Money or Health? You can’t enjoy your money if you’re sick
People wonder why I’m so well.. strict on food.
The way I see it, is that I can’t enjoy all my money if I’m sick.
I can’t enjoy my life, my future children and grandchildren, if I am coughing, riddled with disease and sick to the bone.
A lot of what we eat has to do with how we feel. If you have ever gone on a healthy kick for more than 2 weeks, the food sucks, but you feel awesome.
Full of energy, pep, vitality and happiness.
Then you eat a hamburger and your whole body goes into a tailspin. You’re fatigued, angry, cranky, hyper, and feeling bloated.
I’ve done the above (once), and it may not be fun to eat well all the time, but it’s better than feeling like crap.
Think of how you feel after a huge burger (nasty), and multiply that by a thousand. That’s what it feels like to be chronically sick.
Money can’t buy everything. It can’t buy health.
I read this rather sad story of a David Murdock, a billionaire who is planning to live until 125 who lost his mother and later, his beloved (third) wife Gabriele to ovarian cancer, which devastated him.
He would have probably given up every penny he had at that point, to cure her, and he surely tried.
…he suspects that lifestyle was a culprit, and is convinced that if the two of them had eaten better sooner, she would have been spared the surgery, the radiation, the chemotherapy, the wheelchair, the year and a half of hope and fear and pain.
“If I had known what I know today,” he says, “I could have saved my wife’s life. And I think I could have saved my mother’s life too.”
Gabriele Murdock died 18 years into their marriage, in 1985.
She was 43.
It got me thinking that with that kind of mentality, why wouldn’t I, someone young and healthy, continue to try and stay young and healthy so that I don’t ever have to be in that position?
That’s not to say that I think cancer is caused by diet per se, but there are preventable diseases out there, particularly Type 2 Diabetes, which runs in my family.
I will not be able to go to Mr. Murdock’s extremes, but I am actively doing things to preserve my life such as:
- Very little sugar in general (this includes honey, maple syrup, etc because your body doesn’t know the difference)
- Cutting back on salt significantly
- Ban on fast food and processed foods — it means nothing in a box or a can other than dried pasta/rice
- Eating less meat (beef, pork, and chicken)
- Eating more vegetarian and vegan meals
- More fruits and veggies
- Eating raw, and as real as possible food (meat has to look like the part of the cow it came from)
- Exercise — even half an hour a day helps
In the video Supersize me above, the argument for eating real food is in this screencap:
It’s both empowering and scary to think that food can make such a difference in your health.
Most people will spend their LAST 10 years of their life in sickness.
So imagine that when you’re sick with the flu for instance, you don’t even want to get up and out of bed to do anything. Can you imagine spending 10 years in that same kind of funk?
Your body doesn’t work, it aches, you feel pains, your joints are inflamed… these are all problems that we experience as we get older, so why not take care of our bodies NOW with good fuel and food so that they don’t have such problems (or less of them) as we age?
Food is really the best medicine for your body.
Via
5 Comments
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save. spend. splurge.
Ditto. I’m starting to be careful about what I eat, particularly the amount of sugar I ingest as diabetes runs in my family.
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Erin
I totally agree. I follow a different healthy path than you (paleo eating — because that’s what my body has responded best to after being diagnosed with an autoimmune illness), but the sentiment is the same: Put real fucking food in your body.
I think it’s so interesting that different people respond better to different diets, but I have yet to meet anyone whose body responds best to processed crap. And as a former eater of almost exclusively processed crap, I get that it’s addictive. But it’s amazing how you can change your relationship with food when you’re only putting nourishing things in it. Most of that processed stuff doesn’t appeal to me in the least anymore, when before I was sure I “couldn’t live without it”.
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Courtney
I could not agree with you more. We prioritize health in our family. In fact we know we could so much better than our $300 a month grocery budget (for 2 people) if we didn’t spend 50-75% of that on fresh veggies and fruits. We could also cut back on spending by not going to the gym but we go everyday (my husband sometimes multiple times a day).
As we see it. Our health is the MOST important thing and it’s almost completely under our control. We know there are health problems in our extended families and we will do everything within our power to be as healthy as possible from now until the end and hopefully not have to deal with the lifestyle diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. I applaud you and encourage everyone to put their heath first NOW.
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Kathy
I agree that health is much more important than money, but money can certainly help you maintain your health.
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I ended up in the ER a couple of times a few years ago because I was basically eating fast food everyday. The funny thing is that I grew up with a great mom who made sure she always bought fruits and veggies and made sure we had enough on hand at any moment of the day. I sort of rebelled a bit from that and started eating fast food when I hit 18 and that’s when all my issues started.
After the second ER visit I was so weak, I felt like I was going to die. I knew I couldn’t end up in the hospital again. It’s amazing how your diet can create so many health problems. I went back to what I knew and what my mom taught me. I started changing my diet and exercising more and as time went on I started craving the healthier food. I’m not a full vegetarian or vegan. I like to eat meat sometimes.
My body craves what I normally feed it. When I was eating junk food all the time it craved junk food all the time. When I switched to eating more fruits and veggies my body started craving more fruits and veggies! Eating fast food became less appealing naturally over time and I would turn down opportunities to go there.
People look at me funny when I eat things like butternut squash for lunch with a salad and fruit or that I like veggie soup with tofu for dinner but it tastes good to me. I don’t feel deprived by my diet. And yes I do eat sweets from time to time and people will say, “You’re actually eating a cupcake!” I don’t try to deprive myself but I like to keep my sweets in check. 😀