What is Your Why?

2018 has been the year that I finally took charge of my own health and the results have been amazing. As I have shared this journey through this blog and in my conversations with my patients and friends I have been saddened to hear all the excuses that I used to make being told to me by others. The list of excuses for not adopting a healthy lifestyle is a long one but these are some of the most common that I hear.

1. I LOVE _______! Fill in the blank with your drug of choice: bread, desserts, potatoes, chips, chocolate, etc.

2. I don’t have the time or energy to exercise regularly.

3. I don’t like vegetables.

4. My job is so stressful that junk food is the only thing that calms me.

5. I have lost weight many times before and I always gain it back so what’s the point?

As I reflect on what it has taken for me to get to the place in my life where I have stopped making those excuses, I realize that it did not happen overnight. I have done you a disservice if I have given any of you the impression that the road to good health is an easy one. It most certainly is not. This is particularly true if you hate to exercise and/or have a love affair with unhealthy food as I did.

I have recently asked myself what it took for me to stop making excuses. What it took for me and what it will likely take for you is to find your own individual “why.” Finding your why has become a catch phrase in corporate America as the key to success in the workplace. It is also the key to the long term maintenance of a healthy lifestyle. Your why is that thing that motivates you from deep within yourself. It is that thing that is more powerful than any of the excuses you have ever made and any of the lies you might have told yourself. The German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once said, “He who has a why can endure any how.”

The initial why that sparked my desire to get healthy was wanting to lower my blood pressure. Sitting at my mother’s bedside while she lay in a coma from a hypertensive stroke solidified my resolve to do whatever I could to avoid the same fate. During the time that I was trying to make exercise and healthier eating a priority, I found out that not only was I still requiring blood pressure medication, I had also become pre-diabetic. This shook me up even more because I have watched family members lose limbs, vision and kidney function from diabetes. I now had a more imperative why – I do not want to have hypertension OR diabetes! With that focus, I now see the junk food that I once loved as poison to my body! Fear of disease and infirmity can be a powerful motivator!

As we enter 2019, I would urge each of you to take a different approach with you into the new year. Instead of making a list of resolutions that are doomed to fail, take some time to discover “why” you want to be healthier and let that be your focus. You may be a parent whose motivation is to set a good example for your children. Perhaps you have grandchildren and you would like to have the stamina to have fun with them. Maybe you have noticed the beginnings of arthritis in your joints and have been told that walking will help you have less pain. Your why might be depression and you remember how much better you felt after exercising. Whatever your why is, make that the reason you are choosing to change to a healthier lifestyle in 2019! Whenever you are tempted to veer off track, remind yourself that your why matters more to you than whatever it is that might be tempting you in the moment. Keeping that all important why at the forefront of your mind will help you stick with your healthy lifestyle for the long run.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Be Blessed,

Yvonne Moore

“Dear Friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.”

3 John 1:2 (NLT)