How to take my health seriously?

[Someone here]

I eat terrible food .fries and burgers and soda and ice cream and other such nonsense. I also smoke a bunch of cigarettes everyday.  And I'm not satisfied with my health habits .although I don't yet experience any health issues per se .

How can I motivate myself to take my health more seriously and not just screw around a lot with my diet ?

Edited March 16, 2022 by Someone here

[SonataAllegro]

Mindfulness and non-judgement is the only way. No force or willpower will be sustainable enough, you need to build self-respect v e r y   g r a d u a l l y through negotiation between the hedonistic and rational parts of yourself.

Never demonize the monkey in you who wants junk food, and never demonize the one who demonizes the monkey

[jake473]

It's related to your success in life and food is a psychoactive substance. 

It can lower your energy and functional intelligence over time. 

[Yarco]

Contemplate death and dying

Imagine having to take blood pressure meds or inject insulin every day for the rest of your life. The cost, the side effects.

Imagine when the day finally comes when it all catches up with you. The helplessness you'll feel as you think "This feels like a heart attack for real this time. Is this it?" You try to reach for a phone to call for an ambulance, but you don't have the strength. Or you make the call but can't hang on long enough until they get there. Your last minutes are spent thinking about your diet and lifestyle, full of regret and how maybe this could have all been avoided.

If your doctor catches it early enough, imagine what it's like to have triple bypass surgery. Go look up some videos on Youtube of people getting their ribs cut open with a hacksaw and cracked open like a rotisserie chicken. Imagine how excruciating the pain of healing from something like that will be.

(I had chili cheese dogs and fries for dinner and french vanilla ice cream for dessert. I'm fully aware that I just typed out my own future above, but in the present moment it feels too good to give up. I keep telling myself that maybe in 5 or 10 years I can turn it all around and reverse most of the damage. I bet you'll probably keep doing the same too.)

You can start small I guess. I gave up soda for Lent. Been a long 2 weeks already hahaha

Edited March 17, 2022 by Yarco

[Flowerfaeiry]

You will experience health issues down the road. Often that’s what it takes for us to make those necessary changes.

[Michael569]

Maybe you haven't suffered enough to truly realise the need for healthier living. Some people need to experience adverse effects of a bad habit 1st person to have that message sink in. Unfortunately, this is sad true for many men especially since many actually need to experience their first heart attack and be staring death in the eyes to change something. I know a few men who went through something like that and only then started changing their lifestyle. 

Ideally, you want to take control before a catastrophic occurrence otherwise you are just pissing on whatever health means for you. Maybe we should all join and piss on it as well? 

  Go sit in ER room at midnight for a few hours and watch what's going on and maybe a second experiment is go sit in oncology clinic and see what's going on there for a few hours. The amount of fear, tears and depression in that place is unlike anything else you'll see. Once you've experienced those see if you can look at that burger the same way. 

Lots of good advice above already and I'm sure you already know all the answers and solutions anyway as a relatively long-term member of the forum.The ultimate question is "whatcha gonna do about it" 

[Someone here]

@Michael569 what's the optimal diet for Human beings ? I tried vegan once but I found that I have less energy on it. 

what healthy meals do you suggest to me and what should I cut from my diet ?

thanks 

[Someone here]

8 minutes ago, A_v_E said:

@Flowerfaeiry  I m so glad that I learned this from watching others before going that far.

@Someone here it's not only diet. You need years to keep building and improving what works for you 

There is no perfect diet. But some basic points. No fast food. No synthetic. No soda 

 

Isn't some diets more healthy than others..,?like vegan food is more healthy than carnivore diet? 

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

what's the optimal diet for Human beings ?

There isn't one. Depends on whome you ask

If you want my opinion, it should be mainly based around plants and mainly around whole foods for maximum fibre intake. Whether you choose to add some animal foods is totally your choice but I'd suggest staying away from processed meats, an excessive amount of beef, butter and ideally you don't want to be consuming too much sugar. But once you start digging into details and micros, opinions differ. 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

hat healthy meals do you suggest to me and what should I cut from my diet ?

that would require an elaborate answer that would start with me having to understand your current diet. I have made a few recipe videos on YT (second signature) you can check those out to get some basic tips   

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I tried vegan once but I found that I have less energy on it. 

It takes some trial and error to do vegan diet right. I would not start there, just start eliminating junk food. Cook more with vegetables, wholegrains and legumes and consume less processed junk where possible. 

[Someone here]

@Michael569 thank you ?.  I will check your YouTube channel. 

[Guest]

On 16.3.2022 at 2:42 PM, Someone here said:

I eat terrible food .fries and burgers and soda and ice cream and other such nonsense. I also smoke a bunch of cigarettes everyday.  And I'm not satisfied with my health habits .although I don't yet experience any health issues per se .

How does this affect your mood and energy levels? I mean, right after you eat a good meal of junk food, do you have more or less energy?

How would it feel to go for a run, right after a cigarette, vs. going for a run without smoking on that day?

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, EmptyVase said:

How does this affect your mood and energy levels? I mean, right after you eat a good meal of junk food, do you have more or less energy

Less energy. I feel tired ,drowsy and sleepy .

1 hour ago, EmptyVase said:

 

How would it feel to go for a run, right after a cigarette, vs. going for a run without smoking on that day?

I can't even run without feeling like I'm losing my breath. 

[mojsterr]

I started taking it seriously once I found out I have Hashimoto's.

I cut out a lot of stuff and I miss a lot of stuff, too.

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

Less energy. I feel tired ,drowsy and sleepy .

I can't even run without feeling like I'm losing my breath. 

That's your body (buddy) communicating with you. I'd suggest listening to the signals and acting accordingly.

What we all want is to feel good. The things you listed don't make you feel good. So, innocently, you're doing something which you don't want.

 

How to take my health seriously? 

Prioritize listening to feeling (emotional guidance).

[Average Investor]

I found it easier as I was moving my direction towards health to just continually improve things. I found it to be interesting and challenging. I still add new health things regularly and I have been working on my health a lot for four years. Negative consequences are one thing, but it really inspires me on what kind of live I could be living if I were in optimal health. 

I was vaping for 5-6 years and I finally was able to just quit. I began to note all of the negative things that it did by having it in my life. Granted the few seconds I would inhale it was pretty good. I was jogging and eating a lot better at the time. I felt like it was really hindering me. I tapered down on my doses of nicotine, found some alternatives (candy mints temporarily), set a quit date and stuck to it. It really sucked for awhile. First few weeks and really the first month sucked. Every now and then after I would get these weird urges for nicotine. It's been over 3 years since I quit and I haven't looked back. 

You can feel so good naturally that you would wonder why anyone would even want to consume these harmful things. However, without that experience it can be hard to know. 

A big piece is all of this is just knowing the right information and acting on it. You can have health foods that taste good. There are activities that are fun to do that give you good exercise. 

Imagine the kind of person you will be on the other side of this. How rare would it be to be the person that doesn't smoke, eats clean, and takes care of their body? How would you feel about yourself? What kind of people would this attract in your life? 

[Inliytened1]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:42 AM, Someone here said:

I eat terrible food .fries and burgers and soda and ice cream and other such nonsense. I also smoke a bunch of cigarettes everyday.  And I'm not satisfied with my health habits .although I don't yet experience any health issues per se .

How can I motivate myself to take my health more seriously and not just screw around a lot with my diet ?

get old

Seriously though, don't wait until you get older, you will start to develop health problems that may be irreversible.

Start NOW!  You will much happier when you do, trust me.  I know you don't WANT to do it, but its time to grow up and be an adult with your diet.  You will thank youself after each day that you did great with your diet and be glad you did it.   Just like anything else, its not bad - its just the idea that its bad that is getting you stuck; once you actually do it you will realize it wasn't so bad.

And your body will also thank you.  

You might also get ripped in the process, and the ladies will thank you

 

 

[Someone here]

Thank you everyone for the advice .I decided to give it another shot and stop smoking. I will get rid of my cigarette pack today .

[Average Investor]

@Someone here

That's what I am talking about! I wish you the best of health. 

[Carl-Richard]

Get to a place where you're able to feel the immediate raw effects of healthy behaviors, learn to prefer that feeling over anything else and do whatever you can to maximize it.

[Egzoset]

On 2022-03-16 at 9:42 AM, Someone here said:

How can I motivate myself to take my health more seriously...

Do something unusual and observe the miracle happen:  we're a learning animal.