It has been scientifically proven that significant changes in diet and lifestyle can stop and even reverse type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and many other chronic diseases and even aging. Dr. Ornish does an excellent job of summarizing the case for these changes.
And yet most people reading this will wait until they encounter an event that either takes you to the grave or takes you to the hospital. At that point there will be a massive change in your health and a massive intervention to save you – ie. aortic stent, bypass, etc.
So it’s good to look carefully at the reasons why you would take action before that happens and why you would not.
Most people I speak to in the 50+ range say that they’re too old to change their ways – meaning diet, exercise, lifestyle kinds of changes. I’m not sure why anyone who could have 40-50 good years left would say that but that’s what they say.
We resist change of course because we don’t perceive the value of change to be worth it. That means that the items listed on the left of the above table are not highly urgent to the person asked to make the changes.
The only person who can make those items on the left more urgent and powerful is you. I’m clear that unless you do, making massive changes in diet and lifestyle as is advocated by this website won’t happen. Even if you believe you don’t have anything urgent to do, you need to consider the burden that having no reason to change will place on your family.
So perhaps we need to rewrite this table..
I can’t say much for negative motivation. I would much rather pull myself up by my bootstraps and pull together a good reason to keep trying and keep changing.
How about you?
I always thought this article would draw more attention or comment. At the very least a push back. Those currently suffering with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, auto-immune disease, hypertension, etc. generally think that these illnesses are diseases the body cannot conquer and doctors lead us to believe that their progression will be inevitable and just slowed by prescribed medications.
Why do you want to believe this story so badly?
Granted it’s much easier to believe this because there’s nothing to do but get older, take your meds, and die.
Any other point of view is going to require that you make significant lifestyle changes. You may have to give up things you’ve eaten or done all your life. You may have to change because things around you aren’t going to change (have you heard the saying, “In order for things to change for you, you have to change.”
Everyone around you wants you to change. Everyone around you wants you to live a longer and healthier life. But nobody wants to tell you that you have to change. They see you as closed-minded and stubborn and they don’t want to fight with you about it because they don’t believe they will win. You’re addicted to your life style and they know it.
And deep down inside they know that in the long term it will cost you your health, your vitality, and you’ll become a burden to the family – so much so that they’ll be tempted to place you into one of the thousands of private care homes spring up around America.
They’re on almost every block.There’s an old Asian lady who owns them and hires people at minimum wage to cook and take care of you. The people who work there often don’t have a green card, and are living there to get three meals and have a place to sleep. A lot of really bad things are perpetrated in these homes while nobody is looking but that’s where America puts you when you didn’t see the writing on the wall and change what you were doing.
Are you still reading this?
Why can you change?