by Todd Harwood
In my random conversations with people about health and eating habits, the most common theme I hear is: “One day I will start eating right”.
We as humans have this innate need to wait until our backs are up against the wall to change our habits or take action. This must change!
In Krav Maga training, one of the first principles they hammer home from 1st level through to Black belt levels is; address the immediate threat. For instance if someone is choking you, the immediate threat is getting choked to death, so get those ****ing hands off your throat NOW. This is the number one goal and there can be no hesitation.
A major portion of the population is being choked. Not by hands, but by lifestyle choices. It isn’t a violent choke but a slow incremental choke, disguised as a warm embrace or a loving hug.
I understand, you had a bad day and you just want to curl up and eat that pint of ice cream and bag of BBQ Ruffles. It just makes you feel warm and fuzzy; makes you feel at home.
This is just one example of choosing to not address the immediate threat. It may not seem to be an immediate threat, but evidence shows us that we should treat it as so. With each one of these decisions, the warm embrace starts to turn into the slow tightening of a choke.
All of us have triggers that we blame these bad decisions on. We must stop blaming past traumas for our poor behavior. Now is the time in our life where the things that happened to us become the reason to do, instead of don’t.
We humans have a gift for denial; we spend our lifetime convincing ourselves that the check will never come due; we will never be held accountable for or suffer the consequences for our choices.
Of course we are not alone in the denial game, there are always the enablers. The genius of marketing helps us to reinforce the denial by slickly showing our human counterparts having the time of their life, playing sports, running around at the beach in the sun, hanging in the club with the hottest people, running through a field of wheat…jamming poisonous products down their throats. But we are all smart enough and strong enough to tune this out.
No more putting it off to some ethereal future date that we all know is not coming.
The time to start making the right decisions is not after the Holidays. Not when you are at the doctor getting that diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. Not the time when you get gassed out playing with your children in the backyard, and not the day you are at the funeral of a friend or relative that has died from heart failure at an early age. This isn’t a scare tactic, this is usually the point we get to before even considering making a change in our habits.
It is never easy but we all know where we want to be, and there is no time like the present to start the journey there.
There is a great scene in the movie, “The Matrix”. Trinity picks up Neo in a badass Lincoln (you know, the one with the suicide doors). Neo decides that he doesn’t want to accept the reality of his situation. Trinity opens the door to let him out; Neo looks down a long rainy alley, an alley that he will inevitably walk down. Trinity says, “You have been down there, you know that road, you know exactly where it ends and I know that’s not where you want to be.”
Choose where you want to be, don’t hesitate or procrastinate. Choose now.
About the Author
Todd Harwood is a member of MYDolceDiet.com. He frequently blogs about his journey to health & wellness. We appreciate his wit, honesty and passion for helping and inspiring others on their own paths to self-discovery.
