in, and I will take you to the hospital.” That’s why on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 2007 I went to the emergency room of a local hospital. By Friday, I knew the bad news. I suffered with atrial fibrillation which is “ . . .an abnormal, irregular heart rhythm that includes chaotic generation of electrical signals in the atria of the heart.” This ailment can cause the heart to beat so abnormally that it simply wears out. Result: death.

I also suffered with congestive heart failure, “ . . . which is “ . . . a condition in which the heart’s function as a pump to deliver oxygen rich blood to the body is inadequate to meet the body’s needs.” The cardiologist assigned to my case spent about 10 minutes with me Friday morning explaining my illnesses, the treatment strategies, and the prognosis for recovery. The picture loomed clearly before me. I had to make rapid and radical changes in my thinking in order to accomplish necessary lifestyle changes that would return me to access to a quality, wellness lifestyle. So engage your loved ones and friends. Yes, they will make excuses. They might even resent your “meddling,” but if you love them, engage them.

Finalize Your Commitment, Cooperation, Communication and Contribution

I refer to those four “Cs” as the fundamental principles of teamwork. Even though we wreck out health alone, restoring it, and transforming ourselves from adherents to the sickness culture to followers of a wellness mindset requires a team effort. In order to achieve optimal outcomes, you must make some rapid, radical and repetitive decisions. Take processed foods out of your life, and curtail sodium content immediately, even though you might have to throw away stuff in your house that you paid hard earned money for. Position yourself to learn everything you can about how to eat correctly, particularly how to get the right nutrients to your cells in optimal daily amounts so your body can begin repairing itself. Cooperate with your medical practitioners, which includes taking the prescribed medications.

No, I don’t like medication either, but I take it because it’s part of the treatment strategy necessary to give my body time to repair itself. Develop a comprehensive and effective regime of food supplementation. Communicate with people who practice wellness lifestyles. Listen to and learn from them. Double check with other sources to substantiate all that you hear. For example, when I tell people that I’m gravitating toward a vegetarian regime almost everyone mentions my so-called need for protein. Research reveals that almost any diet, except where you eat 80 percent of more in junk food provides sufficient protein because our bodies simply do not require as much of this nutrient as we have been led to believe. Be careful, because the negative allure of the sickness culture dies hard! You must commit, cooperate, communicate and contribute to your quality health despite the temptations to revert. It’s difficult, but it’s rewarding.

Gravitate to Wellness Environments

First, make every space you administer a wellness environment. It’s more than not allowing people to smoke in your home. Making your spaces wellness environments include not allowing processed foods there in any shape or form, presenting family, relatives and friends with wellness focused alternatives and standing your ground in face of virulent, even violent protests. Patronize wellness businesses. Spend time in places where people appreciate and honor your commitment to wellness. Develop friendships with other wellness adherents. It’s challenging because the sickness culture, like the Matrix, is everywhere. It surrounds us, envelopes us, even dominates us with just one purpose: to turn a normally healthy human being into a sickness carrier. So throughout your lifestyle gravitate to wellness environments.

Honor Your Body, Soul and Spirit

From my perspective, our spirit essence focuses on achieving our unlimited potential. Our mind provides the knowledge, understanding and wisdom to move ourselves along the change continuum that leads to that potential. Our bodies become the vehicles that either improve our journey to our potential, or impede its progress. Therefore, honoring our soul and spirit begins with honoring our bodies. The human body serves as a sacred temple for the Spirit authority that creates and administrates life. Once that Spirit authority unites with our individual spirit essence, the occupancy becomes permanent. Nevertheless, this authority will not function at optimal effectiveness in a garbage-filled physical environment, aka our bodies. Therefore, one vital principle demands that each of us make our body a living sacrifice, set aside for special use, which is a reasonable service that recognizes the value of our indwelling Spirit authority. Therefore, each of use must work hard to clean the temple because the house of our Spirit authority must not become the dumping ground for the people who sell us garbage rather than food.

Inspire Everyone

I’m pleasantly amazed when friends, sometimes even casual acquaintances comment on how “well” I look and inquire about the process I’m using to lose weight and achieve quality health. Trust me! When you embark on your departure from the sickness culture to achieve permanent residency in the “wellness world,” your courage and commitment will inspire others. Accept inspiring others as an incumbent responsibility of the wellness mindset because only those who have freed themselves from the sickness culture can inspire others to desire freedom also.

Join the Wellness Revolution

Paul Zane Pilzer wrote passionately about this revolution in his 2002 best-seller-The Wellness Revolution. Consider some of what he wrote: “In the 20th century, our lives were revolutionized by things like the automobile, airline travel, the personal computer and family planning. In those cases, initial discoveries led to the birth of empires and to unprecedented individual wealth for those entrepreneurs and investors who got in first. The next big thing of the 21st century has just begun and it promises to similarly revolutionize our lives and offer opportunities for tremendous wealth building over the next 10 years. This next big thing is the wellness revolution . . .We are now at the very beginning (about six years ago) of the next trillion dollar industry-an industry that will impact almost every aspect of our lives and achieve $1 trillion in sales within 10 years, but one that is as unknown today (2002) as the automobile industry was in the 1908 or the personal computer in 1981

. . . This next trillion dollar industry is being spawned by scientific breakthroughs in biology and cellular bio-chemistry . . .The sickness business is reactive. Despite its enormous size, people become customers only when they are stricken by and react to a specific condition or ailment. No one really wants to be a customer . . .The wellness industry is proactive. People voluntarily become customers -to feel healthier, to reduce the effects of aging, and to avoid becoming customers of the sickness business. Everyone wants to be a customer of this earlier-stage approach to health.” So not only should we take personal responsibility for our health, we should also investigate the entrepreneurial possibilities in this revolution to wellness. So join the wellness revolution.

Keep Going

Everything in this article and the subsequent series to follow is difficult, challenging almost beyond description. Both in your personal adherence to quality health, and as you engage others, you will often feel like quitting. Personally, I’ve discovered that old appetites and desires resurrect themselves, motivating me to L.O.S.E. This acronym stands for: Love garbage! Order what we love! Seek pleasure alone! Enjoy self-destruction. To combat these temptations, I have ascribed to the following affirmation, as I commit myself daily to a wellness mindset: W.I.N. I Will avoid processed stuff. I will Ingest the chain of life and other nutrients daily. I will Never eat something just because it tastes good. This works for me. You must now discover what works for you, and practice those principles daily.

Love Yourself

My Spirit authority says: one way to demonstrate that I love myself is to feed and care for my body. He implies that I should feed my body what it requires, and care for it in ways that produce quality health. Going back to an earlier point about engaging others, my Spirit authority also teaches that I cannot love others until I demonstrate that I love myself. Then He concludes: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? Your are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.”

That’s how I have learned to appreciate the joys and profits of a wellness mindset. I commend these principles to you. I will discuss them in deeper details in subsequent articles.