Why I take care of my body

I am now in my early 30s and it hurts when I see how many people my age and younger neglect their health and are unfit and unhappy. How we humans live has drastically changed over last 100 years. Lifestyle seems faster than ever and we get bombarded with too much information all the time. It is really hard to make a step back, reflect and ask ourselves what’s really important. 

People spend nearly all their free time looking at screens, consuming content that makes them even more miserable, but they say they don’t have time to do something for themselves. Luckily, one of the few good things in recent years is the mental shift we are expriencing as some people are finally accepting that taking care of your body is not something that only narcissistic people do. Taking care of your body means taking care of youself, mentally and physically, and it also means that you care about your future. 

Spending a small part of your day to take care of your body is the best investment you can make for your future self. You also start to see some benefits immediatelly. You feel better and stronger, have more clarity, better self esteem, sleep better and so on. All that also affects your mental state, how you interact with other people and how you react in certain situations. It usually leads to better performance at your job, you are less prone to stress etc. But still, when I talk with people about thinking ahead and planning what I eat, they look at me like I’m insane. And it makes no sense. The same people believe it’s normal to manage and track their money. Many have productivity apps, track their daily steps, sleep and many other metrics, but tracking and planning food is crazy. The reality is that the same way you think you should take care of your car, you should take care of your body. You check all metrics and lights on the dashboard when you sit down in your car. You do yearly service, change oil when it’s below a certain level and fuel up before the tank is empty. If you go to a race track, there are even more metrics and details that you should pay attention to and take care of. The same should be true for your body. You should learn what it needs to optimally operate and serve you for your daily task the best way possible. What you eat effects how you feel, how you perform and how you react. And I don’t mean only performance in the gym, but also at work and in general. That’s why I encourage everyone to learn about nutrition, how different foods affect your body, what calories, macro and micronutrients are, etc. Take 20-30 minutes of your day and read about it - you won’t believe how much you can learn in a month. 

I care about what I eat and treat food as a fuel 95% of the time. Because I care how I feel, how I look and about my future. I want to be as fit as I can be for as long as I can be, preferrably in my late 70s or 80s. So it really breaks my heart hearing people in their 30s talking about how everything in life declines when you are not in your 20s anymore. That’s far from the truth. Current research shows you are at peak of your physical potential in your 40s. So it’s really frustrating to see how most people think, believe and feel that after hitting their 30s, everything goes only downhill. It shouldn’t be like that. But for most people, it is. Most people are the most active in their lives in high school. After high school, they go to university or to work. And for most of them, this means focus on studying or work for majority of their time and completely neglecting any physical activities. Sitting most of the time and eating only what feels good. That’s how it starts, then doing this through all your 20s, and you hit your 30s already feling like shit, because you have been neglecting your body for the past 10 years. In most cases, this cycle only continues, making them feel worse with each passing year. Moving less and getting heavier with every year also makes moving feel more exhausting, and the older you get, the less you move. It’s a vicious circle.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. Food shouldn’t be just a pleasure all the time. Unfortunately, we live in a time when too many people are so unhappy that the they seek pleasure in food because that is the only thing that makes them happy. If you are one of them, be honest with yourself and seek help. With help and a good support circle, you can overcome that. Start thinking about your future. If you are in your 30s you probably have 40-50 years of your life still in front of you. Think about it. Think about how you feel now and if your current lifestyle will allow you to feel better in the future and what this means for you in the next 10 or 20 or 30 years. Think about what you want to do in the future. Do you want to be able to run around with your kids or later also with your grandkids? Will you be able to do that if you continue with your current habits? Making changes is hard and takes time, but your future self will thank you, believe me. If you decide to make a change, I suggest you start slow, educate yourself and go step by step. You will see how far you can come with small steps if you keep being consistent. As the saying goes, be consistently good, not occasionally great.