How to live a healthy life

The sun has set and I’m sitting here by the fire drinking a very large mug of homemade ginger & turmeric tea.

Well, by “fire” I mean candle because it was actually 78 degrees here on this late February evening in Scottsdale, AZ. Still, I miss the cold winter nights from back home and the warmth and ambiance of the fire, so sometimes I spend my time in this valley of the sun doing my best to artificially create the mood of a winter’s night.

Anyway, what I was really get at was this tea I’m drinking…

I made the tea from scratch tonight: boiled ginger and turmeric root and added in some oat milk. Here and now I get to sit and enjoy this flavorful creation I made so simply, knowing that the complex array of phytochemicals will soon be delivered to cells and various systems throughout my body to help calm down inflammation, fend off oxidation, and so much more.

As I sit here by the candlelight, I open my phone to review some old posts on Your Health, Reprogrammed (my more technical-oriented website where I used to spend all of my time writing my technical health-focused explanations). And, I’m immediately struck by the sharp contrast between the girl I was in those days and the girl I am today.

You see, her and I, we have a LOT in common. One of the biggest things is this: that I have been obsessed with the health of the human body for almost a decade now (and I don’t see that obsession ever going away).

I’ve always been compelled to study the human body from as many perspectives as I can, and my favorite thing to do is to tie physiologic pathways to specific decisions that you or I could make to create that healthy change that we envision. From the (patho)physiologic principles perspective, not much has changed except that I continue to expand my understanding of how poor metabolic health and chronic disease arises.

The big change that I have gone through, though, involves the actual behaviors that this earlier version of myself and the current me carry out. That is, what are the decisions I make on a daily basis to support my own health today and how do those compare to my earlier habits?

I don’t bring this up to make any judgments about earlier habits and decisions of mine. Actually, quite the opposite – to express how my ability to make healthy decisions has evolved over time as a part of my own health journey.

That’s what I want to talk to you about: how our healthy decisions evolve over time, slowly and gradually, with many fewer significant jumps than we tend to think and, instead, a general upward slope with bumps along the way.

Oh, and along the way, we’ll learn a bit about fun and nutritious beverages 🙂

Shall we dive in?

Ideas vs. Action

The thing to know about that older version of me is that she looked out into the world of healthy habits and saw so many incredible ideas. How cool would it be to try keto and cut out refined grains and be done with sugar! How fun would it be to have a kitchen filled with these “superfoods” and to prepare fun meals and fun drinks that are densely packed with flavorful nutrients!?

Her reality though, as a recently graduated young twenty-something with very little money… Well, while pouring through the information was exciting and spun some fun ideas, the actual behavior was more aligned with the basics: consistently putting nutritious food on the plate.

What was so fun to realize tonight was how, in some ways, I have become that person that I envisioned years ago… with a kitchen of my own that is stocked with different roots and powders that I craft into fun and nourishing beverages.

More important, though, is that I’ve largely removed all the items I know to be unhealthy and my fridge is packed with vegetables, meat, and eggs. Meanwhile, my cupboard is filled with nuts & seeds and other non-sugary, non-processed snacks.

That is, for the most part, I find myself, today, living life with the kitchen I once dreamed of having.

And, what’s more interesting, is this: that I am still here learning new ways to be healthier… reading, listening, and watching material to give me ideas.

Trying some of it out. Tucking away much more of it for a later day (or not).

All the while, moving forward towards better health, not with any sort of significant shifts that mark any stark leveling up on a step-wise function. But, instead, a gradual upward slope towards a healthier me that is constantly adapting to my own lifestyle.

Now, this process is what I want to teach to you.

Because that’s what we really need to know if we are going to become healthier individuals: how do we actually go through this process that is gaining the skills and establishing habits that enable us to go through healthy transformation?

Becoming a healthier individual

Let’s look a little bit deeper at this health journey of mine over the past several years.

Once upon a time, I devoted myself completely to studying nutrition. I would go to the library each week, grab a nutrition book (or two or three) off the shelf, take them home and read them. As I read them, I would take even more time to look up the references. I’d go directly to the databases and read through the actual studies that were cited.

As I read the ideas from these authors, I would think through what they were saying and see how they matched up with my own theories.

I’ll save those theories and models for another day (trust me, I have so much to tell you about them!) But for now, what I want to turn your attention to is this: I was getting very knowledgeable about nutrition.

Knowledge. That’s step 1:

Before heading anywhere on our journey to better health, we need some direction. Sure, we could pick a random direction and try it out, but the thing is, this is the health of our bodies at stake.

In my opinion, protecting one’s health is one of the most important things we can focus on, so when considering what actions we could take to be healthier, it’s important that we gain some basic knowledge from credible sources.

That being said, what we’re not going to do with this first step is get all of the answers that will definitively produce the results we want. It’s simply just not feasible to do this given the nature of the problem at hand. (If you want to know why I explain in this video).

Instead, we begin by finding some credible information that excites us to try out. Maybe not always a full bore “yay, this will be so much fun!” – but at least something that you can get on board with trying out because you really think that it could provide the benefit that your body is telling you it is ready for.

Step 2: Try it out

Once you have your idea(s), it’s time to try it out.

There are two key pieces to keep in mind as you do this.

First, we enter into this with a mindset that this is something that could provide us benefit, but it is not the end all be all. We aren’t looking for the perfect diet or exercise plan here. Instead, we’re looking to gain some skills and knowledge as we create healthy habits.

Second, we enter into this being mindful of how we’re feeling along the way. We’re here to try something new so it should feel uncomfortable. This discomfort is how we improve.

However, it should not be painful nor anxiety-provoking. If that’s the case, then this is either:

1. not for you OR
2. not something you’re ready for yet.

And that’s completely okay. If you try something out and the experience is negative, then that’s important information that you can take with you as you move forward.

Information is an essential piece to this process and, while you’ll find this information from external sources (books, studies, videos, other people, etc.), the most important information is that which you take away from your own experience.

Let’s see how I applied this step in my story. That is, how was this knowledge I was gaining actually manifesting as a healthier version of me?

Well, in some ways, I immediately applied what I was reading. I didn’t have money to go out and buy fancy foods, but I could tinker around with some of the variables involved with my diet.

For instance, I got into low-carb and intermittent fasting and felt some pretty incredible benefits of that way of eating. I loved the stable energy and mental clarity that came from this way of eating… not a full keto diet, but somewhere close enough to enjoy some of the benefits of running on fats and ketones as my main fuel sources.

But then, at some point, for whatever reason, I stopped. I stepped away from this more intense and resetrictice eating pattern and went back to something that resembled my previous diet.

Something similar, but now, an added element that got me a bit closer to a healthier way of eating for my own body and lifestyle. No longer full on low-carb, but skilled in preparing nourishing low-carb meals when that’s what I felt like eating at a particular time. Also, I loosened up a ton on the restricted eating window… no longer ensuring I hit those hour marks, but now, comfortable going some extra hours without a meal if I didn’t feel that need to eat.

Overall, now skilled in understanding how low-carb meals and smaller eating windows fit into a more balanced diet.

New knowledge. New skills. Integrated into a lifestyle where I am better capable of making healthy decisions for my own body.

Integration – that’s my main point here.

To me, trying out new foods and eating styles isn’t about finding the perfect diet. Instead, it’s a process of learning what could be a healthy decision for my own body based on the science and the experience of others.

Then, it’s about trying these ideas out in my life when the time is right. If I have the ability, then maybe I’ll devote time to being stricter (eating a low-carb diet with strict eating windows). Or, if there is already plenty of stress in my life, then I’ll fall back on a focus that is simply eating nourishing foods that I’m comfortable preparing.

All the while, I’m moving forward on my health journey learning more knowledge and gaining more skills about what is healthiest for my own body.

Moving forward. That brings us to the third piece.

Step 3: Learn

This is the part where we reflect on our experience. How did that experience feel?

Was it enjoyable? Was it awful?

Did it make us feel good? Did it make us feel bad?

Was it challenging but rewarding?

We can also implement any technology here to gain some hard data. Maybe you decided to weigh yourself throughout the experience because serious weight loss is a goal of yours.

Or maybe you had a glucose monitor to examine your blood sugar along the way.

Or, maybe you’re trying to accomplish some athletic feat and you have a metric to measure yourself there.

If you have that data, now is the time to analyze it. If not and you want to go purely off of how you felt during that time (my preferred method), then simply take some time to reflect on how you were feeling throughout it. How was your energy? How was your mental clarity? How was your physical ability to take on the things you wanted each day?

Pausing to reflect is how we learn. We need to learn so that we can continue moving forward towards better health.

Now, before wrapping up this process, there’s an important piece that I need to point out, which is that much of this knowledge that I’ve taken in over the years tends to really just sit there resting as circuits in my brain.

That is, I take in the information, some of it sticks around, but I don’t always end up putting it into action right then.

Until, that is, when I come across a time in my life when I would think, hey, I remember reading about this food and how it’s healthy for all these reasons. I couldn’t try it out before (couldn’t afford to, it didn’t fit my lifestyle, etc.) but now I’m happy to try it out!

For example, years ago I came across all these tidbits about the power of mushrooms to add antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immune-boosting, cognitive-enhancing, and so many more benefit to my nutrition.

The problem – I had no extra money to have any business buying mushroom powders. I needed to put food on a plate in whatever way I could.

So I dreamt of days when I could make those fun and nutrient-packed beverages as I did what I could to be as healthy as possible.

You know when those days arrived? Way way after those early twenties when I was just learning to create meals based on real, whole foods.

Long after I played around with some intermittent fasting and low-carb.

It then sat around for a few years while I was perfectly comfortable with the foods I was eating.

Finally, it arrived in just the last few months when I was getting bored with my diet and wanting to add in a new element (oh, and getting pretty serious about removing alcohol from my life).

That’s when that information and all those fun thoughts finally broke ground as fun and nutrient-packed roots and mushroom powders on stock in my kitchen.

And, let me tell you… these beverages – they’re fun! They’re yummy (well, most of the time). They touch a warm note on my soul.

And, I can be fairly confident they’re working some benefit boosting my immune system, managing inflammation, and helping me maintain a clearer mind. At least that’s what the science tells me and what, to an extent, I experience.

Okay, so we have one more step to go before we wrap things up. You ready?

Step 4: Repeat

Now, here’s where the magic comes in. You just went through one cycle of taking a piece of information, trying it out for yourself, possibly creating a new healthy habit or gaining a new healthy skill, and most importantly, you now have more information!

Maybe that experience was negative and you now know that you don’t want to do that again. Now you know now to repeat that behavior.

Or, maybe it was positive but there was one piece that you didn’t really give your fullest. Maybe it’s time to dig deeper in this area.

Or, maybe you decided that was a good experience to try out something new, but now you’re ready for something else entirely. If that’s the case, maybe it’s time to go back to the books and find something new.

Or, maybe you’re done with the experiments for now and just want to go about living your life without any added pressure

Here’s the moral of the story: the journey to better health is not linear. You’re not going to find the one answer you need in a book nor blog post that will address your health issues forever!

Rather, becoming a healthier individual is a process, and it’s one that we’re all always tuning to meet our current lifestyle and the needs of our bodies at the time.

We don’t wake up one day, read a book filled with ideas written by a particular individual, and go out and adopt that exact dietary framework to end any and all future health problems.

Instead, we read. We listen. We watch. We take in information.

Then, we try it out. Sometimes it sticks. Sometimes it’s short lived and leaves to never return.

And sometimes we don’t get to try it out right away. Sometimes that knowledge gets stored away for later, to come out at just the right time when we’re able to apply it in our lives.

What I have found to be most important is this: as we go through life trying out different health strategies, how are we integrating all of this information in our own framework for how we make healthy decisions?

Even more, how are we taking this information that we are consciously thinking through and applying it on a consistent basis such that it becomes habit?

This, my friends, is what I refer to as The Reprogramming Process. It is, quite literally, the process of reprogramming ourselves, body and mind, such that we become healthier and healthier individuals over time, forever navigating the health challenges that the world and this life presents.

It’s a dynamic and non-linear process, but one that is very real. So real, in fact, that it becomes a part of who you are, being embedded as new circuits in your brain, expressing as upregulated genes, and coming into form as the body that you are.

That’s the process. ready to try it out?

The Reprogramming Process

Step 1: Understand

Step 2: Try it out

Step 3: Learn

Step 4: Repeat

And, when you’re ready, here is one way that you can make fun and nutritious warm beverage 🙂 Just follow this link!

P.S.

Want to learn more about learning to skillfully craft a healthy diet for your own body? I just updated my free guide to my process for choosing healthy foods and cooking quick and nourishing meals. You can find that over here.