The Healthiest Financial Move You Can Make Today
What does good health have to do with financial independence?
Lets think about it. It makes no sense to thoroughly plan for retirement if you die before you get there. All the well-intentioned career advice in the world won’t do you any good if you aren’t healthy enough to enjoy that career. Just because you do intelligent things like take out a life insurance policy to protect your family doesn’t mean you should plunge headfirst into your grave, but the bottom line is that the decisions you make as a young person could have a long lasting impact on your future.
This article further explains:
“Health and wealth are related in many different ways. First, there is the sheer cost of unhealthy habits. Eliminate a $10 a day smoking or junk food habit, for example, and you can save $3,650 annually, plus interest. That’s just the immediate savings. There are also savings over the long term for the rest of someone’s life. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that a 10% weight loss could reduce an overweight person’s lifetime medical costs by $2,200 to $5,300. Delaying the onset of diabetes can save thousands of dollars annually in increased medical costs.”
I had the privilege of meeting Bill Kociaba… Actually, I honestly can’t remember exactly when it was I met Bill. He’s one of those guys who feels as though he’s been in my life for the better part of my adulthood, and the crazy thing is that he and I have never even met in person.
Bill is a fitness coach based out of Florida. If you have never had the privilege of meeting him, you should get in touch. Tell him I sent you. If he’s feeling in a good mood, he might even give you a discount for setting you up with your own custom fitness program designed around your specific needs and schedule. He is well-acquainted with famous people in the wrestling and fitness world, but more importantly, he avidly practices what he preaches. Twice now he has tried to help me establish a good healthy routine, and twice now I have valiantly tried and failed to follow his guidance. Well, “tried” is stretching the truth a little … a lot, but by sharing his advice on a public forum, I am committing to working harder at following his suggestions!
Here is some valuable information he shared with me which I am now passing along to you in hopes we can both be smarter, healthier versions of ourselves.
In no particular order, here’s what Bill recommends:
Drink as much water as you can. That means WATER, not sports drinks, gourmet coffee drinks or soft drinks! Drink water, especially before a meal. Doing so will help fill you up and stop you from eating more than you intended. Keep the amount you drink with your meals to a minimum. Drinking a lot with a meal, and after a meal, will make you feel bloated and will slow down digestion.
Avoid simple carbs as much as you can, especially highly processed crap. This is what you might call cardboard carbs and Frankenstein fats: chips, cookies, candy, etc.
EAT LIKE AN ADULT! Avoid lots of sauces on your food including tons of dressing, assuming you ever eat a salad.
Avoid grains as much as you can. Grains such as rice, pasta, and bread act like sponges and cause you to retain fluid, making you feel sluggish and look soft and puffy.
Limit your consumption of dairy, except eggs and cheese.
Eat lots of protein: fish, chicken, pork, eggs and even a little lean beef, if you enjoy it.
Never stuff yourself.
Never starve yourself.
Avoid eating for at least two to three hours before you go to sleep.
If you consider the advice Bill’s given, none of it is difficult, at least not on the surface. Of course developing a routine that adopts these practices is the real hard part, but truly, this is for our own good. This will sound foreign to those of you who are in your late teens and early 20s. Believe me though, it will catch up to you. Age can be unforgiving if you treat your youth with total neglect.
If you’re still not convinced, The Obesity Action Coalition lists these behaviors as poor habits for college students, which, let’s face it, could be true for adults as well:
- Eating late at night
- Eating unhealthy cafeteria food
- Keeping unhealthy snacks and food on hand in the dorm room
- Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol
- Energy drinks
- Cheap food coupons and offers
- Fast food delivery to dorm rooms
- Skipping meals
- Lack of exercise
- Poor nutritional skills and education
- Poor sleep habits and sleep deprivation
- Not understanding what their bodies need nutritionally to be healthy
And now I’ll turn it over to you. What motivates you to be healthy, and if you have not yet started down your own path to a more physically fit version of yourself, what’s keeping you from doing so?
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