A friend of mine posted this on FB the other day:
I want to lose 15 pounds by January 1…. I hate strict diets, don’t exercise much, and will not give up drinking. Any ideas?
While this was partly said in jest, there was also truth in it, so along with the multiple other suggestions from others (many useful) I suggested Shakeology and one of the Team Beach Body exercise programs (such as T25). Even if I am not going to try to hard sell, I know they work and the offer definitely needed to be made. As is often the case, someone else saw this and commented as follows:
So nice people wanna sell u a 125 dollar a month multivitamin. Protein. Lean protein.
I found this response both amusing and kind of irritating. Beyond the misinformation it offers, it also represents an all to prevalent attitude that some many of us share … to our own detriment. First let me address the misinformation aspect. Many people are determined to think that ANY health program that costs money must be a scam, and make judgements without even doing proper research. The simple truth of the matter is just about ALL healthy foods can be called a supplement, wether it be vitamins or protein. That is why we eat them. But for anyone who is skeptical, Shakeology is far more than a supplement … it is a full meal replacement. A very satisfactory one at that. And trust me, I am a guy who is ALWAYS hungry, but I have one of those and I am good for a long while.
That said, I wanna address the more concerning issue. The two most common excuses for not properly taking care of ourselves are cost, and lack of time. I have done it too. The reality is both of those issues are plan and simply excuses. How much money will we spend to fix an ailing car? How much money will we spend to fix a broken appliance or something not working in our house? Or maybe a phone? Yet when it comes to our own health and well being we simply don’t have the money? Does this really make sense? Not to mention, how much will you be saving in health costs in the long run? In the specific example of Shakelology. On the surface, yes it does cost a fair amount monthly. But if one thinks it through, it really does not . It is a meal replacement. So if we eat three meals a day, then our monthly food shopping will be lessoned by a third, and replaced with Shakeology … so how much is it really costing? And if you are replacing something even worse, like fast food or other restaurant food … you may even be SAVING money. So good bye to THAT excuse!
As for the “I don’t have enough time!” line … that is the lamest excuse in the book. Budget IS always a concern, especially in today’s economy, but time is something we ALL have. Basically it comes down to this. either we have plenty of time to do all that we wish to do, in which case we have time. Or we are VERY busy, requiring that we schedule ourself. To say “I don’t have the time.” when you make your own schedule is the equivalent of saying, “I don’t WANT to MAKE the time.”
What it really comes down to is this: how important is healthy living to you? Are you willing to take care of yourself the way you take care of your THINGS? To me that should be an easy answer, but apparently for others it is not always. How much are you willing to commit to your own health? That is the ultimate question. If it truly is something you care about, then neither cost nor time should be an issue. You either want it or you don’t. It is really as simple as that. 🙂
