Health, Longevity, and How Not to Think When You're Young

Headlines are always the hardest part of this, LOL.  Anyway, this morning while in the shower (good thinking always happens there or in the bath, it seems - must be because that's when we totally relax), I remembered how I thought about health many years ago.

I used to have a really really bad diet - known in come circles as the typical college diet.  It included things like hot dogs, hamburgers, packaged meats like bologna, salami, pastrami, etc., 4-6 bottles of Coke or Pepsi on hot Summer days, candy bars, donuts, lots of things loaded with sugar, chemicals, preservatives, and on and on.  My thinking was that I would enjoy myself more now, even if it meant I might not live as quite as long as I might otherwise live without that kind of diet.  You know, like two years less later for so much more enjoyment until then.  I was in my late teens to mid 20s when I felt that way, and time was on my side.  I had always gotten colds and flu about 4 times a year, so never thought that those might be affected by my diet.

What I failed to consider was what that food might do to my health.  And instead of enjoying life more, poor health would do the exact opposite.  This may sound funny, but I was lucky to get an ulcer at 25 or 26, because that forced me to give up the Coke and Pepsi and packaged meats.  Four years later, I thought it came back, but instead was "nervous stomach."  That was when I gave up all the other junk food and chemicals in the food.  Not only did the "nervous stomach" go away, but so did several other problems, as well as less severe and less often colds and flu - down to 1 or 2 a year.  Since then I've added vitamins, herbs, and other supplements, and adjust these to fine tune them as well as fine tuning my diet.  I now get sick only once every few years, and it has been over 3 years since I last was.

One last word - a supervisor of mine where I used to work never got sick and ate a terrible junk food diet.  I used to wonder how he did it and suggested he change to a healthier diet.  He didn't - and one day he had a massive heart attack.  He was only in his early 60s.  That's why I was lucky to get my ulcer when I did, which caused me to make the appropriate changes.

Your health is a result of what you eat (there are other factors such as your environment, your stress, etc., but diet you have total control over).