Taking Health into Your Own Hands

Keep Your Health, Keep Your Happiness.

Lose your health and you risk losing everything.

I’ve long been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, for his ambition, his courage and also his perspective on living a healthy life. A strong reformer of historical relevance, Gandhi is often quoted for his majestic musings. As a reformer myself, I find his wisdom worth chewing on for ways I wish to inspire change in my world. Gandhi, what do you have to teach us today?

“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”

Without our health, we have nothing. Even if we have all the riches in the world, it won’t matter if we don’t have our health.

Because I work as a registered dietitian nutritionist and public health professional, I work with people young and old to help them live a healthier life — a healthier life, but also a happier life. While my role as an RDN is one that people think focuses on food and diet, I take a deeper look at the way we live our lives.

I focus on lifestyle and dive into topics most doctors don’t, like feelings of having a greater purpose in this world, feelings of belonging, and a sense of friendship with others or even oneself. Our health is so incredibly complex and unique to each of us, it cannot be tied down to chewing a few sprigs of lettuce and snacking on carrots.

When was the last time you laughed at yourself? Try doing this in the mirror.

Can you recall a fun and exciting experience at your work in the past year?

Would you hang out with your colleagues after work or on the weekends?

Most people end up living their life in a very uniform way, following a very predictable pattern. Typically, people choose their jobs and careers in pursuit of wealth, in the form of monetary gain and material goods. They make these decisions without giving enough thought for their overall wellbeing, health, and prosperity. Easily overlooked, we chase the gold without realizing it and without taking care of ourselves along the way. I don’t believe joy is achieved by chasing gold.

I can’t save everybody, but I can only save myself.

I think joy is found when we are confident and competent in our life, when we have passion, ambition, safety, and security. Money doesn’t buy happiness and living a life full of pain and discomfort can make it even more difficult to purchase. How much does joy really cost? In our pursuit of happiness, we must quite literally allow our minds to wonder, to consider the intangible attributes of wealth and prosperity that will grant us true and genuine joy.

Time spent with family and old friends
Catching up to reminisce about memories from our youthful years
Going for a walk in the sunshine
Listening to our favorite song

There are countless ways for us to experience greater joy and happiness in our lives if we only grant ourselves the opportunity to ENJOY ourselves for once. We worry endlessly about things, most of which are out of our control. I’m guilty of this myself and catch myself worrying about friends and extended family members much more than I should be. I can’t save everybody, but I need to at least save myself.

I’m in the coaching business, the nutrition and food business, the business of making this world a better place. I’m in the business of educating others to help them live their best lives. I’m also in the business of people. It’s a difficult task to help people value their health more than they value their wealth, especially in the strong capitalistic society in America.

When the American lifestyle is one that garners more un-health than true health, we continue to lower our standards and expectations for what a life should look like. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a society that accepts food insecurity, hunger, mental health and poverty as normal. No sir. I don’t want to live a life destined for sickness and disease at an early age while I live into my 80s and 90s, taking health care dollars and wasting other people’s time by having to take care of me.

I want to live a long and healthy life, not just a fraction of time healthy and then simply live for the long rest of my time on this earth.

I don’t want to live in a county or a country where the overwhelming majority have come to expect premature death as fate. I don’t believe in losing your life sooner than expected due to any sort of issue, such as a school shooting, a drunk driver, chronic stress, or even a diabetic foot amputation gone wrong.

I don’t want to lose my vitality in my 30s or 40s, like I’ve seen be the fate for so many others. I think each person deserves the chance to live a long and healthy life.

Sadly, some of our culture has grown to dismiss looking to the horizon. We have forgotten to look onward with faith and fortitude. We get stuck.

We were made for more than this.

Dismissive to imagine a better world, we struggle to listen, to learn, to theorize what better health could look like. We’ve grown so accustomed to death and disease that we are willing to accept them as normal stages of life. We neglect ourselves in pursuit of what we were told to do.

Get a job
Go to college
Graduate from university
Get married
Get a good job
Start a family
Make a lot of money
Work your whole life ’til your wits end
Retire
Check out of society
Find your casket and shut it closed

I don’t want this to be my journey, and I don’t want it to be yours either. I believe we were made for more than this lifestyle we have come to accept as commonplace.

The creator of a popular quotes database and growing franchise known as WisdomQuotes.com, Maxime Lagacé has this to say about health.

“Keep your vitality.

A life without health is like a river without water.”

A life full of riches is no life at all without our health to fly and to flourish with life experiences granted through those riches. With only riches to our names and no health to proclaim, we exist as lifeless bodies, bedridden. Left to lay broken and alone, and often dismissed into retirement homes or assisted living facilities due to the fact we cannot take care of ourselves and neither can our family members, as many of them are experiencing their own fair share of struggles. We all have our battles in life, and I don’t want to burden anyone else with dealing with my own.

It may be news to you, but this dystopian image I described above does not have to be our reality. Though sickness and disease have become common attributes of our friends and family members, this does not have to be so. We were made for more than this.

In my opinion, there has been a steady, if not exponential, increase in complacency in the standard American lifestyle and lifecycle. We think health is unattainable, happiness unreachable.

Supposedly, the American dream is dead, and with it the chance to live a happy, healthy life. We anticipate medications and medical procedures at various stages of life — a new hip or a new knee, drugs for our cholesterol or blood sugar, perhaps a new heart or a new kidney. And while these may be lifesaving procedures for some, I think the vast majority are easily prevented if not delayed at least. We can prevent poor health.

We can design lives of health, lives of joy, lives of happiness. We can attain heights of wealth unimaginable through opportunities granted by at least having our health. But without our health we have nothing.

My work as a health professional is primarily focused on giving people the best life they can, at least that’s what I hope to achieve with my life’s work. I’m not here to give people silver and gold, but rather the chance to strive to enjoy their lives in a greater way. With healthful, wholesome nutrition — yes — but also in many other areas of our lives like I discussed earlier.

Developing strategies to live life with health and happiness is my strength, my passion, and will be my lifelong pursuit. I’m working on the future, working on building a healthier one for all of us. I’m working on educational programs and online courses to help people take back their health for themselves.

Writing a series of articles, books, and beginning the long-term vision I have for educational opportunities to empower others in health and happiness is an everyday practice. I must exercise my mental muscles just as much as the physical, our health is interconnected and inseparable — mind, body, soul.

One current activity has led me to play a contributing role in my uncle’s battle with Type II Diabetes, in which he is actively reversing. Can you believe that? He’s not giving up, he’s staying active, learning more and listening to my suggestions. He’s sleeping more, feeling better, and has even surprised his doctor with his reduced A1c value now below 7. He’s working hard at his health and he’s claiming it for his own. I’m proud of him.

I’m trying to spark relationships and local opportunities for me to educate kids and adults about any and every area of their lives they need help in. I want to teach kids and young adults before they believe the lies sold to them that we see in their parents and grandparents.

I want to empower my community to not give up and to never give up on striving for their best lives yet. Whether you are 25 or 45, 65 or 85… I truly believe you have the chance to improve your life.

I’m not a miracle maker or a guru with a crystal ball, I’m just a young and ambitious twenty-something trying to make a difference in the world, and I hope you’ll join me for the journey.

Your health is yours for the making and yours for the taking. I’m here to help you navigate the nuances of nutrition on a daily basis. We live busy lives that change each day. I take the approach to empower others with freedom to ZigZag their way to live a happier and healthier life.

I live my life to make your life easier to be Happy and Healthy.

If you want to stay in touch, or stay up to date with similar health messages and my work in the world of nutrition and health, feel free to follow me here on Medium, on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Also, feel free to share this message with your interested friends and family. Thank you for reading! #ZigZagNutrition