We can place a dollar value on many things; what it costs us to eat or to fill up our car with gas, what school costs or how much it is to go on vacation.
There are also many things in our life that we can’t place a dollar value on; things like our relationships and experiences with those around us that we care about.
The things we can’t place a dollar amount on are the ones that we value the most; they are the ones we remember and hold dear to our heart and the ones that we don’t want to lose or go without.
Although there are numerous factors that go into allowing and affording us our freedom to have those experiences, maintaining and improving our health by controlling what factors we can, is one that we can have influence on.
There are factors of our health that we cannot control such those related to genetics, gender and age, but there are also many strong factors that we can control, two of which are what we put into our bodies to provide fuel and energy for the day and prevent disease, and also how much we move our bodies to maintain things such as our strength and flexibility. Our health in relation to the value and scope of our experiences can be strongly affected by the foods we eat and the accumulation of physical activity that we provide ourselves each day.
In order to do the things we want to do and create those memories that do last a lifetime, we need to make the right healthy decisions that afford us that luxury.
If we think about all the times in our days, weeks and months that we have the opportunity to eat or move — it’s astronomical in size.
Each time we have an opportunity, we have a decision to make; and each time we make a decision you could say we are putting pennies in the bank with each healthy decision, and making a withdrawal with each unhealthy one. Accumulate many ‘pennies’ or good health decisions and we place ourselves in a better position to afford the freedom to ‘buy’ the things that money can’t — the experiences that come with a healthy body.
But don’t get too worried, it’s not all or nothing.
As we all know, if we have a bucket of pennies and take a few out (or make a few unhealthy choices) it shouldn’t have a large effect our overall bucket (or health); but if we keep making withdrawals through unhealthy decisions, or don’t have a very large bank to begin with, we risk losing control of our health and our freedom to do what we want and create those memories that are so valuable.
Our challenge this week is to start investing in our ‘bank’ so that we can experience what we want to out of life.
How do you start if you’re starting with an ‘empty jar’? Start small and accumulate. We can’t fill up our ‘bank’ overnight, nor should we try. The benefits are going to come when we keep adding, over time, with simple and small changes to our
lifestyle.
Start with something active after dinner, change one type of food that you eat, eat out one less time per week, take the stairs, reduce the amounts of oil or sugar that you use in baking, switch to the grill instead of frying, stand instead of sit at meetings or when watching events, drink water instead of pop, turn off the television, go outside.
The possibilities are endless to get started and it doesn’t matter what you start with as long as you start and keep at it. Change can happen at any age, we just need to start investing.
To suggest a column idea or to ask questions, Jennifer Wilson can be reached at jennifer.wilson@strathcona.ca. For more information on health and wellness, visit a fitness technician at Millennium Place or Glen Allan Recreation Complex.
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