A bit about money: Your wallet is what you have allotted yourself to spend now.
A checking account is what pays the bills.
Your savings account is expected to bail you out for unexpected financial burdens (such as a car repair) and allow for ‘fun’ (like new clothes & vacations).
Your retirement is to support you for the rest of your life.
So what does money have to do with your health? Ask yourself the following:
- Does my health reflect my expectation?
- Will my future health ‘wallet’ allow me the energy, fun, work I need now?
- Can my ‘health bank’ look promising for the future or should I get sick, is my ‘bank’ strong enough to pull?
- Am I being bamboozled by society to believe that you’ll be able to build a health ‘retirement’ later?
Many of my patients look at me a bit cockeyed with these questions. Some disregard and others start to ponder… requesting more information about this conceptual health “bank.”
Recognize The Best Bank For You
You have the ability and expectation to have the BEST health card and be a member of the best health bank account. Simply put; what you eat, how you sleep, and how you manage stress are directly related to what is in your health wallet. When you eat food – it either fills your nutrient accounts or depletes from it. You are either investing or spending. And depending on how many vacations you take or how often you eat something just because you know it is good for you; your account is growing or overdrawn.
Imagine your health bank contacting you to tell you “You are overdrawn. You do not have any health left in your wallet. Do not go through Dunkin’ Donut’s today.” Imagine the bank charging you $30 overdraft fee each time you were deficient on sleep, nutrients, proteins, good fats and exercise?
Newsflash… this does happen. Your health bank sends overdraft notices in the form of joint pain, headaches, heartburn, IBS, insomnia and rashes and very obviously in the form of CoPays for doctor visits and prescriptions.
Health = Deposits (Good foods + water + exercise + sleep + stress reduction) minus withdrawals (processed foods, white carbs, sugar, HFCS, Trans fats, alcohol, caffeine).
Healthy Deposits and Negative Withdrawals
Picture this: You go to your health care provider and they inform you that your body requires at least $120 per week health balance to function optimally. Envision all food and drink either deposits or withdraws toward your $6240-7800 yearly goal. Veggies deposit $3 each, fruit and high-quality protein = $2 each, whole grain $1 each and each minute of exercise =$2 each. Processed foods withdraw $1 each, desserts -$2 each, soda, caffeine, and sugary drinks withdraw $3 each, etc. We all know we cannot toss $6000-7000 in the bank in a month; so what makes us think we can lose a bunch of weight and stay healthy in one month?
Thinking in terms of a health ‘bank’ allows us to understand clearly that we can take ‘money’ out of our health account. But if we aren’t investing the body will soon be sending us an overdraft notice.
Nutrient density not only supports the body’s needs to work optimally, but it also helps to decrease the “age” factor and cravings.
Make a decision to live 4 Better Health. Start adding up your health investments today and watch that account grow over the next 6-12 months!